K. Avery Schael

Education

Equipment

My Equipment/Kit:

I can use:

About me

Every once and awhile, I daydream about if I could go back in time to talk to my 5-year-old self and tell her about what happens when we grow up. I imagine finding her at the dining room table in our grandparent’s house, quietly drawing while waiting for our mom to pick her up after work and take her home.

I would doodle with her as I tell her about how that job her mom just got at the airport would help make it possible for her to travel all over the world. In high school, she’ll find a friend who is better than a sister, who will sneak into concerts with her instead of going to prom. After that, she’ll go to a good college in a town that she’ll have to drive through five states to get to, and there she’ll use new pens in musty lecture halls and try things like photography and Portuguese. But the most important thing she’ll learn is that she loves making people laugh. And almost as important, she’ll learn that her favorite homework assignment will be writing a spec script in a television writing class she takes her senior year.

While both of those realizations will make her sign up for an improv class where she’ll really make a fool out of herself, they will also take her to Los Angeles where she’ll drive a golf cart in the backlot of Universal Studios to get Diet Cokes for executives between reading scripts that might turn into movies one day. She’ll read more scripts and watch movies, and read books on movies, and even write some scripts of her own. They won’t be good, but she’ll have fun doing them, and (just like with piano, clarinet, and French horn) with practice she’ll get better.

Then one day, she will find herself at a place where she never expected to get - to Sesame Street. Yes, that one. And yes, she’ll meet Cookie Monster. Yes, and Grover, too. We’ll both smile, but for different reasons. Hers will be in excitement for her future, and mine will be from thinking back on my time spent working at such a caring and giving organization, filled with the most kind and compassionate people, coming together to help make the world a little bit better than it was before.

After that my mind usually drifts back to the present. With freshened eyes, I take in the life that I’m building around me, and can’t help but wonder what it is exactly that I’m building towards.

On more than one occasion, I’ve wished for the future version of myself to appear, to help guide me in what I’m supposed to do next. I close my eyes, but no one ever comes. There’s only a voice. And that voice tells me to keep going. Keep trying. Knock on each and every door. Knock even though you will know disappointment. Even though you will know hurt. You will know heartbreak. Knock, because you will also know hope.

License & Passport

Skills

Secondary Job Title	Executive Assistant
Job Titles	Screenwriter, Script Writer, Script Reader, Production Assistant (PA), Production Support, Researcher, DIT / Data Wrangler, Props Assistant / Support, Art Dept Assistant, Marketing / PR, Receptionist, General Staff
Years in industry	3 to 6 years