Contact us
Back to All Posts

Local woman makes good in L.A. with award-winning videos, with Gizmo’s help

From “Puppies and Tiaras” to creating an award-winning web series, Jahnna Lee Randall has done it all as an actress, model and producer since moving to L.A. from the Star Prairie area a few years ago.
I met her when what was then the Twisted Grille in Hudson hosted a preview party of her stint on an MTV reality show, Meet Or Delete, where she swapped placeS with another model, from New York City, for a week, and it was all caught on camera (including her replacement’s awkwardness with cows). Randall was doing modeling in the Twin Cities at the time, and it led to an appearence on this show on MTV a few years back, and others like it.
All levels of Twisted Grille were packed with people for the preview party, and there also were cameras there from MTV and interviews done, readying for a follow-up broadcast.
Randall was wearing sometimes fuzzy, white-themed boots and sweater, and was the star of the show. This recollection I had recently led me to wonder, what’s she doing these days? That outfit from a few years ago could have been a clue.
Randall had developed her own film companies (yes plural), and her success in L.A. started with Puppies and Tiaras, which speaks for itself to a degree, and the video Fake Pocket Dial, both in 2012. In her full schedule, she spends her mornings auditioning, days filming and nights writing, she said. Often this work is in tandem with Gizmo the Chihauhau, as part of her film company Why Wait Productions, started after she dedided to move forward strongly and stop waiting for gigs to simply appear. “Why Wait” does videos in the style of series, short films and sketches.
Randall’s work has won five awards at film festivals for best web series. Most recently, a series of 11 shows called Dating Disasters began airing on Tuesdays via YouTube, and there still are a few installments left.
She currently is shooting a music video, which is bringing her back to Minnesota and Wisconsin for filming!

Share the Post:

Related Posts

  • I’ll be brief and punchy with this headline notation, as we transition to giving you more and sometimes shorter choices. And you may notice some of that as you beckon forward. It’s circular. Like a flush. Be careful what you mix, heads vs. text, drinks vs. food, and all kinds of potions — that may go bump in the night. —– Punchy, potentially, but I digress or progress with a new patriotic addition.
My mom has told me not to be a potty mouth when I write, as she certainly would not appreciate hardly any of the standup humor on say, Comedy Central Radio. SNL maybe. But after 11:30 p.m. … But there comes a time where a man must make a stand. And for this jokester, it was now when he had to choose whether to pass on the opportunity that would otherwise bite him in the butt, for in front of and behind him is the Mother Lode. Or should I say load. Or “Mothers” of Invention. Heh heh, heh heh, Butthead, look...
Read More
  • This coulda been Vanna White’s next Big gig In The Sky, if the scaffolding was not so high. So this is how the project went, by the letters and numbers, of get Trump’s name erased from the Kennedy Center. The $250 bill might be tougher. Sad but true. So, What are there more of going on right now, wars or Trump pet construction projects?
So the wall is down. Of letters, that is. Not down by Mexico. Cemented into the concrete. Of the Kennedy Center. Where music has sat. (Near where a now defunct wrestling arena rusts in peace. Or a bloodied White House lawn. With leftover paper cups and plates, more likely bowls and small utensils, anyone?) Or more ornate than inside? A tarp the size of Pennsylvania, the predominant battle state, covers workers as they chip. So geez, how big are the letters? Four times 50 living workers high? But now none remain, or so we are told by flunkies. Or is...
Read More
  • Stressed out as a caregiver? She’s back at yah. This is a rare case of a husband and wife being joint caregivers — for each other — aided and abbetted by the fact that they have a lot of the same disabling conditions. So she shovels snow using a walker/scooter, while he cooks gingerly using a microwave and offers her a plate when she sits down, in an easy chair, in a reversal and new take on traditional roles. Whatever it takes. Necessity is the mother of invention. —– In a new add, Towns and the champion Knicks got kicked around but still got their kicks in the long run … As do Norwegian dancers.
A few years back, I wrote an article about Hudson Deacon Tom Kroll and how he did so many extra dutiful tasks, his living out the Gospels tirelessly, when his wife was ill, in addition to his regular job. I was inspired at the time to pen this, about my own lovely, disabled wife — we were separated briefly but now back together with our 40th anniversary this month, as wholehearted caregiving has many strains — and how an atypical view of standard roles, out of necessity, made things work, as far as our approach to work and home that’s...
Read More
  • He says, and goes fishing with the boys. She says, then goes to the middle of Texas, inviting her mates to a ranch/villa built for the ages. The bachelor and bachelorette parties were on the same night, but though very different, they had some things in common … like the snakes, at least three kinds, to avoid. (None with exotic dancer.) But while away, they did not avoid each other, completely. He made a phone call. —– Just added, last call included a Carolina cowpoke.
What do fishing, maybe in the dark, thus a Texas ranch, snakes of various types and do they come or stay out after dusk, eating either and only fine food or snacks, and a game of cards — likely just one each — have in common. And no strippers or Chippendales. And an only half or quarter, not full Monty. (Who is Monty anyway?) Or cowboy or cowgirl hats. Although there was some dress-up. More Barbie than boots on, I think. It’s an easy answer, connected and conflicting, but not in all or dirty ways, bachelor and bachelorette parties. One of each...
Read More
  • Full metal jacket? Hey, I wasn’t exactly to the point of going Rob Halford. But tastes aside, there must be some reason why after 26 years I was shunned, like going Bob Daisley by Ozzy at his reunion? OK, I know, my style may not have fit with the packed crowd. And the last couple of times for this, I tried to do too much with ad-libbing. So yeah, I get that this time around, I was the somewhat unusual choice to be the one left off the set list, with singers clamoring to get up there. But seriously, just being analytical of strengths and weaknesses as a singer here, no hard feelings. I’m not Dio. (Or Traveling Wilburys, a when jumping inside, inside joke.)
It was clear to me at the most recent Jeff Loven music show in Hudson, for Memorial Day weekend, that there has been a changing of the guard. The sword has been passed. New blood, like Yungblud, has been brought in. And, I must say, loyalty — amongst the devotees who travel frequently and all across the two-state area to virtually all of Jeff’s shows — has been rewarded. They are the royalty, in what just makes good business sense that I can appreciate. In a significant but not unprecedented altering of course, I was not one of those asked...
Read More
  • Songs by Napalm Death? A fire swept down my very street today, where the babies were burned. (But alas, a new A/C unit is on its way up the freeway.) The Stones did not leave these themes unturned, either, or should I say unrolled. Oh wait, this all was my cooker of an apartment, and we are not talking the kitchen. But all these matters will become more pressing, a pressure point, as the new normal especially in southern climes is temp well into the triple digits. It is these people, the third world, and their heat stroke not mine, that most concern me. (Another example of hellfire temps just added. Sin after Sin.)
Trial by fire. My broiling heart in my efficiency flat still beats a bit, in concern over those boiling over in worse apartments in a Chicago tenancy, or on an ocean island instantly-burn-your-feet beach or dessert, or forced to endure ice baths just to keep cool — or simply be offered no way to maintain an ice-dripping body other than also read a non-cookbook at the library, or select not a big steak you can’t afford but a 73/27 burger from a freezer and slap it on your forehead. Just not too hard. All these things are ones where you especially today either burn or...
Read More
Scroll to Top