i love knowing more about everyone here too! i got about half way through all the threads and hope to read them all soon!
I am Alana. some of you know me from the weekly "Dextersodes" we release as a hobby (if not, you can see all of them in the YouTube link in my signature bar)
i grew up in a small town in northern Ontario and moved to Toronto at 21 right out of college. i studied film production in school and minored in photography. i worked in the film industry for a while (biggest one i worked on was 16 blocks...a crappy Bruce Willis movie) but got out of the industry because i couldn't take the pretentious people...
i met my "husband" (common law) and we have now become "serial entrepreneurs.” When we started our first business and I quit my sales job to work for myself (such a scary thing to do!!!!), I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 25. Luckily we caught it early on and I only had to go through a few surgeries and did not have to do chemo or any other chemical treatments. Even with the stresses and hardships on my from the sickness, we created a successful business which grew to the point that we could no longer handle the amount of business it was supplying and we sold it within a year of start up. Since then I have been cancer free and we have started a few other successful businesses. We run an internet marketing/web design firm and he also runs an alternative health care clinic AND I am starting yet ANOTHER business in the photography field.
Film, writing and especially editing have been a passion of mine for a long time, but it is so hard to get grants, etc to get an actual film made. I knew I wanted to do something in the industry but wanted to do it on my terms. I started talking as Dexter to my husband and he kept telling me how funny it was and that I should really make a video of it and one day it just clicked. I love animals (dexter especially) and I am a fan of youtube..why not make videos of Dexter and post them! I was worried at the start that my husband and I would be the only ones to find them funny, but am amazed every day when people tell me that they think something I made was good, funny and/or entertaining. Unfortunately I have yet to make any money off of Dexter’s Ruff Life but it is my passion project and I literally can’t believe that he has soooooo many fans on YT, FB and YouTube. I am not a religious person, but I truly feel blessed to have a supporting husband that helps me shoot video of my dog talking to me and of every single person that has ever smiled from one of my videos! my goal has always been to bring a bit of laughter to a world that so desperately needs more of it. I want to bring awareness of puppymills to people also, but in the midst all of the terrible things going on in the world, we always need to take time to smile…no matter what.