Category: Crowdfunding

NOTE FROM LB: One picture is worth a thousand words, and this is one VERY BIG picture. So appreciate that you only have to read a few words. Thanks, Ms. Castellini.

MUNCHER’S NOTE: Hahahahahahahaha…. Bri said “Bris.”

NOTE FROM LB: >sigh< read article

Today’s second article by award winning film maker, web series maker, film professor and all-around Brilliantly Talented Young Lady Bri Castellini. Enjoy!

NYR 2019: A Reflection
by Bri Castellini

1. Write 5 new projects. Partial completion. I have a lot of valid excuses for not completing this resolution, but at the end of the day: I made too many non-writing commitments this year and didn’t make writing a priority like this FIRST RESOLUTION implied I wanted to. Next year, hopefully other things will get more stable.
2. Host 3 table reads. Partial completion. If you’ll remember, this was on the list because I was allegedly “stepping back a bit from producing this year,” which absolutely did not turn out to be true. I directed Better With You, I released and promoted Sam and Pat season 2, I completed post-production on and began the festival run for Buy In (my latest award-winning project, coming soon!), and I produced and edited 2 podcasts (with 1 still ongoing, which I’m editing as I write this blog). Honestly, I’m glad I did these other things, so I’m not overly upset this one didn’t go to plan.
3. Post one blog and one YouTube video a month. Failure. Listen.
4. Cook dinner at least twice a week. Failure. I did better than could be expected, but I also didn’t live up to this. This year was… hectic.
5. Start or end my day active at least three times a week. Failure. Listen.
6. Release and submit for festivals both projects I have in post. Was done as of July!
7. Leave New York at least 4 times. Final tally:
   1. January- Los Angeles (for family)
   2. January: Washington DC (to see my mom)
   3. March- Los Angeles (for Stareable)
   4. March- Oregon (for Stareable/visiting)
   5. April- Washington DC (for Stareable)
   6. April- Northhampton, MA (for Stareable)
   7. May- Utah (to shoot Better With You)
   8. June- Denver (for LIU-Brooklyn)
   9. July- New Jersey (for the Buy In premiere)
   10. August- Los Angeles (for Stephens College)
   11. September- Los Angeles (for Seed&Spark)
   12. September- Utah (for the Better With You premiere)
   13. September-October- Colorado (to watch my mom’s house)
   14. November- San Diego (for my cousin’s wedding)
   15. December- Los Angeles (for Seed&Spark again)
   16. December- Colorado (for Christmas)
8. Save $2k. After my financial scare and my loss of income for a few months and my dipping into my savings to pay rent… I actually ended up managing to save $2760.74! Since Quinn and I are moving across the country in early 2021 and we’d also like to take at least one vacation, this is a huge success and one sorely needed. After a year of financial panic and insecurity, it feels good to have gotten back on track, prepared for whatever 2020 has to throw at me.
9. Pick my battles. Based on my wording for this resolution, I think I did this. I’m still a person with zero chill to her name, but I like to think I’ve aimed my lack of chill better than I had previously.
10. Be a better adult. Partial completion. I’m still dragging my feet on enough things that I can’t in good conscience call this a complete success, but I’m definitely better off than I was in January.

• Complete: 4
• Partial completion: 3
• Failed: 3

Not bad! Especially given the absolute insanity that was this year. I mean, just look at the travel tally! 2019 was not, by any means, a good year, but it was certainly an interesting one. Here’s to accountability read article

Award winning film maker, web series maker, film professor and all-around Brilliantly Talented Young Lady Bri Castellini has been absent from TVWriter™ (and her own blog, brisownworld.com, for way too long.

So it’s with great joy that we at TVWriter™ proclaim this day, “Bri Castellini Day” and present not one, not two, but her three most recent articles. All settled in, amigos? Then here we go:

read article

Today’s third article by award winning film maker, web series maker, film professor and all-around Brilliantly Talented Young Lady Bri Castellini. Enjoy! (Um, you might enjoy more if you scroll down and start with Part 1. Just saying.)

