I met Judy last year after she brought a terrific script to me called ‘From Beneath Us’, via editor Eddie Hamilton. We got on like a house on fire, and now we are collaborating on an unannounced project (we hope that very soon you will be reading about it in Variety though).
Judy started a blog last week and has already got more readers than I managed after a year! If you read it, you will see why… And so, here is an omnibus of the last two blogs she wrote… The third installment (and of course all further blogs) are on her blog at www.judysyoyo.com
Here’s Judy…
Money, ticket, passport...yo-yo
Ok, so I’m Judy and I need yo-yo to write. Ok, that’s probably a slight exaggeration. I don’t need one but it helps. Really!
But I’m jumping ahead.
Two years ago I stepped away from my very lucrative executive assistant job in LA because, quite simply, it wasn’t enough. Which is a little weird because it really was enough, more than enough. Lovely lifestyle, lovely car, lovely tan, lovely friends, lovely office in Hollywood, lovely home at the beach, sexy parties next to swimming pools, weekends in Vegas, lots of champagne, lots of celebrities. It was a life full of lovely things.
Then, executive assisting my ass off in the middle of the Mexican desert shooting a big budget zombie movie, I met a German called Thorsten.
Thorsten had recently stepped away from his own lovely lucrative life executive assisting in Germany too. Given it all up to be a director’s ass on the zombie movie where his education and 140 IQ were put to much better use fetching coffee and picking up dirty pants.
We bonded in the 150 degree heat when I threw a bottle of water in his face.
Then we went back to LA and decided to take our respective leaps together. So we sat down for 6 months and wrote a script.
Then I ran out of money.
Then my mum got sick.
So I left the lovely behind and came back to the UK.
Now two years later…
…I’m sat in an office in Ealing Studios writing another script with an Oscar short-listed, multi award winning director for some big players in Hollywood.
And while conceding with absolute humility that I am most definitely not ‘there’ yet. I have most definitely been (and am still) on a journey – of pain, pleasure, disappointment, disenchantment, supreme highs and devastatingly demoralizing lows.
So how did I get here? I’ll shall get to that. In the meantime, what I can tell you is that I couldn’t have done any of it without my yo-yo.
Breaking hearts, saving lives,
Judy
The call to adventure
I pretty much came the long way round. When I was thirteen all I wanted was to marry the boy up the road and live on top of the hill with him forever. (and by hill, I mean…hill).
Then, of course, it all went tits up when a bunch of shit rained down on my family and we tumbled right down that stupid hill. And mid-way down I had an epiphany – this new life was miserable and rubbish. I would go to Hollywood and have a lovely life full of lovely things. But the thing about Hollywood, it’s kind of a long way away.
So I went there in my head.
Though really I just went to my room for three years. And read, and read, and read. Anything that I could, about Hollywood and the movies. And when I wasn’t in my room, I was sneaking downstairs after everyone had gone to bed so I could have my way with the VCR.
And then I turned 16.
And had to go to work.
Photocopying and faxing.
And the only way I could stop myself going batshit crazy.
Was to write.
At the copier, at the fax machine, on the toilet.
Lots of angst rich poems, a self indulgent over long play and a handful of cliché riddled songs. In hindsight it was all a spectacular exercise in creative flailing but, nonetheless the muscle was being flexed.
And thus, it continued. For another two years. Flapping around on the edge of the nest, desperate to make that leap. To London. Where the streets are paved with gold (and vomit). It wasn’t Hollywood but it was the first step, I was sure of that.
It was time. I was ready. I had the passion, the drive, the commitment, the youth, the talent, the tenacity – what more could I possibly need?
A frigging yo-yo, that's what!
Breaking hearts, saving lives,
Judy
Tempted to see the next installment… It’s ready for you on Judy’s blog right now – www.judysyoyo.com
Onwards and upwards!
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
