After a 2 week hiatus, we return to discuss the connection between career and synchronicity, as recent learnings have had unexpected repercussions that seem oddly aligned in their timing.
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Relevant Links
Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza
The Green Lounge on Facebook (Jen Rudolph)
Full Episode Transcript
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by a tool I highly recommend called called Happy Scribe (affiliate link). We do our best to adjust the transcript so that it reads smoothly, but if we missed something please forgive any typos or errors.
| Hi there everyone, this is Leslie Lello and I have been away for two weeks, and if you’re listening to this not in sequence or whatever… Yeah, I took a couple of weeks off to do some technical stuff and some personal stuff that came up, um, like my dog having to get surgery. If I sound a little tired, that would be because we’re having cone issues, cone of shame issues. And instead of putting a cone of shame on my dog, who’s being very good about the stitches, I’m sleeping on the floor next to him making sure he doesn’t go after them. So I’m a little bit tired and I’ve been doing this for five days, so I’m a lot tired, actually. But I wanted to get back to this and I’m actually going to be referring back to that a little bit later, too, because today we’re going to be talking about just synchronicity. Actually, this is going to be a little bit more woo woo than what I normally present, but it relates a lot and… It’s not as much talked about in New York, although the reason I’m talking about it is because someone in New York talked about it. I don’t like talking about this side of myself in the entertainment industry because I feel like I am going to get judged or have been judged because it comes from a different part of me that I like to keep separate from my entertainment industry affairs, but there really has been a meshing of business and law of attraction. I hate that term. Actually, I’d rather go back to New Age really, than… What the term people used in the 90s. I hate the term law of attraction because it has such a weird connotation, but generally just putting out intention and how the nonphysical world relates to that. And I talk about this a lot in another venue that I’m not going to mention because it is kind of still uncomfortable for me to talk about in an entertainment venue. But I like that this woman opened the door to this and it opened the door to even a shift in me. So we’re going to get into it now. And I don’t even know how to title this, but basically, I guess, the woo woo of career, the synchronicity of an entertainment career. But it relates to all things, our careers, our goals, our intentions we have for life. So what happened this week that was interesting, that made me want to do this woo woo is synchronicity kind of podcast is that I am going through old VHS tapes, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m up to old VHS tapes that I watch that I made when I was in basically my last acting class, which was a camera class, and I was in it for many years. If you are… If you have taken my courses, you know, I talk about this a little bit, but basically I was in a super abusive cult like acting class, which had some positive points. But really, I couldn’t look at it in a way that was clear when thinking about it in my memory. And I think that’s true for a lot of things that go down in our life. We can never really see it as clearly as I think we would benefit from because it’s all covered with emotion and perception and heightened energy that when we look back, they’re just clips of moments in our memory that are sewn together in an emotional movie. Basically weird things that we remember and moments that we remember, and that’s how it was for me actually for this entire experience that I had. And this was like the last bit of it wasn’t the last bit of my time in L.A., but it was the last bit of me acting. And so I’m going through them. I’m also going through some other stuff that I did and the synchronicity part of this is that the one that I went through was a little (acting) extra work that I did.. First thing I ever did, acting pretty much. And it was for Upright Citizens Brigade. And I was watching the tape… My friend had actually taped it for me because I didn’t have Comedy Central, ironically, at the time. And so she taped it for me and I had never really watched it. Or I might have watched it once or twice, but I’m watching it now and The Daily Show comes on afterward. And they always put the date on The Daily Show and it said March 27th, 2000. And I was like, oh, my God, today is March 27. And so I watched it on March 27, which is weird. You have to admit that is weird. So I said, that’s a pretty crazy synchronicity. And I love that stuff, actually, it kind of speaks to me in a way that indicates there is a superb mind going on or a really higher intelligence that I’m dealing with, even though I’m not conscious of it like my own, you know, intuitive intelligence, weird science from the universe. It’s just weird that out of 365 days, I happened to watch it on the same day it was made or aired, not on the same day it was made. We shot earlier, but on the same day it was aired. So. And I really enjoyed that set, like looking back, that was like a pretty… I still have vivid memories of that whole thing because it was my first experience on a professional set and I didn’t know what was going on, but I actually did well. And