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She may have made it after all |
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Written by Dan England
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
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Abby Berendt didn’t look like many of the other girls in the Greeley West pom squad, and she didn’t act like many of them either.
She was, for instance, in theater. She had brownish-black hair. She loved to sing.
“I was always the weird pom-squad girl,” Berendt said.
Yet it was her time on the pom squad — and mostly the coach, Peggy Freemole — that stayed in her head as she chased her dream to pull a Mary Tyler Moore, move to New York (instead of Minneapolis) and make it there, after all.
When Berendt’s professors at Colorado State University told her to take her technical journalism degree to a small market like Boise, Idaho, and eventually move up, Freemole’s voice told her, ‘No, that’s not what you want to do.'
“(Freemole) was always telling us to do your best, and with some sport coaches, they say it’s OK as long as you do your best,” Berendt said. “She was, like, ‘No, if you’re going to do it, you’re going to take first.’ That gave me the drive to go to New York and follow my dream.”
In fact, pom-poms, and mostly Freemole, may be the reason why she’s traveling across the country, at age 25, with her fiancé and business partner of TeamJaded, Jeremy Lavoi, to film a documentary. She’s not willing to follow the line and do what she’s supposed to do. She’s doing what she wants to do, what she’s driven to do.
Her college professors tried to keep her away from New York, but her stint at CSU’s radio station, KCSU, led straight to it. She became a disc jockey and then music director, deciding what the station would play. And her contacts at record labels knew someone at Sony Records and MTV2, where she did internships. That led to her first job with Viacom in the promotions departments at TV Land and Nick At Nite.
She liked the gig and learned a lot, but she quickly became, well, jaded.
“All I was doing for TV Land was telling people when their show was on,” Berendt said. “I wanted to do something positive, something with more of a global effect to it. I’m not even sure I know how to say it.”
She moved to a well-paying job in San Francisco in August 2006 to Current TV, and she met Jeremy, so that was good. After completing a project, she was back in promotions, but this time she had a partner who wanted to make a difference, too. So they started TeamJaded, only they weren’t sure what they wanted to do with it — until they took a look at themselves.
“We both have this real sense of fun, with wanting to do it ourselves,” Berendt said. “We learned that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.”
So that’s what they started to film, people who followed their mantra and did amazing, creative things on their own, outside the mainstream.
“There were all these stories all across the nation,” she said.
On Sept. 15, they started driving to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York to film, with plenty of stops in between, from New Mexico to Ellinger, Texas, to New Orleans, where they just finished their last shot, four months later.
Well, their last shot for now, they hope. Tuesday, during a phone interview, the two were on their way back to San Francisco to edit the film and to make a 30-minute teaser they can use to solicit more funding and grants. Once they do that, they can make a full-length documentary and take it to festivals. They will also post clips on their Web site.
Berendt’s ambition might scare some parents in a sedated, smaller city such as Greeley, and it did make her parents, Hollis and Tim, a little nervous, until Hollis visited New York and was impressed by the city’s safe and inviting atmosphere.
So Hollis trusts Abby now, even if her life seems a little unsure. Hollis admits that she’s also a little confounded at Abby’s decision to quit her high-paying job in TV to travel the country, but she trusts her daughter.
“She’s always been really focused,” she said. “You have to trust that she’s made good decisions in the past. Plus, if she’s going to do anything like this, this is the time to do it.”
There are some things to do first before Abby finishes the film. She’ll marry Jeremy. The wedding is in October, so she also needs to take a good engagement photo. And they’re going to have to do some freelance work, so they can get some money to take care of themselves.
“Eating is good,” Abby said.
But after all that, and after they get some more funding, they want to find more inspiring stories about striking out on your own. She’s still not done with her own story, either. In fact, that one may never get finished.
“I can say I completed a goal,” she said. “I moved to New York. But I will always have a new goal to reach.”
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