My very first Premiere

I’ve been thinking lately about my job and whether it really is what I want to do. Do I want to spend the next two and a half years getting paid what amounts to just above minimum wage so that I can be an assistant director and union benefits? For the past year, I thought, yes, this is what I want to do. The pay sucks, and the hours are long, but that’s just something you accept. Acceptance is what makes you forget that you tend to have little social life outside of production. What I have noticed lately, however, is that I haven’t met an AD who loves their job. Not one. I hear about people who love it, but I haven’t met them. When people ask what I want to do, I still I want to be an AD in the future, but I say it with less and less conviction.

When I’m working I notice two things about the AD’s: 1) they usually are not happy and continuously stressed and 2) there bodies seem to breaking down day-by-day. One of my bosses is constantly hunched over, has bad knees and a bad back. He just looks like he is in bad shape. Others aren’t quite so bad and only occasionally do they complain about their ailments. I didn’t think it was an industry-wide thing until I went to the doctor last week. My right knee has been causing me quite of bit of pain lately so I decided to get it checked out. The result: I have some tendonitis. Not so fun. Now that I know that, I think, “Do I really want this to get worse from working on my feet for 14 hours a day?” I don’t know what really caused the pain, but I’m guessing it had something to do with work. Since then I have been fishing around at work to see what else is out there. Maybe work as a producer’s assistant and move my way up with a network or studio. Who knows? At least I have options.

Now we can move on to my flash with celebrities last week. On Monday we were shooting 6 blocks from my apartment all day. This meant that I could wake up about a half hour before work and walk to the campers in less than 5 minutes. It was awesome. Anyway, halfway through the day, while I was walking one of the main actresses to set, we started talking about what she had planned for that night. She said she didn’t know if she wanted to go out. I asked why. She said she was invited to a premiere for a film directed by the guy who is from Philadelphia and uses the city and its surrounding areas for almost all of his films, and that she didn’t have anyone to go with. I proceeded to take the opportunity to tell her that she shouldn’t be shy about asking me to go with her. I would be more than happy to take her to the premiere and all she had to do was ask. She laughed. I thought it was funny.

End Act 1.

The second act began with little over an hour left in our day (we were flying through the day and were, for once, ahead of schedule to get out while the sun was still out). While I was walking said actress back to her camper, I asked again if she was still thinking about going and she said she still wasn’t sure. I shrugged and smiled and didn’t even say anything. From that she said:

A- But you would have to get changed and showered.
Me- (without missing a beat) Not a problem, I live 4 blocks from here.
A- Really?
Me- Yep.
A- Hmmm, all right then.
End of Act 2.

The third act was after we wrapped and I was trying to cool down in the almost 100 degree heat that engulfed NYC. Everyone was just waiting to get home and enjoy a regular night. I needed to sign all of the actors out so I walked over to her camper to make sure everything was ok before she left. She opened the door dressed for the premiere and immediately was like “So do you want to go?” I think it took about 3 seconds to register what she was saying. Another second to formulate a response and then about 10 seconds of me fumbling with my words before I accepted. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! I was about to go to a Hollywood-style premiere. I was about to go to a Hollywood-style premiere. Stay calm. Stay calm.

End Act 3.

The rest of the night was pretty damn cool. I ended up getting changed and meeting back up with her to take a taxi to the premiere. It was being held at one of the museums in town and I was completely nervous for the first half hour I was around all of the other celebs. I was just waiting to be introduced and then have to say what I did for a living to these people. That never happened but I did meet some cool actors (and shake hands with my favorite director of all time). I contained my excitement. It was a great night. The movie sucked. And I went to a premiere with a famous actress.

(P.S.- Four days after this all happened, the same actress came to work and told me we should have just skipped the movie halfway through and gone to dinner with her friends. I said that I still had a great time. To which she responded with, “But you could have met my friend Maria Bello.” !!!!!!!)

I need to ask about Ray Bones

Aaaaaaaaaand I’m back! Another three week hiatus from the blog and I’m trying to get myself back into the routine of telling everyone what is going on. For those 6 people that are constantly refreshing their browsers to see if I have written anything new, I apologize. I have been away almost every weekend since my last post and the weekends are when I like to summarize the past week of events. Anyway, it’s good to be back and I have some good stuff to report.



New TV show, New People: For the past month I have been working on a new TV show for one of the big 3 networks. Very interesting stuff, long hours (as usual), and a faster tempo than film. As opposed to having three or four months to shoot a film, television crams an hour-long episode of work into 8 days. If you figure that films usually run from about 90 minutes to over two hours, 8 days creates a lot of pressure and high stakes to make something people want to watch. After having been out of the country for the first week of filming, I had to step in after the crew already got to know each other. For my first week, I was slightly nervous about the situation only because the guy who filled in for me was A) Very good at our job (he worked three years on ABC’s Hope & Faith) and B) he had already built up a great relationship with the actors.

Things have changed since my first week though. The guy who replaced me (we are good friends now) took a job with another show in town because they offered him health benefits. So now, I am the truly the one everyone goes to if they need something with the actors. (I should have mentioned earlier that once I came to work, the other guy became the 1st team helper but my bosses still went to him for about 40% of their information so that was a bit hard.)

As for the actors involved, they are mostly pretty nice. Compared to the last film I worked on where people were a little more demanding and less self-reliant, this show has been cake. #1 on the call sheet is someone you may have seen on HBO over the last few years on a series concentrating on death. He played the slightly off brother of a female main character who had dreams about him in a not-so-clean kind of way. Numero dos on the call sheet is a man who has been seen trying to catch a group of people stealing 50 cars in 24 hours as well as making sure he still has a stake in the script for “Mr. Lovejoy.” (Two separate films obviously.) 3 & 4 are slightly older actors who have had longer careers but haven’t been seen in much as of late. The male won an Oscar the year I was born but this is one of this first TV shows ever. Unfortunately, he has been the diva of the group, but there is always time for him to warm up to everyone. The female lead is on the opposite end of the spectrum in that she is mainly known for her work in television. She has won two Emmy’s for her work on a show that ran from the late 80’s to early 90’s and has also starred in a pretty crappy movie with Rosie O’Donnell on a Caribbean island.

Next up: a story about how I went to a major summer movie premiere…with one of the actors I work with.

Cheers.