Interview

HEADLINE: ‘Vino, Dino, Kino’ – The Wine, Dinosaurs and Movies of Actor, Businessman Greg Tally

My love of an audience started at birth. I had my “nuchal” umbilical cord tied in a knot doing acrobatic flips inside the womb. This can kill a kid. But my cord was so thick, it did not cut off my oxygen supply. There was a group of medical students observing my birth, and they applauded when the doctor slapped my butt and I began to cry. From my first breath, I had an audience and a standing ovation. Guess I’ve been chasing that moment ever since.

I was a ham growing up, loved pranks and jokes and puns. Would buy knock-knock joke books and dirty joke books and try out my material on the other kids during gym class. When the middle school bullies started picking on me, I kept them mostly as bay with either dirty jokes or cutting remarks. I was a pipsqueak, so rather than my fists, I had to fight back with a sharp tongue. Ten-year-old me learned most people would rather take a punch than look like a fool. So I became the class clown, a dreamy neurodivergent child with undiagnosed ADHD who would stare out the window during algebra class, unless provoked.

I attended one of those “Fame” schools, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. Beyonce’s alma mater. First in the media department, and later theater. It was a transformative experience. It not only exposed me to the arts, but began the process of pulling me out of a lily white, homogenous, upper middle class existence. I was around openly gay kids and people of color. HSPVA was a surprisingly woke oasis for Texas in the ‘80s. But it was the beginning of not only honing my performances, but having to check my privilege and assumptions, too.

I took thirty years off to move to Colorado, go to college, fall in love, get married, raise kids, build businesses. Along the way, my immediate family built a wine hotel in a vineyard in Colorado’s Wine Country and I became a certified sommelier. And ex-wife and I created a dinosaur-themed hotel, and helped save Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in Long Island from the wrecking ball. We supported STEM programs, sat on the board of the Morrison Natural History Museum Foundation, went on dinosaur digs. I got to pry Triceratops bones from the soil of Wyoming bone beds. Well, the dinosaur lifestyle attracted several agents, and pretty soon, we were developing a sizzle reel for a reality show with Craig Plestis, who later went on to produce “The Masked Singer.” It was our first serious foray into Hollywood.
Continue Reading Meet Greg Tally: Actor and Entrepreneur

I grew up in a small agricultural town and it had the highest unemployment rate in California. My hometown is exceptionally rural and this placed a limit on my exposure to the outside world. As luck and fate would have it, an opportunity of a lifetime presented itself and I had an opportunity to go away to a preparatory/boarding school for high school. At 13, I moved away to school and my entire perspective on the world dramatically shifted. My goals for my future took a big shift and I saw for the first time what others had which I really wanted to be a part of. The Webb Schools focused on instilling leadership and work ethic unmatched in any school. I embraced the opportunities and finally had a place to utilize them. I developed keen direction, polished by all these little intangibles the school instilled and was off to the races. My high school education has played a part in every success I’ve had since.

Upon graduating high school, I aspired to be in the Naval Academy and despite my best efforts, I did not get in. I didn’t necessarily have a plan B. But as life goes, the unplanned course landed me right where I needed to be. I ended up attending the University of Arizona for college. It also provided amazing opportunities and enabled me to grow in a way I did not see coming. I entered very prepared academically but I credit my college experience to developing my emotional awareness and communication capabilities. As a college graduate, I took a sales job at a financial company and became #1 in the company within two years. I worked there for four years polishing my sales and finance skills. With experience under my belt and a fueled desire to reach further, I intended to go to grad school for business.

While studying for the GMAT, I was approached by a young financial company who wanted me to come work for them in Los Angeles. I was hesitant to say the least, having just left my previous job two months prior so that I could put all my focus toward business school. I was not interested in joining another financial company at this time, especially one that was not near or on the same level of success as the one I had just chosen to leave. At the end, I was able to negotiate 50% equity in the company and I made the decision to join as a partner. The company took off like a rocket shortly after and we were flourishing. In retrospect, I didn’t exactly know how to run a company at the time. We went from booming to a near bust in a short number of years due to the financial crisis in 2008. I learned invaluable and hard lessons through this period and thankfully, I came out the other end of it wiser and really understanding what it takes to run a business well. With more experience, I started a few other companies that thrived. Through starting them from scratch and later selling them, and all the ups and downs that followed, I discovered how to build and run a company and the joy the process brought to me – and I have been doing it since.
Continue Reading Meet Blake Johnson of Byte

Growing up I always loved theatre, movies and TV shows, however, as I lived in Switzerland it never occurred to me that working in entertainment could be an actual job. Switzerland is a country that while valuing the arts, doesn’t necessarily encourage creativity or creative jobs and so becoming a professional actress never even crossed my mind.