you can see me a few times in the episode pretty clearly. And so I like that. And so. I think that that had a big impact on me and… That made me think, OK, so what other synchronous stuff is going on? So now I’m watching these tapes from this acting class and when we talk about stuff or – OK, now I have to do a sidestep here when I just hold on to that thought of, you know, watching these, you know, acting tapes and audition tapes from this course. It was basically I’d practice my auditions with this course which also taught camera technique. And it was very interesting. So then you sidestep over and into the current day. And basically last December [2020], as I was creating these podcasts and at that time I was doing it every day. I was like, “I need stuff to talk about because I’m not really doing production right now because I don’t want to go out during covid.” So I had also kind of shifted in that my last few production producing experiences, not not all of them, but some of them had been really brutal or even just doing crew on a news show out in L.A. and just a lot of just made me think. Why am I doing this? It’s a rough… It’s rough work and it’s kicking my ass and I’m not even enjoying it and I’m going through a phase like that. So I said, “Well, why don’t I go back to basics?” And I mentioning it that way, because I think that every person who has a creative life kind of goes through that, and I’m thinking specifically about John Lennon because I’m a huge John Lennon fan and I was thinking about how when he kind of got, you know, into his mid career, you know, like he was well into his career, not mid career. Well mid career. It would have been mid career if he hadn’t died, you know, but he was like maybe in his 30s and he started to want to play the old songs he started off playing. And he made a whole album about that. And so… I feel like I am in that phase right now where I’m like, “What was the point of all of this in terms of going into this industry and this life?” And I enjoyed a lot of it and I really have enjoyed being behind the camera. But in the beginning, it was going in front of the camera and it really was the artistry of that, not the business of that, the artistry of that. And the business kind of, well, sickened me from an acting point of view, and I didn’t want to do that anymore and it also confused me because I didn’t really know how to operate myself as an artist in a business, even though I did my best with the mailings and the all the things that actors are told to do from a business standpoint. So I decided… I had been following this coach, this acting coach. Her name is Jennifer Rudolph. And you can look her up on Facebook. She’s mostly active on Facebook, like her websites are minimal. And but her her Facebook is gigantic. So you can look her up at Actors Green Room. I think it sometimes goes as AGR and her name is Jennifer… Jen Rudolph. And she’s a New York, I wouldn’t say acting coach, but she used to be a casting director. And so she is this coaching thing. And I’m like, “You know what? She is clearly emphasizing the importance of the business. And that’s something I have always been bad at. And I don’t even know if I want to go back into acting, but I think it would be an interesting exploration.” And I also might be helped by just drawing a line, because these people are SO into the acting and I’m sort of looking at it going, “Do I really want to step back into wearing high heels for 15 hours a day on set?” I don’t know. I don’t think so. And so I decided to take it and I decided to take it because I was doing this podcast a lot and I wanted to have something to talk about, which is weird because I know this is about filmmaking, but that is an aspect of filmmaking. Acting is an aspect of filmmaking. I do understand that this is more focused on producing, but this is… And in directing… But it’s more just… I think I’m going to change the name of this podcast to make it more broad than just how to produce movies, because I don’t even like talking about that. I was thinking of calling it The Art of Art because I talk a lot about, you know, what goes on in the background of an actor or an artist, because I’ve really studied that quite a bit, but. And I like that subject. I love that because it’s always connected to something else. But getting back to the subject. I took her class, I’m taking her class. I’m on like week three of a self guided, self timed class. And I took it sort of for the stimulation of material to talk about on this podcast. Sometimes when you keep your head in the game like that, you can be sparked into other aspects. It’s kind of the same way I’ve been watching a lot of shows and it’s relatable in a filmmaking kind of way. So the interesting thing is that her course, first day, she recommends a book called Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza, either being supernatural or becoming supernatural. And at first I was super reluctant to pick up the book because I have listened to Joe Dispenza on YouTube and I kind of rolled my eyes. And I also just really feel like a lot of this law of attraction stuff has been leveraged to manipulate people. Or maybe I’m just cynical from an entertainment industry point of view. It totally works in other aspects of my life, but up until recently it did not for – It did. But it’s just I guess it’s been a bumpy ride and I’m going to get into that later. But, yeah, it’s been a bumpy ride. I have to say. I love it, but it’s been a bumpy ride. I think that’s true for everyone, though. And I