The festival life
Junior Diem Dang gains a professional opportunity be attending the Beyond Wonderland music festival.
Some of my favorite memories as a child include movie nights with my family, from the smell of fresh popcorn floating in from the kitchen to cuddling with my sisters in our extravagant pillow fort. Movie nights for me meant spending time with the people I love.
When my professor told us we would be touring Warner Brothers Studios, I knew I would be brought right back to my childhood family room.
The Warner Brothers Studio tour was one of the most inspiring experiences I’ve had in Los Angeles. From standing in the “hometown” of some of my favorite TV shows to sitting in the Central Perk Cafe, all the magic I’ve felt through a movie screen was literally at my fingertips. I was even so enthralled with my time at Warner Brothers I ended up paying $27 dollars for a single picture of me on the “Friends” set. It was so worth it.
The trip that Barry planned for us to Warner Brothers came at the perfect time, as those in the LA Production class were getting ready to start production on their own short films. As a writer and actor, I was geared up to collaborate with my fellow classmates.
If you’ve ever worked on any kind of film set, you know the hours can be long and draining. But even if it was tiring, it was just as much addicting. Filming in the heart of Hollywood may seem like all glitz and glam, but in reality, there may be a five-car police chase coming around the corner just as you’re finishing up a shot. Or maybe the location switches last minute from a house in the Hollywood Hills to a studio apartment in K-Town (where the crew and cast end up getting the perfect first scene to the short film). Even if there were obstacles, they always made for a great laugh and pushed us to be even more creative with what we had.
Watching my newfound friends and our minds work together to make something we can all be proud of was truly an irreplaceable experience, and being able to do it in the place I dreamed of coming to as a 5-year-old made it that much more unbelievable.