Blog instructions

Hi all!  I'm new to blogging and hope to update soon with a vlog with my documentary footage.  For now, start at the oldest blogs and work your way up to read things in order. I hope that helps.  I read my diary from the time and wrote these and edited them and posted them. Next time I'll try to post more in order, but again, it could still be "backwards".
Have fun!  See you on the Big screen!

Next

The next day I slept in. Then went back to the temp agency. My day job fired me, of course for missing a week, even if I faked sick.  My dad was proud that I made the movie but astonished that I let my job go.  Silly Dad, day jobs are for losers.  Plus, the temp agency got me a job right away, for that whole week. 

I went to the film processing plant and walked into the wrong projection room. Interesting alien movie. Then I found ours.  The director was not happy to see me, but I knew I had the right to be there. The owner told me it had never been a problem.

I loved seeing the footage. “My” movie on the big screen. It looked amazing – so big and beautiful and real.  It was weird to see someone I kissed on the big screen. My bodyguard looked cool, even if he did “kill” someone in that scene.  I also noticed how handsome the lead actor looked. All week we chatted a tiny bit, and he ran around looking like a normal human. But on screen, with the 35 mm footage, perfect lighting, and make up, he looked like a God.  Movie magic.

More magic happened as we left the projection room. The director and other woman producer actually talked to me. She asked how I was doing. Wow, maybe she is just a Set Bitch, I thought.

The next day it was back to work – another day job. It was at a relaxed plastic company. I just had to answer the phones which only rang in the early morning and afternoon. So I read the magazines the old receptionist had left behind.  I instantly made friends with two employees. One had been a child actor on a big show.  The other also was in the biz – an actress.  They were impressed that I was a producer.

I also started working on my next project.  I was going to travel all around the country, making a documentary on Native American reservations. It was really just an excuse to travel, but I did want to see the issues on each reservation. It has always been an interest of mine and I was finding a true fact: have camera, will travel.  Every day I called reservations throughout the country to ask if I could come film and interview. I also typed up letters and sent them off. I was overwhelmed by all the details but I had to keep moving. Next is the word in show biz, according to producer Lynda Orbst (whose book I was reading at this time).

I also had one last job for the movie. I called everyone to invite them to the cast party. The lead actor, normal by day, God on the screen, thanked me for my nice smile and making him feel welcome on the set. Made me feel good. Since then I’ve seen him on some well known movies and TV shows. I wonder if he remembers my smile.

The cast party was fun. The grumpy DP gave me a hug hello. Now that the stress was over, we all could relax. I didn’t do more than niceties to the director and other producer woman since I still didn’t trust. But the producer I recruited and I had a long funny conversation. The God/actor made me crack up too. I had a great time, just being social with everyone I had spent a week with making my first flick.  My bodyguard never showed up though, and I took it personally.

He called and had a good excuse. We arranged to meet for him to read for a role in my movie. The script was getting better and as part of my weekly screenwriting class, I was arranging a reading of the script and inviting everyone in the biz.  So, of course, as an actor, he wanted a part of that.

He came over and sat on my porch and read the part. He wasn’t that great – still new at this acting thing. He was tall – 6’6 and had a non-speaking role in the short film.  But I figured I’d let him have the part since it was just a reading and he could learn to act, I thought.

After we did the script talk, we talked more about our lives.  I asked if he had many serious girlfriends.

“Just one”

“Did it hurt when it ended?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” I sighed, thinking of all the lingering pain from my break up that was slowing fading to black.

“We’re still together.”

“What? Is it still serious? Are you going to get married?”

“We are married.”

My head was spinning.  Married? I kissed a married man. Oh no, that’s not me.

“You’re married? You didn’t think of that before you flirted with me? Before we kissed?”

He went on about how she was out of the country for a month and he was allowed to cheat. Whatever. I soon ended the conversation and told him he had to leave.

“Will I still be able to do the part?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Then I realized I was one of those producers. He thought he could sleep his way into a part. Okay, I wasn’t going to be like that. I promised him the part for the reading. That he could do. But no relationship. I don’t do the cheating thing, no matter how lonely I was in LA.

