Keith Munyan – Making the Transition from Model to Photographer Look Easy

Keith Munyan has modeled for fifteen years and has been on calendars, appeared on “EXTRA,” “Hard Copy,” and “Access Hollywood.”   He was featured on billboards for Bud Light, modeled for Diet Coke, did countless commercials, and was a very successful swimsuit model. One would never expect to see him—with those rugged good looks of his—behind the camera. Keith uses his modeling experience to create great photographs, capturing some of the biggest celebrities on film.   His client list reads like an all-star cast with celebrities like Jessica Simpson, Cindy Crawford, and Hilary Duff.

Was it hard to transition from modeling in front of the camera to moving behind the camera?

Because of my experience from working in front of the camera, I listened a lot regarding lighting, and shooting. I found it easier for me because I enjoyed working with people.

Do you think having been a model helped your eye when shooting other models?

Yes, I do.  One of the things I’ve learned is patience.  Don’t rush.  I’m more laid back.  When we’re doing shoots, if you have an idea, let’s try it.   I’ll try anything, because I’m not always right.  If you can give your input and enjoy the job, it goes by faster, and everybody has a fun day.

Who are some of the people you have shot?

I knew a guy from a magazine who found out I was shooting.  I shot Beth Broderick, whoplays Aunt Zelda on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”  The television show used all my photos in the background as they did a story on her character.  Because of that show, and from knowing me as a model from Popstar!Magazine, he called me and asked me if I was interested in shooting.  And I said sure, why not?  I’d be glad to do it.  The first person I shot was Jessica Simpson.  Then later, I shot Cindy Crawford, Carmen Electra, Hilary Duff, whom I’ve worked with for over four years now, as well as countless other celebrities, and just recently, Rachel Melvin for Agenda Magazine.  All my work is by word of mouth or by referral.  I do not advertise.

In Rachel’s shoot we used a lot of wood elements.   We kept it very vogue, very high fashion, but we threw in the wood elements to keep the warmth, to keep it grounded to make it more special and individualized for her.

I did like the idea of the wood.   How do you come up with ideas for different shoots?   Do you ever end up duplicating your ideas?

I look.  I shop.  I find elements and things for backgrounds.  And then once I see the clothing and get the feel, we started pulling things in.  The Yucca tree that we used forAgenda Magazine for Rachel Melvin was actually from off of my property. It was just a dead yucca that had bloomed and it died, but we saved it.  The vase from the Malibu fires went with the elements; something rustic, something used, but then you’ve got elegance with it.  I see a lot of photos and ideas from other magazines… Yes, I look; I shop.  You’ve got to keep your eye going, you’ve got to stay up on fashion with your shooting, and know what’s happening with photographers.  So you’ve got to keep up.

Do you have any secret tips for yourself when you’re actually shooting, like trade secrets that you use to pull a photo out of someone?

Sometimes I do.  The best thing to do when you’re working with a celebrity is to remind them to think of the people they love and care about or their pet.  And they laugh.  Like with Rachel, we brought up Murphy, her cocker spaniel, and her eyes lit up, and she was very relaxed.

Have you ever had a disaster shoot?

When you’re dealing with celebrities, you’re dealing with personalities.   Some PR people do not get along with their celebrities.  And then you deal with celebrities that think they’re bigger than other people… and I can’t mention any names… but everyone thinks she is a diva, but she’s a clock-watcher.  They only give you so many hours to shoot this editorial for a hair magazine,Sophisticated Hair, and we were doing the hair stuff on her and she saw the clock and decided it was time for her to leave.  I told her she’d only been here an hour.  Her mother told her she wasn’t going anywhere.   When she excused herself and turned her back, I took the clock down, told her mother to hide her watches, hide everything… and she stayed for three more hours.   She was trying to rush us through our job, and without these photos, she didn’t have the publicity.  They were doing the story on her.  She had the cover already.  Just be nice.  That’s the only bad experience I had.  Everybody else who I’ve worked with has been amazing.

I enjoy doing the celebrity stuff because everyone is usually so pleasant.  I do not do the paparazzi, and very seldom will I do weddings.  No! (He shrugs.)  Weddings are not fun.  People do not understand that weddings are the hardest thing on a photographer or because you have no control.   The mother does.  (Laughs.)

I noticed when you were shooting Rachel, you had a very elaborate light setup.   Can you tell me how you came about doing textures through lighting like you did on her shoot?

