Hi, I’m Christina!

I've been obsessed with movies, TV shows, and celebrities since I was a kid. I wrote a lot of fan mail to Jonathan Taylor Thomas, watched my favorite movies over and over until I could quote them verbatim, and made a lot of life decisions based on what my favorite TV characters would do. I always said I could define my current state of mind with a character + season of "Dawson's Creek" (i.e. when feeling like I'm on a wanderlusty path to self-discovery, "I'm so Joey Season Five today!") and when I watched the series finale I cried so hard I burst blood vessels in my eye. I got some really weird looks the next day at school.

My love for "Dawson's Creek" led me on my first filming location-hunting adventures. My friend Girl Alex and I made a pilgrimage to Wilmington, NC, to check out all of the "Creek" filming locations. We saw Dawson's family's restaurant, Leery's Fresh Fish, the site of Pacey and Andie's first kiss, and the wall Pacey bought for Joey in Season Three. We also took the Screen Gems Studios tour, which took us through some sets like Dawson's bedroom (we climbed through his bedroom window and recited lines from "JAWS" in his closet) and Joey and Audrey's college dorm room. We also got to see Pacey's boat, the True Love, and Mitch Leery's headstone (RIP Mr. Manmeat).

I loved the experience so much that traveling to filming locations became a hobby and an adventure, and in 2008 I founded Live The Movies, where I blog about my experiences and provide addresses and photos of filming locations, as well as themed playlists and party ideas. Living near Los Angeles for a few months in 2009 gave me the chance to explore the city, attend a lot of TV tapings, and discover PaleyFest, which I now try to attend annually. It's always one of the highlights of my year. Since starting Live The Movies, I've driven across the country several times, visited filming locations far and wide, and have met a lot of my favorite celebrities - and even interviewed Emmy winner Tony Hale, who portrays my favorite TV character Buster Bluth on "Arrested Development".

I grew up in Maine, the most northeastern state in the U.S. and about as far from Hollywood as you can get. Maine's got Stephen King, but we don't have movie studios. As I started becoming more adventurous and traveling to filming locations all around the country, I realized that you don't have to live near Hollywood to live the movies. You can plan vacations around the filming sites of your favorite movies, you can put movie- and TV-themed playlists on your iPod, you can host parties with your friends that have movie or TV themes, and even if you live in the middle of nowhere you are probably within of few hours of a filming location. Hollywood gets around, and they film on location all the time! I hope this site will eventually help you find a filming location near you, whether you live in Los Angeles or Louisiana, New York City or North Dakota. I mean, this happened in Maine:

Thanks for visiting LiveTheMovies! I hope you stay a while!