Today is the start of a new year. New years always make us take a moment to both look back and to look forward to what is to come. For me I look back on 2009 with some fond memories, a few milestones, and a general sense of, how did another year already pass by!? Someone described our sense of time to me before as a percentage of your life. In essence, every year you get older, and so a year is a smaller and smaller percentage of your overall age. When you’re five, waiting a year until your next birthday seems like an eternity since it is a fifth of your life, whereas 1/23 of your life goes by in a flash.

This year was a tough one for many people, especially many recent grads who found it a tough time to be thrown out into the working world. I was fortunate enough to be able to depend on my family for support and encouragement, and feel I have thus far staved off my quarter-life-crisis for another year.

In 2009 I got a job as producer, was introduced to the ways of new media, I turned 23, moved to San Francisco, unpacked my belongings in my first post-college apartment, and started a new job. Those were the big things among many many more exciting, fun, silly, & ridiculous happenings over the course of the last twelve months — many of which are documented in my 2009 Memory Bank video below. Thanks to all who made this year memorable, you know who you are!

Also, just because I really liked this video, I thought I’d share it. Refresh your memory on what happened this year as we wave goodbye to 2009, and welcome in 2010!

Please forgive my lack of blogging in the last month, I know it really is pitiful. I have so much to catch up on here. But first let’s get in the Christmas spirit the only way I know how — Elfing myself (and my roommates who don’t yet know their fate)!

I am pretty sure my brother has taken the liberty of “Elfing” my family in the past, but I only remember the traditional or “classic” dance. Now they have upgraded to Hip Hopping, Carol singing, disco dancing elves. I mean really, what more could you want from elves this season? They need a break from the hard work making toys just as much as we all do.

Hope these bring you some holiday cheer, they sure brought me some giggles!

Funky Hip Hop Elves:

Holiday Carol Singing Elves:

Night Fever Disco Elves:

The Classic Elves:

I can certainly say it has been a crazy few weeks! I have moved into my new apartment in San Francisco and am quickly adapting to city life! So much uncertainty and excitement make for some fun times, and also some sleepless nights, but this is all part of growing up right?

I couldn’t be happier being in the city, living with three of my gal pals!

More to come on this soon, I promise. Some pictures of the new place and hopefully a video are coming soon. They have been on the back burner of my mind, but somehow keep getting pushed aside by job applications and cover letter writing…

So for now, enjoy the most recent project I worked on for Weplay. At LeBron James’ Kings Academy, I recently shot quite a bit of video documenting the camp experience with my co-worker Candice Coots. Here is a piece I produced and edited, of Patrick Christopher, a Cal Basketball player who was invited to LeBron’s camp, among a number of stand-out college stars. I will always recognize him since my Junior year when I had season tickets to Cal games and my friend and I noticed his personal handshakes for each of his teammates in the starting lineup. Can’t forget that grin either. Go Bears!

So the night has finally come and I’m trying to contain myself. After brainstorming, and designing, and reading forums and articles, and watching lynda.com tutorials for months, Live! From the Future’s website is launching! I feel like I have learned so much in this process (a lot through trial and error) but hey, I’ve said it before, the best way to learn is by doing. So we’ve done it!

Stuart and I are excited to go Live with livefromthefuture.com! Every week I’ll be updating the home page with a new highlight video about what you missed from the live episode of the show. We also just got approved for an iTunes podcast which I think is uber-cool, so giddy. The new website will basically be the home base for the show. You can read about what and who is coming up on the next show and what happened in case you missed a past episode.

Check it out, subscribe, sign up for emails, comment, let us know what you think!

The cast & crew will also be blogging as we can. My blog, Behind the Show with Lauren, is all about what goes on behind the scenes. As the producer I’m always taking pictures and video. I always found behind the scenes stuff to be really interesting, so hopefully it will be a peek into what doesn’t make it on the live show.

I also post regularly to our 12Seconds.tv account and share my pictures on flickr.

Here is a short commercial I put together for the show and The Stream (our network):

You can find all clips on our brand-spanking-new YouTube Channel!

I’ve been so busy working, looking for jobs, working on the show, & trying to stay sane that I haven’t blogged in too long! Last week we started trying out some new stuff which we are going to call Rooftalk. We scouted out a great location on the roof of the studio we tape in. So after the show on Tuesdays we sneak up there for some fun laid-back interviews. None of it would be possible without Lawrence, the talented filmmaker behind The Indian Maiden, who happily hauls out his lights and camera to capture some cool stuff!

I set down my laptop and camera for a few minutes so that Stuart could interview me. We chatted about how I got into new media and what I think about it’s future, my future, and the show. Watching myself talk, I realize how many times I say “like” and “just”! Grrr gotta break those bad habits.

Check out Live! From the Future weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm on TheStream.TV. We are off for the next 2 weeks but will be back new and improved in widescreen after the break! We’ve also been working diligently on a new website which I will be super excited to unveil soon!