For one thing, dealing with celebrities, you have to make sure everything is perfect.   And Ilearned over the years to test the lighting, and use more light because most of the time, not everyone always has the perfect skin and complexion, and not everyone gets Photoshopped.  So I’ve learned how to adjust my lighting around my clients.  I figure out how to make it hotter, warmer, darker, depending on their skin tones, their hair, their makeup.  I like to mix my Tungsten lighting with my daylight to give you that blue hue, which gives you that porcelain look, almost China doll.  Not everyone has that perfect warm skin.  Not everyone’s a fitness model.  Not everyone’s tan.  Like Rachel, the lighting we used on her was the Tungsten lighting, but I shot it as daylight to give her that porcelain look, yet the tones stayed rich and vibrant.

Tell me about your partner.   I noticed it was a joint effort.   You’re shooting, and he’s directing the model.

The funny thing is, Dean’s my partner for almost eighteen years.  He’s been my business partner, and he was actually a photographer first.  He would always do the shoots, and I would always direct the models, but now it’s reversed.  He’s taken over my business part in running my business, whereas I’m doing the shoots, and he does the directing of the models because sometimes I get very quiet and more involved in what’s going on with the elements, the shots, the angle I want, the lighting… I make sure that everything is perfect and I’ll get quiet sometimes.  There’s always going to be somebody ballsy on the set anyway, so why not have somebody who’s got a lot of energy.  He is so funny.  He can get hysterical.  He’ll show people how to pose and they’re laughing, and everybody enjoys it.  It’s fun. It’s entertaining.  Everybody loves him.  We’re sort of a team.

Before you shoot with a client, do you consult with them first?   And how do you learn their angles?

I ask, before I shoot with someone, if they have an old photo, bring it.   Show me what you like and don’t like about a photo.  Bring it in.  Because they’re going to have a side they like better.  It’s about the lighting that you use with the person and still know their angles.

Do you miss the modeling?

No, I don’t.  I miss the auditions, the cattle calls, where 300 people show up, and they’re looking for one model.  I did that for fifteen years and I enjoyed it. I loved it. I traveled a lot.  I got a lot of experiences.  I did things I thought I’d never do.  In Barcelona, I went up and down an escalator, dressed coming down, and naked going up.  I didn’t think I would ever do that.  But hey, they paid us triple.  Why not?  I was a starving model then.   I was in my 20s. But I prefer being behind the camera now.

What’s next for you?

I want to make videos.  I like the energy of music videos.  It’s a little more pushed.  I like the idea that it takes a lot of energy.  You have to stay up and going all day, but you still treat it like a still shoot.  The elements you use are almost the same.

Interviewed by Kaylene Peoples

Marlene Forté – It Wasn’t Too Late to Follow Her Dream

Marlene Forté has been acting since 1988.   She starred in “Lost,” “The Unit,” “My Wife and Kids,” “The George Lopez Show,” etc.   The film Adrift in Manhattan, where Marlene is featured along with Heather Graham and William Baldwin, recently premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was a big hit. She has produced and starred in several of her own productions, including Lena’s Dreamsand Cuco Gomez-Gomez Is Dead.   Hers is a face you will immediately recognize.   When asked how she broke into acting, her answer was surprising and encouraging.

How did you know you wanted to be an actress?

I always wanted to act, probably since I was ten.   I started acting at almost thirty years old against everybody’s logical advice: I was too old; lived in Jersey, etc. Eighteen years later, here I am.   I starred in my first movie, The Bronx War.   I played a stripper.    As a young Latina actress at the time, you pick and choose.   Even though The Bronx War was not a great movie, it moved my career and the director’s career forward.   I learned not to take anymore stripper roles. I did it early.   I got all that stuff out of the way early in my life.

You are a very animated person.   As an actress, how are you able to use that personality in each role?

I’m very bubbly and I can be on stage and 800 people can see me, but when I’m in front of a camera and TV, it’s very different.   My challenge is to sit still and let that bubbly personality come out through my eyes and my voice and the words that I’m saying.   Being in front of the camera is a big challenge for me.

What’s your favorite role?

They are all my favorites when I’m working on them.   I become the person, and there’s no judging the character.   So at the moment, they’re all my favorites.   Right now my favorite is “Lost” because I just finished.   I played Detective Murphy.   I’m dying to play a cop on TV, little girl with big gun.   I am hoping it will lead to more of that.

Tell me about your personal life.   Have you been married?   Have any kids?

