I live life on a Texas philosophy: go big or go home. With that said, even I am sometimes surprised by just how big I can go. On Friday, May 10, I got an email inviting me to travel to LA to participate in a shoot for Disney Channel's original movie Teen Beach Movie.
Now, in my industry, you get all kinds of emails inviting you to all kinds of things, and most of the time, they're someone trying to waste your time or get you to spend your money. The best way to root these out is to simply make the call. In 10 minutes, I was on the phone getting details. I then called the highest authority: my mum. A week later, we were in a town car, on our way to the airport to fly to Burbank. It's very easy for things like this to not be a thing at all, so I refused to believe it was actually happening or get excited about it at all until I was physically on the plane. Once I was safely in my seat, I just about exploded. The best and worst part? I had to keep the whole thing a secret. For a girl who's so used to sharing every little bit of her life, this is a big deal.
I got very good at taking anonymous location Instagram photos. I'd never been involved in a "professional shoot," let alone one on this large of a scale. We were at Smashbox Studios. If you didn't know, that's basically the holy ground of studios as far as the fashion industry is concerned. I nearly passed out when we drove through the gates. From looking at things, you never realize just how many people there are involved in a shoot on that scale. I found out that makeup is a lot more complicated than I was led to believe by Seventeen -- too much bling can be a good thing, and it takes a lot of hairspray to hold things together under those gigantic lights. I also had the opportunity to meet and hang out with Garrett and Maia, two of the leads in the film. They were really friendly from the start. It's hard to think that these two fellow teenagers who are jumping around and laughing in the sand with you are actually movie stars, and have their own action figures and soundtrack. The stylist on set, Chelsea, and I had a fabulous time going through racks and racks of gorgeous clothes, and literally PILES of shoes. The resulting outfits were a special kind of Disney magic. I ended up shooting extra outfits, just because we were having a difficult time narrowing things down. No complaints here.
It's been an amazing experience, and I'm so excited to be a part of it. To follow along with my adventure, you can check out my blog at www.abentpieceofwire.com!
P.S. I got to see the movie: you won't want to miss it. (July 19, 8 p.m. -- I bet you can guess which channel.)