After high school I moved to the UK to pursue a BSc degree in Management and Marketing in one of the country’s top schools. I loved my studies as marketing revolves around storytelling and analysing people (both psychologically and sociologically), which in many ways is exactly what I do now. It also made me realise that telling stories is what I want to do for a living.

In my third year of university I moved to London for twelve months where I worked as a product manager in a large, well-known beauty company. For the first time in my life I was living in a diverse, cosmopolitan city that had everything to offer and so I jumped at the opportunity to take acting classes. Within a couple of weeks I was hooked. I would commute every weekend and sometimes after work to take as many classes as possible as they gave me such creative fulfilment that I couldn’t get from other things in my life. During this year I also started doing lots of research and stumbled across New York Film Academy. I ended up attending their information session and decided to apply to one of their summer acting workshop programs. I figured it would be a great test to see if I liked the school and if I could see myself acting professionally.

The workshop ended up being one of the best experiences of my life and so I auditioned for NYFA’s One-Year Acting for Film program. I got in on a scholarship and in late 2019, after completing my BSc, I flew to L.A. to start my dream.

Since graduating NYFA I’ve been constantly auditioning, acting in numerous short films and web series, and building relationships. I’ve been lucky to have worked with some wonderful, incredibly talented people who have taught me so much. I also enjoy working behind the camera, especially writing and producing. I recently completed my first feature film script “Against The Current” that I hope to produce in the near future and also co-founded my own production company called “Spirited Lights Studios”. We are currently writing and producing several short films and also working on a music video for a well-known actor and musician.

It’s been an incredible journey and I feel like I learn something new every day. That’s probably what inspires me most: the constant movement forward, being proactive, creating your own opportunities and having the privilege to collaborate with such talented people. I cannot wait to see what the future holds!
Continue Reading Meet Chantal Casutt of Spirited Lights Studios

We come from families where both of our fathers were blind; we understand first-hand the frustration, lack of empowerment and the lack of acceptance from society due to a disability. Due to the blindness, both fathers were diligently trying to find the balance between the world of limitation and the world of once having the ability. This left them feeling isolated, frustrated and completely dependent on others after having been very independent people. Among the effects was weight gain from the lack of movement, socialization, and inclusion.
My husband and I have been fencers for many years. I managed a fencing club at one point, when several individuals with special needs come through the club. Our fathers and these students are the inspiration for the foundation. Once they were given a private lesson, they were hooked. It gave these students the empowerment to believe they could do anything. Since then we have been teaching at Mychal’s Learning Place, until the COVID shutdown, and want to bring this to the public for everyone with special need to have the opportunity to try something new and getting in shape in the process Continue Reading Meet Nylda of Gladius Athletic Foundation

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, California I’ve been making short films since a young age of 9. I started with Animation using Paint on a 98′ Microsoft Desktop. I soon advanced to Animation Filmmaking by using a technique called Stop motion by positioning my toys from my toy box in a complex scene which I then edited on Windows Movie Maker. I did many of these until I acquired the skill to shoot Live action stories. I attended West Adams Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles, were I was given my first DSLR Camera Canon EOS 550D by my Mother Erika Lovett Holly. I used the Camera to create many Short Films with my friends around campus, and with the praise from my local peers I began to take filmmaking serious.

I started his career after an internship at Inner-City Filmmakers in Santa Monica, California. Soon after that I went to college at California State University, Northridge which after 3 years decided to dropout. With the connections I gained from the internship and University I’ve been blessed with opportunities to work intensely with Companies like Warner Brothers, Legendary Pictures, Disney, Marvel, Technicolor’s The Mill and Artists like Swae Lee, Lil Snupe, Lil Boosie, Nicki Minaj and Bleu Davinci. Continue Reading Meet Joshua Holly of VFXJOSH