A week went by and I organized for the documentary road trip, the reading, and had some great breakthroughs for the script I was writing. A woman I met months ago looked like what I was thinking for the main character. She was a sweet woman from South Carolina and she happened to be an Indigo Girls’ fan. I had met her at a concert where I went to do research on their fans. I interviewed people before they went into the concerts up and down the coast. And in the process scored free tickets to the show in San Diego, snuck in at Santa Barbara, and bought tickets for LA. I became a Gohead in the process of writing about Goheads.

Anyway this girl was like an angel. She was an actress and writer so I knew she’d be great. My Gohead angel even found a friend who loved the film and happened to have produced the biggest grossing movie that spring.  He brought us to the Lilith Fair so he could learn more about the Indigo Girls. We had fun riding in the back of his convertible as he put his hand on the knee of his new, young girlfriend. He was a real producer – balding, in his 50s, flashy car, pretty girl.  We didn’t mind being along for the ride.

I got to see my first Lilith Fair. But true to my LA life, it was about my career. Schmoozing the producer, and sending scripts backstage for the Indigo Girls to read.  I told them it was still a work in process but I plan to make the feature film the following summer. I know they got the scripts because a few weeks later, Amy Ray (half the duo) sent a letter to me about it.

July 14^th

I wrote in my journal “Years ago people in France got their heads cut off today. I’m running around like it already was.”  I was busy.  I had sent out all the letters and didn’t get many responses but would check my voice mail from the road to follow up, and make calls to get interviews with Tribal Governments throughout the country.  We were leaving anyway. Nothing could stop me. I wanted out of the city, the traffic. Plus I wanted to do my own project. A documentary.

Another day, another day job. I got to stay more than a week at the plastic company but they got mad when instead of reading magazines (appropriate for a receptionist), I was folding my business letters and stuffing envelopes to the tribes.  That’s not okay apparently. Maybe it looked like competition. I didn’t get it. The phone wasn’t ringing. I filed every possible paper. There was nothing to do. As long as it looks like you are reading a fashion magazine and not doing real business, then it’s okay. Whatever. I was going out of town and doing my real career anyway.

I even ran around to find a camera for the documentary. Back then, 1998, digital cameras were still new, but big and expensive. Brett told me a Sony XL1000 would be my best bet so I got that.

I picked up my friend, Arnold, who was the only pal across the world who took up my invitation to drive around the country. He’s from Minnesota. I met him when I studied there to be a teacher.  He’s a part of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (aka Chippewa).  He’s also gay and he was interested in meeting other gay men on the road, especially ones in long term relationships. To be inspired, to have hope. In the small town area where he was from, out and long term relationships were rare occurrences.  He also wanted an adventure before he left his life time home of Northern Minnesota and took up an invite from another friend to move to Eugene, Oregon.

I was happy to have him along. I didn’t want to go by myself. We had fun hanging out in Minnesota but I wondered if we’d get along. It ended up he was the perfect road buddy. We never fought. He never got on my nerves.

I picked him up at his brother’s house where he had stayed for a few days.  We got the camera and watched the guy give us a tutorial. Then we were excited to film ourselves driving around LA.  We were amateur filmmakers but ready to roll.

We spent the afternoon in Santa Monica by the beach.  A photographer I had befriended on a film set took pictures of us which I would use later for publicity.  Even my dog, Mandolina, was in the publicity package since she was coming with. She loved all the smells throughout the country but not the heat in the southwest. She was a golden/collie mix and her deep fur didn’t mix with Texas heat.

The second day that Arnold was at my house wasn’t good for him. He had some weird rash and I brought him to the Pasadena hospital. They had no idea what he was talking about when he said he had health coverage through the tribe. That pissed me off. California has the highest population of Native Americans (thanks to the weird relocation policy of the 1960s).  How could they not honor this right to free health care?

So I drove him to another hospital downtown where the wait was forever which was never. I picked him up later that evening (I had another temp day job) and went back to the Pasadena hospital where after 4 hours they finally saw him and gave him penicillin. I was not impressed. The good thing was a guy sitting next to us in the waiting room was in a band and he said he’d play at my party the next day.