I have been married several times.   I just got remarried July 2, 2006.   I married a lovely man called Oliver Mayer, and yes he is my third husband.   I am a hopeless romantic.   But I finally found my partner.   You know, that prince in the Cinderella story, it does exist, but they don’t tell you that you have to kiss a lot of toads before you actually find him.   I have an amazing 26-year-old daughter, Gisella Rodriguez, who lives in New York, and now she’s acting and lives in my old New York apartment.

Highest High

I remember the first time I booked a legit job.   I ran a video store for six years.   I am submitting myself to Backstage.   I get a call to do stand-in work for Talia Shire in New York Stories.   Coppola was directing.   I was ecstatic!   I remember hanging up the phone in the video store and I was just so happy. I told my actor friend that I was doing stand-in work for Talia Shire, isn’t that fantastic?   And she asked me if I knew what stand-in work was?   I said, “No!   It doesn’t matter. I am going to be on the set with Coppola and [Vittorio] Storaro.”   That’s all I knew!   I have not matched that feeling yet.   Every time I book a job, I get that high of “Oh my god I’m gonna work one more day.”   That moment stands in my head so clearly, and when I tell people that it was stand-in work… but it didn’t matter. I worked two weeks, and everyday Storaro put a light meter in front of my face, and I said it’s gonna happen some day again.

Lowest Low

Telling my dad I was playing a stripper for really not a lot of money (laughs). Nothing harder than that has ever happened to me.

Have you ever turned a role down?

I turned down another stripper role.   And even now, I am part of LABrynth Theater Company back home, and I find myself having to turn down a lot more theater work these days, just because it just doesn’t pay as much.   And I’m not in a position yet where I can take off three months and not work.   I’d like to be in that position where I can go home and work at LABrynth for $200 a week and do eight shows.   Somehow the money doesn’t work out.   $200.00 at eight shows a week, and six weeks of rehearsal, and three months of your life where you can’t audtion for anything else.   Or you go and do a week on “The Unit” and make $7,000,00.   It doesn’t weigh out.

You’ve been acting for eighteen years.   Would you say that the industry has changed since you started?   And what do you think about the Indie revolution?

Yes. It’s slow. It’s like the ant rolling that big boulder up that hill.   But it is changing.   When I started acting back in 1988, submitting myself (booked The Bronx War through Backstage West, by the way) I ‘m still married and my name was Rodriguez, my husband’s name, I’m in Jersey with this little Jersey management that is telling me Rodriguez is so Latin., and that I can pass.   I should change it.   [I ended up with Forte’.]

There was a slow period where I couldn’t even get arrested in New York as a legit actress.   I was working with LAByrinth Theater Company, which was not the phenomenon that it is now.   I was doing really well commercially and doing a lot of theater work.   Thank god because I needed insurance.   I couldn’t be a starving actor.   I had a kid to feed. I did a lot of production work, too, and I met Gordon [Eriksen] and Heather [Johnston], and they were doing this very low budget independent movie.   This was 1989, and they hired me to be a PA for $200 a week, plus room and board in Queens on location because somebody had to stay with all the equipment at night.   So here I am living in this big house in Queens with the condition I can go in and out of the city and audition.   We started doing this movie, and shot it on 16-mm… and an exhausted cast and crew… I had all these crazy stories about being an actor and they kept saying they were going to write me a story and they did, called Lena’s Dreams in 1995.   This film brought me to L.A., and put me in the eyes of the independent world.

What do you think about the “Indie” revolution?

The “Indie” revolution is old for me.   I think the digital world has brought accessibility to people, which is wonderful.   But it has dropped the quality of stuff. Anybody can become a filmmaker now.   But it has opened things up. If I had the digital capabilities back then, wow!   We shot Lena’s Dreams on a short end [A short end is a partial roll of unexposed film stock which was left over during a motion picture production], because they lost all their money on that other movie, by the way.   $61,000.00 we raised, selling $2500 shares after six readings.   The odds were so against us!   And yet that’s the one movie that really brought them a lot of attention as filmmakers, and it really put me into the “Indie” scene, and that was in 1996. It’s an old revolution as far as I’m concerned.

You almost need a name now.   If I had done Lena’s Dreams now, I don’t know if we would have gotten as much recognition.

Where do you see yourself in five years?   Or do you have a plan?

I see myself working.   I don’t have set plans. I think you have to be like a palm tree in the wind out there in a tsunami and just be willing to move.   When the doors open, you go that way.   I have done a lot more television lately than movies.   I love acting… from doing radio plays to commercials, to doing live sitcom comedy [“George Lopez” and “My Wife and Kids”].   I love it all.   My plan is to keep working.