NYR 2019: A Reflection
by Bri Castellini

1. 1. Take at least 2 actual vacations, where I don’t work (except for maybe on writing projects, but you’re on thin ice, kid), outside of New York City. You might not know this about me because I keep a pretty chill exterior, but I’m extremely bad about taking breaks and setting boundaries and not overcommitting. Right now it’s 10pm on a Friday during which I’m still technically on vacation and I’m editing a podcast WHILE writing this blog and planning a DnD session for Sunday. Before this most recent Christmas break, I hadn’t had an actual, honest-to-god no-work no-stress vacation for 2 years. In another 2 years I will be 30 and maybe I’d like to live to see 31 before I have a nervous breakdown!
   2. Write every week. Not even every day- don’t be crazy. Some days I’m very busy or very tired or need to rewatch Outlander again. But didn’t I say a while ago that I’m a writer? Who wants to write as a career? Maybe I should actually do that more.
   3. Save $3500. Quinn and I plan to move to Los Angeles in early 2021, which is not going to be cheap. I also am apparently going on two vacations in 2020, and that ain’t cheap. Also, I’m making more money than I made last year because I have three jobs and a better paying main job, and I need to get my financial shit together because I’m 2 years away from 30 oh my god mortality/adulthood.
   4. Make and stay consistent with a budget. Now that I have three jobs and eighteen streaming video subscriptions and an impending move and a laptop battery that apparently needs servicing, once again, my financial shit needs to be together.
   5. Make one YouTube video a quarter. Once again I’m pretending like I’m going to step away from production a bit and that may or may not hold true but in either case it’s been like two years since I’ve made a YouTube video on my own channel, something that used to be a really big part of my life which I kind of miss.
   6. Make a healthy choice twice a day. This could be two healthy meals, one healthy meal and a workout, two workouts (lol ok Rocky), or a salad and a therapy session. Resolution modifier: I can stack healthy choices, so if I have a randomly amazing day where I work out, eat three healthy meals, and go to therapy, then the day after I can be a complete garbage monster and eat cake for every meal. This makes it a fun game rather than a slog. C-C-Combo!
   7. Order out fewer than three times a week. This is both a financial and a health imperative, especially my last year in New York. I know my kitchen sucks and in the summer was so infested with bugs we could not eradicate that we had to buy new shelving units that are wire and open air and we can’t use our cabinets anymore, but also airplane seatbelts have started to get dangerously tight and I travel for work a lot and that’s not gonna fly. (get it)
   8. Read all the books I’ve bought but haven’t read prior to January 3rd, 2020. Kinda speaks for itself. Books I’ve bought but haven’t finished/started (it’s a lot of memoirs): Obviously by Akilah Hughes, Bad With Money by Gaby Dunn, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally, This Will Only Hurt A Little by Busy Phillips, Feed by Mira Grant, the rest of the Outlander books (I actually didn’t buy these, I’m sharing a Kindle account with my mom and she already bought them and I read three and a quarter over Christmas break and I MUST FINISH THEM for SCIENCE).
   9. Stop over-explaining. I have this habit of feeling like people need way more information than they actually need (especially in work situations) and so in an effort to be thorough I end up rambling, which has the opposite effect that I want (that effect being ‘to be an efficient and valuable collaborator and teammate’). In 2020 I’m going to make an effort to be more concise with my language, requests, and general communication styles, especially when my impulse to over-explain comes from insecurity.
   10. Don’t go to your 10 Year High School Reunion. You don’t want to go, but you do want a tenth New Year Resolution for 2020.

   Happy New Year, what’re your arbitrary passing of time goals?

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Bri Castellini is an indie filmmaker and Film Community Manager for Seed&Spark, a film crowdfunding platform, as well as an adjunct professor for two MFA programs. Watch the remarkable Ms. Castellini’s award-winning web series, Brains, HERE. See Sam And Pat Are Depressed HERE. This post first appeared on Bri’s wonderfully refreshing blog.