I had a party to try to raise funds for our trip. I made a lot of food and tried to charge for it like a feminist party I went to earlier that spring for a brigade to Cuba. But I was so behind in my phone calls that I didn’t invite people in time. We had a few people and it was fun, esp. jamming to the band that we didn’t realize we needed a permit since their sound echoed throughout the valley. 

We also had another event before we left. The reading of my screenplay. I sent invitations to agents, producers, and distributors but wrote the wrong address. We sent some of the actors to wait at that nearby theater but no one showed up. I, and the actors, were disappointed.  So we had two women who had heard about the script through the venue where we were actually holding the reading, and my writing teacher. Oh well, I learned a lot. The actors had good comments about how to improve it. I got a taste of directing. And I got to see it come to life, even if they were just sitting down.

And one more thing before we left.  The producer I had recruited called me to say that they wanted to meet with me to talk about credits. I thought, okay, I’ll give them the list of all the people I had recruited and the proper spelling of their names to thank them all for their volunteer hard work.

I was wrong.

It was at the other woman producer’s house and immediately I should have left. It was her, the guy I recruited, and the director. I handed over the list of everyone’s names, and phone numbers (aka crew contact list) but they proceeded to tell me that it was about me. I wasn’t going to get writer’s credit. The final blow. The one I feared most.

We argued back and forth and Arnold sat on the patio listening, smoking. I wanted to tell him to turn on the camera which we still had in the box, to get this down. I knew it was breaking my heart and meant something.

The worse part wasn’t even the loss of credit, the one thing I wanted most and they knew it.  It was that the director accused me of embezzlement. I was shocked.  I’m not a thief. Plus I didn’t even have access to any of his money. I spent my own on some of the food, ice, and snacks. Plus on the PA boys who since they left to stay at the director’s, their mom had stopped the check she had sent to cover some of their food and all. So those trips to the restaurant were on me. I mentioned that.  But the director said that since I had sent out a fundraising letter (which he urged me to do), that money was his. I told him I got three checks for $20 and that the letter also mentioned my documentary and the movie I wanted to make next summer so at best he gets a third which I already spent on the PA boys and their dinners.

I was scared. Embezzlement is such a scary word.  Later I photocopied the checks, even the cancelled one (which I had to pay a bank fee on for some reason because she choose to cancel it), and sent the proof to the director that I was not a thief.

They laid on other accusations. That I didn’t work hard enough because I fell asleep once. I laughed, I had a photo of the PAs asleep.  They said I should have defeated my body’s urge for sleep and drive on just like the producer I hired did, and got in a car crash. I had given up enough for this dysfunctional film – my job, my sanity, my dignity, I didn’t need to total my car too!

Yet they had proved all my doubts. They were untrustworthy. They had used me. Or rather, the director had used me and found people to be on “his side.”  It was my first Hollywood experience with a liar and a credit stealer. I knew it happened, I just didn’t know it happened so quickly (less than a year out in LA) and by people so low on the totem pole. It was just a short film by a beginner! I thought this was something that happened to people by A list people, not Z!

I later felt badly for Arnold. He was there to hear the argument. He was there to console me on the drive home. But as we drove out of town he kept hearing and hearing about it as we met up with my friends throughout the country. I don’t think I even started to give up talking about it until Minnesota.  I also called a lawyer and hired him. He wrote a mean letter to the director to say he promised credit and that’s like pay.  It did nothing and the lawyer said the next step was a lawsuit which started out at $1500. The letter was only $300. I dropped it. Why waste any more time and money on this guy.  I was already on the road making my documentary. I was moving on, literally.

And, action!

The first shooting day came and went. At first it was exciting. Watching all the hustle and bustle. I got to see the faces of some of the people I had only talked to by phone but convinced them to work for us, for free.  A wanna be actor from one of my temp jobs even came on as a PA to get set experience. He made me feel good about myself when he looked around and said “Wow, you put all this together?”  Yeah, I did.

It was a slow moving day since most people were in Grip Class 101.  It was a first day for most so they had to learn how to deal with and use the equipment.  Free people come with a price – inexperience.

