Following her dreams to Los Angeles

Shannon LeClair  

Times Reporter

 

Arae Murdoch, a former Strathmore resident, has decided to follow a lifelong dream and move to Los Angeles. Murdoch is an actor, a dancer, a comedian, a choreographer and a writer. 

“I did three short films all before the New Year, and the last one I did I am really excited about. It’s about equal rights in gay marriage, but in the film it’s probably going to be under half an hour, maybe 20 minutes long, but I go from being a single woman, to getting married to a gay man so that he can stay within the United States, getting pregnant, having a baby and dying all within this 20 minute short film,” said Murdoch.

“So it was very challenging but it was a lot of fun, and I should be seeing the final cut within the next couple of weeks here which is also really exciting.”

The film, ‘The Family Journal’ was submitted to the Winnipeg Film Festival where it won the Best Narrative Short. 

The film is also being submitted to Outfest, a gay and lesbian film festival, and will also be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. 

The experience sparked a new passion in Murdoch, who is now busy learning everything she can about film.  

“For a long time I would listen to a lot of people that would tell me that I had to focus on one thing. If I put more energy into one thing obviously I’ll excel at that faster, that’s kind of common sense, but really I want to, it sounds cliché, but do it all,” said Murdoch.

“The big dream is to produce and act in and possibly direct films that I write. Movies are my main focus I think, but I would love to do TV and Broadway and keep choreographing and dancing. I have high aspirations.”

She grew up in the Expressions the Dance Gallery family; her mother Heather Thomas owns the dance studio here in Strathmore.   

“I did everything, I was a competitive dancer, and I taught for my mom for almost 15 years,” said Murdoch. 

She first visited L.A. when she was in her early teen years, and quickly fell in love with the trees, the sunshine and the magical allure of Hollywood. 

Murdoch said she was always drawn to L.A. and felt like it was somewhere she was meant to be but, for a long time she thought it just wasn’t possible, it wasn’t until she decided to just do it that everything fell into place. 

“I’m very lucky, I have been really blessed, my mom has always been very supportive of me pursuing a career in the arts,” said Murdoch. 

Murdoch has recently finished writing the draft of her feature length screenplay.

“I think my main focus in the next couple of months is going to be on stand-up (comedy) and possibly writing a short film to try and get produced along with the same lines of my feature film, so that it creates awareness and possibly a budget and funding for creating the feature film,” said Murdoch.