The Romance of Hollywood

The Romance of Hollywood

by guest blogger Angela Jones

Angela on the Red Carpet
Night before the 83rd Academy Awards

I’ve had a long standing romance with, not someone, but something.  Not even something tangible like say, clothes (although I do have a romance going with clothes, too).  It’s not something you can touch, but you can get emotionally invested as with a “real” romance.  My love affair is with the movies and my “romance” is with Hollywood.  From a very young age, I decided Hollywood was the place to be.  Movies were a huge part of my childhood, and I remember going to the movies as early as the age of four.  My first trip to Hollywood was at the age of nine, when I decided I was going to live at Universal Studios.  A 9-year-old can dream can’t she?

Hollywood is amazing.  It is a place of great contrasts, while a few will live their dream, many more will watch their dreams die a slow, often painful, death.  That doesn’t sound very romantic, but the romance is in the journey and idea of following your dreams.  What is it that draws so many dreamers to this enchanted place each year?  For me it was the allure of the movies.  Where else do you have the ability to be visually transported to another time, or another place, a place that doesn’t even have to be real?  It has always been amazing to me to sit and watch an idea become a reality on screen.  Someone thinks the words, someone else thinks the visual aspects and someone else puts it all together and makes it real.  While reading a book, you’re in control of the vision, but in a movie, the vision is a collaboration of many different people.

Hillary Swank (Angela in the background)
83rd Govenor's Ball

One of my favorite fictional movie locals is Tim Burton’s version of Gotham City.  The dark, ominous streets run by crime, the taller than tall buildings, the corruption and the hope - Batman.  I don’t always expect a happy ending, or the world being saved by a superhero, but I always want good to triumph over evil.  In contrast to the darkness of Gotham City, one of the most visually beautiful movies is “Amelie.”  The bold colors, and the beauty of a city like Paris make the film almost cartoon like, but you are transported into Amelie’s world and for two hours you get to escape your world and live in someone else’s.

I don’t get to watch movies as often as I once did, before child and family obligations took precedence.  Nonetheless, a movie is like a rekindled love, and once you’re reunited, you realize what you’ve missed, and you make the commitment again.  This romance has been going on for most of my life.  At a young age, being an actress was very alluring to me, but as I got older and realized what that entailed, you actually have to perform – in front of people, I knew being behind the scenes was more for me.

After graduating from college, I immediately moved to Hollywood and decided I wanted to be a film publicist.  After working in a few different industries, I ended up back in my hometown of Denver, where I landed a job as, well, a film publicist.  Talk about searching for something while it was right under your feet the whole time.  There really is no place like home. 

Camron Diaz (Angela in the background)
83rd Academy Awards

After several years in Denver, the pull of Hollywood was too great, and I ended up back in my favorite city.  This go around, I was able to make a dream come true when I worked for the Oscars©.  This experience was very surreal for me, as someone who has seen almost every Academy Awards© broadcast since the late 70’s. 

Through the last several years, I worked for another Hollywood organization, gave birth to my daughter, and my family moved to another state, but I still go back every year to partake in the experience.  The friendships, camaraderie, and passion of each person working the show is amazing to experience.  We work long, hard hours and at the end, you feel like you’ve been run over by a bus, but it’s all worth it.  Live your passion and it won’t feel like work.

Each year, I always feel the Oscars©, for me, have nothing to do with the celebrities, but it is all about the people I work with.  We all share the same dream or a different version of the same dream, we all have a romance with Hollywood, and for a short period of time, some of us get to live out the romance.  Hollywood had me at “hello.”    

Visit Angela on her blog at http://popsiculture.wordpress.com/