The best part is when my father came on the set. He was in town for a business meeting and even he was proud of me, seeing my work at work.  It was rare that I ever felt he was proud of me.  He did joke that there must be a rule that you had to be under 30!  Inexperienced people in Hollywood tend to be young.

My cousin from film school took a photo of us.  Right after the flash, I went to introduce my dad to the other producer but she barely came over to meet him. After my dad left she was smoking and again she barely acknowledged me. I was pissed. How dare she just stop speaking to me after all these months?  Later my film school cousin, Brett,  said he thought she was cold and weird. Okay, maybe she wasn’t just weird to me.

I helped pick up the catering which was made by the smoking cold producer’s aunt.  She made food from the Philippines which we quickly found out the grips hated.  All the vegetables didn’t keep their grunt work energy needs up.  But her aunt said something interesting to me. She asked if the other produer had eaten her rice yet.  Hmh, maybe that’s why she was grumpy. The aunt said people from the Philippines have to eat their rice every day. It also made me wonder if that’s why she only wanted things done the same way – same menu item, same meticulous way to make a movie. Perhaps.  (This is also a good example of a lesson my prof at UCLA Extension told me about producing – always fire the caterer after the first week since the crew complains about them, it makes you look like you listen and care but you know ahead of time, they always gripe about the food).

I dropped off the film to the developers. Not as bad as I thought. Plus, all the driving around gave me time to make more calls to get our crew needs for the rest of the week.  Free people don’t take off all week from work!  (unless they are suckers like me, but I was getting paid with having my name as writer, right?) 

At the end of the shoot I still had calls to make but I ditched them all to have fun. My Canadian travel friend and my film school cousin, Brett and his buddy and I went out to eat. I had pure fun. Something that hadn’t happened in awhile.

When we got back to my place, someone over 30 arrived. A man with a van who heard my radio announcement in Santa Cruz. He looked around at my rustic place which I thought was a quant home but others thought was a dump. He said I had the biggest balls to invite people here and to do this movie for free. But he also added he was happy to have the chance to help on the set. He slept in his van which he parked on the huge property. I got the place for the acres – for the dog. I didn’t care about the porch where I lived but everyone else didn’t like the cots and floor so much. The PA boys who had helped me all week and complained with me about the director were now sleeping at his house and, I felt, turning against me too. Okay, they stopped talking to me too but I couldn’t blame them for wanting a real bed no matter how young they were.

The second and third day of the shoot got more and more moody. The director and woman producer weren’t talking to me and it seemed like the whole crew was grumpy. I was feeling used, having to do all these PA type of jobs running around buying things, dropping film off, picking videos up, then giving them to the editor to make a rough cut. It was taking so long that I couldn’t even give the tapes to the editor until 10pm and I felt badly that he had to wait so long.

The next day at midday when I brought back some tapes he gave me to show the director, the other woman producer asked why I didn’t hand over all the tapes. I gave some of the ones the editor said were “negative stuff” to the man producer I had recruited.  She said that was unprofessional to not know what they were, that producers were supposed to know that type of thing. I said “Well if you would talk to me and tell me these things. That was the deal. You were supposed to help teach me about films since you’ve been on sets before and I’m new at this.”

She said, “People change”.

Brett’s pal said that was code word for her being a bitch. I really liked this guy!

Word got around that we were having “producer wars.” I was starting to feel like a rebel. A teenager again, mad at my parents. Now mad at the other producers and director.  I even took a bong hit when one of the crew was passing it around at the end of the shoot. I hadn’t done that in years but I wanted to be bad. But since it had been years I coughed and choked it all up.  And as I waited for the producer I recruited to give me back my cellphone so I could make more calls, I fell asleep for 15 minutes.  I had nothing else to do.  A few days later on our night shoot, I’d take a picture of the PA boys fast asleep for hours.  This would be important later.

Day four went better. I came late though since my landlord was upset about all the people camping out and cramming into my living space. I cleaned up a bit. I had forgotten his warning months ago about smoking. There was a huge dry hill behind me and that could have gone up in smoke in these California hills. So I cleaned up the butts and ashes and made a “no smoking” sign.

