Hi, my name is Kyle Donovie. I actually met Amanda about two years ago when we decided
to work on a project together. For now, what we did is a few of us got together and we
wanted to share some stories and some memories of times that we had with Amanda, things she
said that inspired us or made us laugh or in some cases maybe made us cry. But all in all,
these interviews were for you, Amanda. This was people that got to know you in the last three
years in Chicago to tell you what they really thought of you. So this is for you. I first met
Amanda freshman year through my roommate. She was going to be my new roommate and yeah,
it was great. We hit it off. It was cool. I believe I was just sort of going around trying to make
friends on all the floors and she was one of the very few people that was really open enough
for me to just talk to her right away and just talk about DePaul, what we were studying. It
was after class and there were just a few people in the room and out of the corner of my ear,
I hear somebody like talking to me and I wasn't sure who was talking to me and she just started
talking about the project and then I was about to leave and then she just kind of asked for my
number and said we should talk because she didn't know a lot of females in digital cinema and I
mean I wasn't even a digital cinema major yet so she was actually the first film friend that I had.
And we went to this welcoming thing for the DC students and Amanda actually sat next to me and
during one of the breaks we just started talking and she said she was really interested in you know
cinematography and lighting and I had done some films before you know I was looking to start
networking at DePaul and me and Amanda exchanged numbers but it wasn't actually until a year and
a half later that we actually worked on our first project. We were assigned to a production two
class together to work in a group together and probably the biggest projects you know that you
do in your time at DePaul Meyer. We had a group that functioned so well because everyone added
so much to it and Amanda was like a huge part of it. Still to this day is probably the funness
experience I've had on set with with cast and crew and it really is because of the crew and Amanda
was a big factor in making it as fun and enjoyable as it was. The most memorable story from Lady
Nocturne and that I have of Amanda is us trying to work a study camp which is just basically a suit
that you wear that you attach the camera to. It sounds simple but me and her worked on putting it
on me for hours. It's called trial and error. I don't like it. It looks like it's working kind of.
Well okay. All right it's time I can get in. We were almost done shooting and I kind of got it to work
and they were like oh we're just not gonna use that anymore. We spent the entire day trying to get
this thing to work. Me and Amanda we may have disagreed a couple times but we never fought.
We never fought over anything. She was very well aware that she had a part in this production but
it was an entire family and she was very much aware of that and she made it very enjoyable to be
around and to be a part of her production because she was one of the people that really didn't make
it feel like a family. I mean this is known. She loved movies and she like loved to share movies with
us so we all got a membership to facets and like every week she would just bring us like two new
movies to watch like two foreign movies and just and she would just teach us so much just about
everything I learned so much from her. So we were like literally sprinting to the L and it was
torrential rain and then we we get to the L and then somehow film comes up because it's like her.
We both are interested in that so she started kind of giving me like this speech about you know
sticking with film and like how it's gonna be really hard how you know it's a male industry and
that you know I just have to like stick it out and if I really want to do that then I should do it.
The most amazing thing I you know thought of her was that she drove three and a half hours just to
do that one day shoot with us. I mean that would that really made us feel special and just showed
how dedicated she was to her craft and to helping out her friends. She drove three hours to come
and just do like my project and I just couldn't believe that she would do something like that. Like I
don't know if I would drive three hours to do a project I wasn't getting paid to do or you know
but she drove there and it turned out absolutely beautiful and I can honestly say that that was
like the best thing I think she's ever done for me and that'll always stay with me forever so.