I do want to do production, and I do produce.   I think that’s really important. Because people aren’t writing for us as much, even though it is changing, we need to infuse the market with more work, more stories—our stories, us telling the stories, directing the stories.   The idea is to keep working. And not judge how much you’re getting paid for this, but just move forward, produce, and do, and act.

You didn’t start acting until you were almost thirty.   Wouldn’t you say that you probably did well at thirty, and are doing well now because you had those thirty years of life experience?

Oh, absolutely!   I hung up my college diploma to wait tables for several years.   I met people from all over the world.   That’s what I do as an actor.   I have to recreate people, live—4-dimensional people, if I can.   And the only way of doing that is by living and by experiencing things.

Interviewed by Kaylene Peoples

Rachel Melvin – More to Her Than the Character She Portrays

Though she clearly is the actress who plays Chelsea on the popular soap opera “Days of Our Lives,” you would never believe it if you closed your eyes and engaged in a dialog with Rachel Melvin—you’d think you had spoken to somebody else entirely.  She is nothing like her character, a saucy, fast teenager who has a turbulent relationship with her biological parents, Bo Brady and Billy Reed.  In reality, Melvin maintains a loving relationship with her parents, and had only kissed two boys her entire life before being cast for this role.  She is sweet, unassuming, and terribly gracious.  They say great actors are born, and that describes this actress completely.  Only being a “natural” could explain how Rachel Melvin not only landed a role on her very first audition, but also gained her coveted soap opera part.

Since Melvin’s arrival in Los Angeles three years ago, she has appeared on several television shows, and starred in the soon to be released film, Boo.  She is very involved with the Diabetes Foundation, and she spends time with Murphy, her cocker spaniel.  She was blessed with delicate features, porcelain skin, and is a size 0.  We just had to put her in a fashion shoot.

Rachel is tucked away in a modern condo in Burbank, very near NBC Studios, where she works.  On her living room wall are posters ofBreakfast at Tiffany’s and Gone with the Wind.  “In the old days I liked Audrey Hepburn.  I also really liked Vivien Leigh.  Gone with the Wind was my favorite movie ever.”

Rachel Melvin was engaging and delightful to interview.

How long have you been acting?

I’ve been acting for three years.  My dad just told me to take a chance out here and pursue my acting, and I did.  I did plays in high school, but not too many, and one that I did was called “Any Number Can Die.”  It’s a play that took place in the ’30s.  It was a murder mystery.  It was really fun.  After I did that, I was just addicted.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Elmhurst, Illinois, and I was raised in Phoenix, Arizona.  I moved out to California three years ago, first Chatsworth, then Camarillo, and now finally, Burbank.

Tell me about “Days of Our Lives.”

It’s a lot of hard work. The character of Chelsea, before it was made a contract role, was a recurring role, and was played actually by an actress who is also with my agency.  They decided about two or three months after she started working that they wanted to make the character a contract role.  She had coincidentally booked a role on another show, and she told my agent she was going to give up the role of Chelsea.  So my agent obviously had the heads up before she even told production.  They told me to start watching her and get a feel for the character, and I had actually gone out for the character before when they first brought her on the show, and I didn’t get it because I was still playing like the sweet wholesome girl thing.  So I just went out on the audition like everybody else, made it through callbacks, pre-reads, and then I did a screen test, and then I got the role.

What made you decide to become an actress?

It’s kind of a funny little story, and I know two or three other people who’ve actually said this, too.  When you’re driving home, you’re making your own movie trailers in the car, and not a lot of people do that; so I just kind of took that as a sign that I wanted to be an actor.

Tell me about your first audition?

I was taking acting classes in Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, and the coach knows a bunch of casting directors, people he’s grown up with and worked with.  And this one casting director from Danny Goldman Casting was casting this movie called Boo, and she needed a bunch of people for the lead character; and so Scott called me and said to “just go out.  It will be really fun.  I know you’ve never done it before, but you’ll get a feel.”  So I just went out there and did it, not even thinking anything, and then they said thank you.  I went to leave and they chased after me.  “We need you to come back tomorrow.  Here’s a script for you.  Read it, and we want you to read for this other character, Meg.”  And after reading the script, I wanted that role anyway because I felt more of a connection to that character, and one thing led to another.  I ended up doing my project within six months of being out here.

You hear about actors and actresses always training, taking classes.   Did you go through that at all?

I did.  At one point my dad was working out here, and he met people in the industry at his job, and one of them was a casting agent, and she wanted to give my dad a few pointers if his daughter was really serious about acting.  Her first advice was move out here and take acting classes, because that’s where everything stems from.  So I took the acting classes.  You learn a lot.  Before I was debating about going to college or actually coming out here.