I dropped by the set and saw what we needed and ran back out again for some prop food and the ice for the day.  I brought that back and enjoyed watching an outside scene being filmed. It was more exciting than the indoor scenes, maybe because I could see it all. Plus it had a shooting. Now I saw why so many action movies were made. More fun than dialogue scenes.

The two men playing bodyguards were in that scene. I really liked them. They were always nice to me. Finally getting respect as a producer.

I ran over to deliver the film footage. I found the owner and asked if I could watch the dallies. He said that is never a problem and never was one. Aha, the other producers and director had lied to me when they said there wasn’t enough room for me in the theater and that the company wouldn’t let me. I knew it.  This was a strange “war.”

I went to the hardware store to get the four light bulbs they needed to light a scene. I should have written it down. They had said four rolls of film to get at the place that sells movie film, and six light bulbs. A little mistake but on this set, that was a big deal.

I returned to the set and the other woman producer was so mad about the light bulbs that she actually took me outside the gate of the property and talked to me.

“I’m only going to say this once” and she proceeded to tell me how disappointed she is that I couldn’t find a dolly grip and that’s why she wasn’t talking to me. I pointed out that I found almost all the other crew members but that one just wasn’t easy to find a freebie.  Dolly grips have actual experience and want to get paid.

“People are complaining about you.”
“Really, so are they about you.  They say you are rude and these people volunteering are going to leave because of you so I wouldn’t listen to what people say” I retorted.

Then we went on and on. I said how they all seem against me and it doesn’t matter what I do. She didn’t care.

She left. I ended up crying from the stress and the mess it had all become.

That’s when I found out who my friends were. The man with the van gave me a hug, the Canadian traveler said she still can’t believe I don’t walk away – I could’ve the day before and even kept my day job. Now so many days off the job I was sure to be fired.

I had to run out again to do more errands.  As I left, Brett saw me all puffy faced. He gave me a big hug.  And one of the bodyguards saw me but I quickly put on my sunglasses so he didn’t notice. Just gave me a big “How ya doing?’

I was crying at first as I drove away. Then I got pissed.  I realized they were not good people. Not honest. Playing power games.  I made myself feel better – I’ve made this movie, I’ll make more. This is not the end.  I was put on this Earth to make movies and I will.

Back at the set, I stayed far away from the house indoor set and just cleaned up around the catering area. The woman with a van also from Santa Cruz made my day. She said the minute she met the director she knew he was a rich, slimy salesmen. Which he is – he sells stuff for film sets – his day job.  She saw that he didn’t have a creative bone in his body but sees that I am 100% creative and that’s why they used me.   She also noticed that he hasn’t been running the show but the AD and DP were. 

As I calmed down and the crisis was fading, I just watched the next scene being filmed. It was dark now and the bodyguards had to ride up in an old 1958 Mercedes. It would look great on film but in reality the diesel fuel was killing the actors. Take after take they went back into the car to breathe the poison. 

I watched them get in and out of the car. As one bodyguard walked by (the one who gave me the how ya doing earlier), he looked right at me. I said “Hi” and realized, “Wow,  I’m attracted.” After that, I joined in on all the flirting that had been going on all week.

Brett and my traveling pal from Canada liked each other.  Matthew was flirting with the two cute women make up artists. One PA who was middle aged was falling in love with the location owner and later they moved in together.  Even the woman producer was sitting on the director’s lap.  Love was on the set.

Before one take, the other bodyguard gave me a kiss on the cheek. As “my” bodyguard got into the car he said “I was gonna do that.” 

The next in between takes, the kissy bodyguard asked about another woman on set. I said she was in her 40s. I then said, “Is the next question, is she single?” He said yes.  My bodyguard said it’s good to know. I volunteered “I’m single.”  He smiled and got back into the car.  I didn’t realize that he never gave me his status.

There were only two days left of filming. The bodyguards came by on our second to last day. I only had one errand to deliver film and I had to wait for the film so I just literally sat around and flirted with my bodyguard. We talked and talked sitting on the porch in the bamboo set chairs. I didn’t care that the director walked by and gave me an evil look. I was the rebel, and it was my time to flirt . I deserved a set love interest too, everyone else had one!

