Absolute Wannabe

I, Mary Abigail Keith, hate goodbyes. I hate them, hate them, hate them. To me, goodbyes represent uncertainty. Will I ever see this person again? Will I hear from this person? Will I have an experience as good as this...ever? Not knowing makes me feel helpless, and then I start doing the crying and the existential dread and the make-up running down my face. It's really attractive. The last two days have been full of goodbyes. I just finished working as a film counselor for Tennessee's Governor's School for the Arts, helping exceptional high schoolers learn about film. What doesn't seem fair about my experience, though, is that I feel like each one of the 27 kids taught me more individually than I taught them combined. Okay, that's so cheesy I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, but it's the truth. Saying goodbye to these kids, as well as those I got to know in other areas of the program and my incredible fellow counselors, was, of course, heartbreakin...

Here's a secret: I'm not original. I was like every other little girl in the 1990s, idolizing Disney princesses, wanting to join their ranks. Seeing as my favorite was Pocahontas, what I really wanted to do was talk to animals and jump off waterfalls, but, seeing as I was four years old and not animated, that never really happened. It's completely normal for kids to watch movies and want to embody their favorite characters, whether they be princesses, super heroes, secret agents, etc. If an adult walks up to a microphone, though, and says they want to be Superman, eyebrows will probably raise (unless, of course, that adult is Robert Downey Jr. Sadly, though, we can't all be RDJ). That's why, after watching Raging Bull for the first time, the strange desire I had to be a boxer made me feel, for lack of a better term, goofy. I was 19 years old at the time and well past the stage of being able to play on the playground without looks of judgment from passersby. So w...

Words honestly can't describe how lucky this last month has made me feel. Typically, May is a month I dread, and between the finals I had to take and the unprecedentedly insane schedule I've had to juggle, this month was no exception. None of that makes me feel particularly lucky, though it does make me fall asleep faster at night. With the schedule and the finals, though, came an opportunity I'll never forget. For the past few weeks, I've been working for the Hallmark Channel on their morning talk show, Home & Family, as they've been shooting a week of shows at Dollywood. I was an assistant cue card writer, which basically means I helped prepare cue cards for the hosts and correspondents to read from during the taping of the show. There are a couple of great things about this: 1. I love Dollywood. Like, really love it. 2. I gained professional experience on a national show. 3. I got paid for the first time in my life (for film work, anyway). 4. Did ...

"Honey, look at this National Enquirer ! Do you see how bad Hillary looks? Just so ugly!" This was an actual comment I heard a mother say to her teenage daughter as she came through my checkout line at the grocery store where I work. Now, I have a lot of strange, odd, and even appalling things happen to me at my "day job". Coupons have been thrown, threats have been made, jobs have been offered from backs of cars. You name it, it's happened to me. But this took the cake. This is just one in a group of many disparaging comments I've heard in the last few months about a woman's appearance. It's nothing new, sure, but I've had it. Regardless of who you're going to vote for in this year's election (and you should vote), a person's appearance does not affect their ability to lead and should not affect how you vote. These comments go way beyond that, however. I strongly believe and have plenty of evidence to prove that the former Se...

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” ―  Sylvia Plath ,  The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath I read this quote for the first time about a year ago, and I have never related to anything more in my life. I'm like most people: I love books, TV, travel, music and, more than anything, movies. I'm interested in current events, science, nature, politics, and the lives of fascinating people. These interests create a huge problem. The world is HUGE, and there are too many books (129,864,880+), too many TV shows ( over 400 scripted shows in 2015 alone ), too many albums to listen to ( here's a list of just the ones released in 2015 ) and, most dreadful of all, too many movies (500k+) for me to...

As I sat down in one of my film classes today, my professor did something that surprised me. Before screening Gus Van Sant's Elephant , a film inspired by the 1999 shooting at Columbine, she gave a warning, offering anyone who may be negatively affected by the film because of past trauma the opportunity to watch an alternative film for credit. She continued to warn the class about an upcoming film we would be screening later, mentioning the themes of sexual assault and offering another alternative film to screen. I don't remember when I first started seeing "trigger warning" on the Internet. The tag, most commonly used on sites like Tumblr to warn people of content that contained explicit references to things like drugs, eating disorders, suicide, abuse, and other elements that people who have gone through trauma may find upsetting. Though I never had to stay away from anything with a trigger warning, I definitely understand the value of the phrase. I even put a w...

I have this theory that not a single person on this Earth would say no to the question, "do you want to help make a movie?". I've never met a person who doesn't like movies, and what fan wouldn't want to be a part of something they love? Here's the deal, though: movies are work. Anybody who thinks making a movie is just pointing a camera and playing pretend is so, so wrong. How do I know this? I've done it. This weekend, a friend and I participated in Knoxville's 54 Hour Film Festival, a competition of 5-7 minute films that are made over a weekend. If that time crunch didn't seem daunting enough, we are also given a genre, line, action, prop, and, after 24 hours, curveball element to include in the film. It may sound easy, and, to be honest, I get why it might, but struggling to get schedules together, find locations, write a story, and shoot and edit a piece (and remember to sleep and eat) was definitely a challenge. An awesome challenge. ...