I’ve been looking around your condo, and I notice you have Audrey Hepburn on the wall.  Tell me, are there any particular actors or actresses that you like?

Nowadays I am a big fan of Rachel McAdams and Sarah Jessica Parker. Mainly because they just have this certain authenticity and truth to their acting, which is something I kind of strive to have or maintain, and I just really look up to them for that.  They’ve made great choices in their careers, so have Leonardo Di Caprio and Johnny Depp.  I know they’re male, but I really look up to them, too, for taking on these challenges and always doing something different.

Now, you mentioned violin.  Do you play violin?

I played a lot in elementary and middle school.  I did it more for fun, and when I hit the eighth grade, I was in Texas and they were so hardcore.   “This is serious; this is your career; this is your life”  [I didn’t feel that way]. I just kind of wanted to fool around and play on it.  I stopped playing, but I never sold it, just because I think it’s one of the most beautiful instruments in the world, and I actually just bought an electric violin.  I don’t have any amps for it.  I have to get those.  So I haven’t played in a while, but when I do pick it up again, I want to play stuff that I’ve heard like “Even Essence” and “Yellow Card.” They use violins in their music.  I just want to fool around and play the songs I know and have fun with it.

Highest High

I play opposite Blake Berris on “Days of Our Lives.”  He plays Nick the geek.  He brings a lot to my story line and to the show in general, and we play off each other really well.  We’ve had these cute little flirting scenes.  It’s just really good stuff.  I describe it as magical.

So you are involved in the American Diabetes Association.  How did that come about?

I joined it because my dad has Type 2 diabetes, where you have to inject yourself with insulin, and he’s had it for about twelve years.  I remember how his getting diabetes has changed him and all of our lifestyles. I joined because my dad is not a very good diabetic.  He’ll buy a pack of Oreos, and they’ll be gone in three days, which is not good for a diabetic.  My mom is always on his case, bringing him to doctors to make sure he is more aware and more healthy, but he’s a man, and he’s older, so he’s set in his ways; and he’s going to do what he wants to do.  But since I joined ADA and I have been getting more educated about it, I tell my dad certain things.  I went to one event and they had those FUSE drinks, which are supposed to be good for diabetics, and I told my dad about them and now he’s addicted to them, which is a good thing.  It’s easier for me to be in a charity and get the information and then pass it on to my dad than it is for him to actually get up, schedule an appointment with the doctor and go… or a nutritionist… because he is so busy.  It was something I wanted to know more about.  And I just thought my family should be more aware of it and a lot more Americans should be more aware of it, too.

Diabetes is not a disease that I feel a lot of people take seriously because the death toll doesn’t happen immediately.  It’s more dragged out, so people don’t see it as an immediate problem, where with cancer people are more on it, because it takes lives so quickly.  I felt that diabetes is a disease, and it deserves to be treated just like everything else.

What is your involvement in the association?

I’ve been to a couple of walks that they’ve had.  I actually participated in the walk because it was something I always wanted to do.  I brushed up a little bit on the facts about it, and did a little public speaking at one of their events, and got the rally going before they went out on the walk.  I also work with the kids that are there to encourage, then do things that take their mind off what they have and open them up to the other more positive things in life.  Because I like art so much, it usually entails drawing.

I want to write a children’s book, not necessarily for the kids with diabetes, but just to have a children’s book, and then work out something with the proceeds that would go to ADA just because I think that they should have the opportunity to have the finances to really look into getting a cure.

How is your dad doing now?

My dad’s good, but the thing that’s bad about diabetes is it starts out fine, then it gradually gets bigger and bigger.  He’s had the neuropathy in his feet.  My dad’s the only guy in our family.  He’s always done everything, for example, Christmas decorations.  Now, he can’t be on his feet too long.   His feet have neuropathy, so it doesn’t enable him to do a lot.   He has to inject himself with insulin, and because of his neuropathy, it’s very difficult for him to exercise, so he gains weight, which makes him not as happy as he used to be.  But there’s nothing he can do about it, so it decreases his self-appreciation and confidence.  It tears you up emotionally and physically.  And eventually you’ve heard about people getting their feet and legs amputated because it just crawls up.  Because it’s not killing them immediately, people say, “It’s sad they don’t have legs, but at least they’re still living.”  It’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

To learn more, or to make a donation to the American Diabetes Association, go to www.diabetes.org.

Interviewed by Kaylene Peoples