That night went long. I snuck in a short nap between errands. But as we went on and on into the night, the PA boys camped out with sleeping bags and dozed off for hours. I thought it was funny and snapped a photo.

In the early morning, after the bodyguards had “wrapped” filming, my bodyguard gave everyone a hug goodbye. He asked me to walk him out to the car and I said sure. That led to kissing goodbye leaning on his car. I felt funny – the producer making out with one of the actors right across from the set. 

The last day the director was actually even nice to me. Maybe because the other woman producer was gone, and it was the last day. When it ended I was so excited. I had made my first movie!  I had an amazing, happy, relief, pride, exhaustion, joy and fear of the future feelings after nine months.  It was over. I made it. But as Linda Orbst said in her book He Lied, “Next”.  I had to keep moving, go onto the next thing, which I vowed, would be my own projects unless I was paid. I didn’t know then that paid didn’t mean problem or problem people free.

The filming ended and I had to rush to the airport so my Canadian pal could fly home.  She was sad to leave, not the filming, but her set romance – Brett. She wondered if it’d work long distance.  The day before my Canadian cousin got a ride to the airport. Everyone was leaving town, the vans returned to Santa Cruz.  I was sad to see them all go but happy that Brett decided to stay and try his luck in the film biz.  He and his buddy had already rented an apartment. I’m glad I had the opportunity to get all of them their “big breaks” in the biz. It was disappointing that I had opened my house to the PA boys but on the set all they did was join the director’s camp and bad mouth me. I decided not to help out so much in the future, at least not to strangers.  There is something to be said for pulling yourself up and working hard – makes you appreciate it more. 

I returned back to the set to help clean up. It took forever. They took down the set house they built and I helped pack up the wood. I swept the whole area and even cleaned the bathroom that was designated for our crew. The owner of the house was appreciative. I wanted to be a responsible producer and be nice to the location and leave it as we found it. 

I left at 11:30 PM. Almost no sleep but I was happy. As I drove down the freeway through the smog, I smiled. I had made my first movie. LA was my city, and I was single, strong, and living the dream.

This is Hollywood, we don't always get what we want"

“This is Hollywood, we don’t always get what we want”

That was the director’s motto.  I wonder if we ever get what we want in Hollywood.

I was getting tired and annoyed with my day job. Maybe it was just a way to calm my anxious feelings that I was going to get fired for taking off a whole week to be sick, i.e. make the movie. Whenever there was a problem with our detail computer entry work, I was like “whatever, I’ll leave these day jobs to the common people. Let them fester in their cubicles, I’m off to be a real movie producer.”

But I did want to go off in a big bang.  The office was part of a nationwide business and the emails connected us to all of them. Before I left I wanted to send out a mass email to everyone about the documentary I planned to make that summer on a big road trip with a friend from Minnesota. I figured I’d use the job to find some people to put us up for a night or two. Get something for all my pain and suffering, though they did pay well and provided a great schedule for me.  Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this kinda work, or any real work.

I actually took off an afternoon from work for a real doctor visit. Just an annual check up at the OB/GYN.  After the exam, I told him I was producing a movie. He then let out his movie stories. He had met some big stars and well known producers because his daughter dated their sons. He said they all have big egos. I thought “is this the way it is out here – it never ends!”  My little director had an ego already and the big guys had one. I was feeling more like I should just leave all these boys alone and make movies with only women.

The next day I also got to leave early from work. This time it was the movie world crashing into my real world. I had written down that my cousin from Canada would be arriving on Friday, but it was Thursday so one of the PA guys staying at my house paged me with a “911” code and I called back to realize my mistake. The manager let me go get him.  Sweet!  There was no traffic at that hour.

I thought Matthew would be mad at me, wandering aimlessly around LAX. But he had a big smile. Since the traffic returning home was impossible by that time, we walked around the beach. We talked about how we both got to the career decision of making movies.  But then I realized I was tired of talking about movies after months of studying and preparing to make one.

He did say that some people focus on their careers to avoid themselves inside. I wondered, is that me?  Am I so driven only to avoid the emptiness inside I still feel after the big breakup? Or because I need direction after my dream of marriage and babies were destroyed?