guess it’s about healing that stuff which Dispenza gets into and I do do a lot of inner work to clear stuff from. Things that have happened in the industry, you have to understand that this is a heightened emotion industry. It’s not like I’m going to like, you know, a tech company and doing my tech company thing. Not that that can’t get heightened. There’s a lot of money on the table with that. But when you look at the entertainment industry, you’re dealing with artists and you’re dealing with really random stuff that can happen on sets. When people are standing around for 20 hours sometimes, and are exhausted and have been doing that for weeks and timing gets off and money is on the table and actors have to, you know, you know, feel pressure, but also want to be the stars. And it’s a lot. And so I feel like more stuff goes down in the entertainment industry than it does in other industries. Everything’s heightened. So because of that, it’s a little bit of a crazy industry and it can create crazy experiences that sometimes need to be looked back upon. And it has to do a lot with dreams and hopes and everything and how people process that and how people pursue that. So going back to that, I started doing the exercises in this book, even though I was resistant to it, I was watching other people in the group going, “Oh my God, this book, it’s amazing.” And I was like, all right, all right. I’ll go watch it a while. I’m listening to it actually on audio books. And I started listening to it and doing the exercises. And again, I was like, whatever. You know, I’ve done a million exercises like this. This is the world I live in when I’m not in the entertainment industry, like since I was a teenager, and I was like, whatever, whatever. It’s like another… Just whatever. I don’t even know how to put it into words, so I have to say whatever. But I have to say I started to watch these videos from years ago and when I saw the MARCH 27 thing on a video that was from twenty one years ago, that I was watching on MARCH 27, I went, “Uh, there’s something to this.” And a lot of what he talks about is, you know, releasing energy. There’s a lot of what he talks about, but… And I’m not going to get into the whole details, but a lot of it is clearing energy from experiences. And so when you look at these tapes from an experience… Not the one where I did the extra work, which was a great experience, although there might have been energy held there that might be holding me back from energy of creation. There was also a bit of – I’d say a lot of – energy held, that were scars. I would say scar tissue held in an emotional way from this last course I took as an actor, it did not end well, even though the final outcome was me starting to direct and produce. It was harsh and this was not a nice guy, and even though he was always smiling. He was – those are the ones you’ve got to watch out for, actually, especially in L.A. But you know, the most friendly masochist you would ever meet. And – or SADIST. Wait. Sadist not masochist. OK, [my camera acting teacher was] the most friendly sadist you could ever… Yeah, um, I’ve been going through all that. And a lot of stuff, weirdly, has come up, even though I’m just watching it. What’s coming up is much more emotional and in a dark way than I would have suspected. So it’s kind of good that I took off these two weeks not just to do the technical stuff, but to explore that. And then, you know, I’ve been upstairs doing this because my dog is recovering and I’m hanging with him. So I have the… He’s in the same room as I would be running the VCR, so. Yes, a VCR. So that was that, and I’m watching myself kind of processing this and I’m looking at this book again going, “Oh, I really am clearing this energy.” And so… I am also now going to bring this into… So I’m grateful for this course that I’m taking, regardless of what the final outcome is; if I step back into acting or if I completely release it, which was kind of the space I was in when I decided to take it, but mostly, it is releasing energy that has been stuck for a very long time. And I’ve done some acting, not camera acting, but stage acting since then, but not camera. And I don’t think that was a conscious choice, but I think it was a subconscious choice, due to some emotional scar tissue that was there from this [camera] class. And also I have… And I took some notes, some ideas I wanted to just hit upon. I’m going to just say that I don’t think that this is unique to actors or it is to this industry, though. And I’ve mentioned The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron several times, and she tells this story in one of her books. I don’t know if it was The Artist’s Way… That she has a friend who’s a director and every time he directs, if it doesn’t do well, I think she mentioned this. I read this a long time ago, but she she mentions he goes out of town for like four or five years. And it’s about licking his wounds from that experience and then being able to step back into directing. And I think that that happens to a lot of people, so as I mentioned before, I think in this industry, um, scars or just stuck energy can happen on a lot of these projects where you just witness or part of an experience that is tough to process when in the moment. And there is a benefit to going back and retracing those moments so that you can free up that energy. I like that I’m reading this book now by Joe Dispenza and I’ll link to it in the show notes on the website HowToProduceMovies.com. There’s always a page, usually, for the