I would love to work with her again on a set. I would love to be on set with her again because
she just has great ideas in times of crisis on set as we all do sometimes and she's a great kind
of calming voice and a voice of reason. Like she has the perfect mixture of like being focused on
her work and doing an amazing job and not taking herself too seriously. It was perfect and she would
work her ass off and do an amazing job. She taught me not to use adverbs as much but to use metaphors
when you're writing and that just enhanced the quality of the script so much. I mean my own
professor didn't even teach me that and she spent like a minute and was able to help me
transform the entire script. I like had to like hold up like the lighting things for her and all
this stuff but yeah so she ended up doing that and I helped her a little bit and got to see like
she really knew what she was doing was amazing. On one of those first few times I had hung out
with her. She was unpacking all her stuff at her house and I would see her running around doing
stuff and we just talked for a little bit and then me and Cory are sitting on the couch like
doing nothing like bored out of our minds and all of a sudden Amanda just screams salsables and
she's like yelling about how she has salsables and to me that was just like the cutest thing ever
because she was so excited that she brought salsables that she just had to shout it. She was
always cooking food that's that's one thing I miss too like we she just would always make us
things she made this sandwich with like you know since she was a vegetarian it was just vegetables
but it was just so good and I hate vegetables but she made me like now I love mushrooms I never
loved mushrooms before Amanda but I remember she did like voices she'd be like oh and she'd kind of
be like that like valley girl kind of s I remember she did that a lot like flipped her hair around
and she always looked so damn nice everywhere I'm like Amanda you dress so well like where do you
get all this stuff. Her and like either her scarf or her you know crazy necklaces or just her
really cool style and just her laugh is like something that anyone will remember. She's
also very distinguishable because she had like a deep kind of powerful voice and like Amanda's
coming around the corner. Here at the Paul University students wake up early for classes
located in Eilingen Park and Lube campuses. The university requires patient hard-working
individuals with a real motivation for learning. We pride ourselves with accomplishments such as
having the happiest students in the nation. She's just such a friendly person and it always
introduced her to people that I brought along she'd introduced me to her other friends that I
didn't know. She was a free thinker and you could tell that right away I mean she didn't follow
any kind of scripts she she was real and she was herself. She brought in was this huge five foot wide
peace sign over her shoulder and it was just covered in shiny sequined and fabrics and bright
colors and just different scraps of fabric tied together all around. We had to hang it up on
the wall this big wall we have and the apartment and it would kind of be like the first thing you
saw when you came in so that would be awesome. I was like that's awesome just like yeah my
cousin made it for me but I she had to she had to snap it in half to fit into her car so we had to
figure out how to fix it with gorilla glue and try and put it back together so but before she left
we talked about putting it up on our wall and her parents let us keep it so we're gonna put it up
and keep it there until we graduate hopefully. Usually when I do like film projects I just I
hate working with people and Amanda became one of the main people that I would want to work with
ever again. And I remember Amanda said to me she looked at me and she said you'll never be a
struggling artist if you believe in yourself and that was the best advice that I've ever had
gotten from anybody because it's so true you know if you believe in yourself you're never gonna
fail and Amanda knew that and you saw that in her work and you saw that in her attitude. I would
definitely say just whenever we got together afterwards it would be when you know we were just
separated about five minutes after she left she would always text me and just remind me that I
was a good person and none of my other friends you know reminded me like that so she just she
made an effort. She came over to my place to talk to me because she was having some problems and
she just wanted to talk about it and we sat in my bed and she looked at my bowls and board and I
don't know why she said this because she had already seen these pictures they were from the
Halloween before and it was a picture of me and her and there was other pictures up there and
then she looks at it and she's just like I'm really glad you have that picture of us up there
and I thought even at the time I was like why is she glad she's already seen this picture like a
million times and I'm like yeah me too and she's like yeah I'm really glad you have it there
and I just and after she died that's all I could kept thinking is that she just she wanted that
picture there and my mom says that was a sign that was her saying like goodbye to me like she came
to say like that's me looking out for you. I have so much more motivation and incentive to do things
because of her because like you know because she's not able to do them anymore and I feel like I now
have this responsibility to do things either for her or have her mind or be like you know what this
is you know this is kind of where we're heading this is where she would be heading and I just have
I guess I guess more appreciation for things. The one word I would use to describe Amanda is
inspiring, bubbly, slight, free-spirited, determined, sweet, beautiful, genuine, unique, compelling, spunky.
We were leaving class one day and we were just walking to the brown line and for those CDM majors
out there know that if you see the brown line coming from the street level you're probably not
going to make it if it's going to come into Adams and Wabash so she turns to me and we see a train
coming do you want to run do you want to go make it and I'm like okay so we start sprinting on
Wabash to to the train station and we actually make it to the platform and onto the train and
we're all like huffing and puffing and like laughing and we look up and realize it's the green line.