podcasts. And so it’s very important to go and take a look at this stuff. And I feel like I’m actually at a benefit that I have these tapes where I can go look and just see me and see my reactions to comments being made and also really it put into perspective how good the classes were, because at the time I was like, “Yeah, but his technique was so good”. And I had a few jobs from that time where I’d bring the script in. And he was completely off on how to interpret those scripts. Completely off. Like, I walked in much better than I walked out. And that also was kind of a nice thing to know, even though that sucks. But it’s a nice thing to know that I was in some ways a much better actor before the class than after the class because that really shut down my career. I went behind the camera. I said, I don’t ever want to go do that again. I feel like the role of actor is already denigrated in Los Angeles and treated as a not valuable thing, but he really made it 20 times more so in my mind. And so this [process] is dissolving that because it made it harder for me to step into the role of actor, even in a stage environment when I got away from Los Angeles and this class. So that’s basically what I’ve been going through. And then you add on to this also, Joe Dispenza’s book saying that a lot of heavy stuff comes up sometimes in other areas of one’s life, even though it is maybe you’re focusing on a goal that’s career related. Other stuff will come up in other areas where there’s stuff. Energy. And a lot of my involvement in production in the way that I used to love it slowed down when I got my dog. And so it’s interesting that this week, I had to really focus on him and he had some surgery to do, and he’s been the main important thing. My schedule’s been completely thrown off and I’m totally, totally OK with that. And I’ve really had a very… Sometimes I felt very frustrated, almost like one has a child that, you know, sometimes has made me not be able to take the jobs that I’ve wanted to do just because of a dog. And yet what I get from him and what he gets from me is very valuable. And so often in these times, like what I’m experiencing now, I realize that I have made the right choice every time by choosing him and that he has also protected me from a lot of experiences and I think I’ve mentioned this before. The art of filmmaking and the roles that it takes to make a film have been so commoditized in Los Angeles because seriously… There used to NOT be a lot of people who could handle a camera. Now EVERYBODY has a camera. So when somebody says, “Hey, I want to work on your set,” it’s like, “Yeah, so does everybody else in this frickin town.” So it’s a commoditized skill. Very common. And I don’t like that aspect, but because of that, what used to be valued in the financial way is not as much so because everybody and their brother can do it. So I don’t like – You know, he has protected me from taking those jobs that I would have been like, “Yeah, but this is my industry. I love it.” And it’s like not doable just because I have a dog, but it’s not doable. And also, I shouldn’t take it anyway because it’s – Despite loving it, it wasn’t honoring me and my skills and my experience. And so in the long run, it was the right choice and I’m very grateful… Very, very grateful to him for protecting me from those situations. And so I’m going to end on that because I like ending on gratitude and I like oh, he’s doing fine, by the way. He’s doing really well. And I just wanted to mention that, too. But that’s been the thought process of this last week or so. And the weird synchronicities. And I’d like to think, Jen Rudolph for giving me space to talk about my career publicly, in a way that is more… I don’t even know how to put it, but it’s not in the typical, you know, goal oriented. “This is a business!” Kind of way. Art is still art. And if one can flow in in that way it also can be reflected in business. And those two are very much connected, even though it’s not acknowledged, especially on the East Coast. So I have to acknowledge her for that. Or maybe the industry is changing and people are getting it, that this is not just like the physical world is not just the physical world. There’s a lot of other stuff, whether you want to call it psychology or woo woo energy. There’s a lot of other aspects to it. And it all relates back to the hard nosed physical world of business and getting stuff done and making a production and, you know, being hired for a production or whatever. So. Uh, in that I think I’m going to end on that because I feel it really ties the whole thing together where it is. A very hard nosed industry, but underneath that is a very flowy industry where anything could really happen, and when you pay attention to the nonphysical aspects of your life and the emotional aspects that are surrounding that or maybe even in other areas of your life, it can definitely have an impact on what you’re focusing on professionally. Yeah, that’s it, I’ll end there. Thank you so much for listening. I know this was a long one, but there was a lot here. There’s a lot here. I’m probably going to listen to this again and be like, “I feel like this was pretty deep, actually, even though we’re not talking about lighting or anything, it’s like… It’s very much… It’s an important one.” And it definitely has to do with my philosophy with the industry and with life. Thank you for listening. I’ll see you next week, I think probably and I’ll see you. I’ll hear you. You’ll hear me. Talk to you soon. Take care. Bye bye. |