I enjoyed talking to Matthew and having family around. I hadn’t hung out with him since we were kids both visiting our grandparents on Long Island. But he was the little brother of Kim, the cousin my age, so we didn’t pay too much attention to him. Now he was all grown up, but just barely. In his early 20s.

That night there was a 10pm meeting for the movie. These late night meetings were bad for me. And I realized this movie was bad for me. At the meeting they said my duty would be to bring the film stock to the processors. I couldn’t believe it. I had written the script (before the director lied and gave it to another writer to rewrite), I had slaved away for 9 months to be a producer and all they are making me in the end is a PA!  I yelled that to them and they all said I was being crazy. Even the two PAs I was sheltering in my house and giving them the opportunity to be on a set right away (it took me months to get on an actual film set, remember) said I was “overreacting”.  At the other short film production, I got to do wardrobe, and props, not run around like a gopher.  I figured it was only next week, I’d survive and hopefully still keep my credit on screen as writer and producer but things weren’t looking hopeful.

On Friday I sent the email out to all the offices around the country and some people wrote back like, “why did I get this?” it was so out of the blue. Other co-workers were excited for my big email and big goodbye. I kept in touch and some helped out later in future films.

Sunday morning I was nervous. It was show time. The movie was starting. The day before we went to the set to prepare for the production. Now I had more of the crew I had “hired” (all volunteers and the Director promised them beer but like everything he promised, it never materialized.)

I had gotten all the people all this film to work for free. I didn’t get the DP but the other producer I got got him so in away I got him. The only people the director found were the drugged out sound guys who okayed sound as an old Mexican man walked by on the corner ringing the bell for his ice cream cart.  I even had two strangers from Santa Cruz who drove down in their minivans (good for lugging equipment and the food that another producer’s mom made but everyone ending up hating because it was exotic foreign food and too many vegis for the hard lifting work of the crew guys).  They were both middle aged but nice as could be.  And I had another cousin come out, a year after film school in Virginia, Brett, and his buddy. Plus a woman I had met in Ireland, also from Canada.  She read my fundraising letter and offered to help since she too wanted in on filmmaking.

The set was exciting to me. Not because it was a set but because I had written the first script. I had taken the idea and made it into dialogue and something real. Now I got to walk around the creation. Here was the house, looking like a general’s mansion. And the director had cousins in construction so they built a house, with no roof, for us to film everything from every angle and use sunlight.  I was walking around. It was real. It was exciting. My creation was alive!

almost ready for our close up

Things weren’t getting better on my short film project.  The day I helped out in wardrobe some freak thing happened with the world’s satellites and all pagers and cellphones turned off. So the Director yelled at me on my home phone message machine about me not returning his calls. Later he calmed down when I told him all pagers weren’t working in the whole wide world. But I was getting tired of his moods and felt like he was blaming me for every communication problem and tension in the project. I could tell it was a dysfunctional atmosphere and swore never to get involved with that again. Ha! This is Hollywood.

Things got crazier, fast. The shoot was coming up. The Director lost the AD I had set up and all my calls were getting nowhere. Then he lost a deal for free film stock and somehow that stressed me out – realizing it would cost more money we didn’t have. But he ended up buying it and luckily his dad had a successful store so money soon would flow and flow to vendors.  He even had a new checking account with the production company name on it, but only he could sign for it. I didn’t care, I wasn’t in this for the money, but for the experience and the writer’s credit.

Still, it was getting too much. I decided never to produce again for an idiot.  I said never again. Only work for my own projects, unless I was getting paid for a really good, long term project.  I had already started making plans to travel all summer and make a documentary. I dreamed of starting a documentary company and never working a dumb day job again. And I had even bigger dreams. To leave LA and live back in the Midwest and make movies there. Someday, I thought.

A week before the shoot, two young men came to my house to help as Production Assistants.  One was the son of a teacher/friend I worked with the previous year, the other was his best friend. They were a big help, doing errands and helping me with all the things left to do but we didn’t have time to do. They were energetic and excited and I liked that.  They slept on my floor and they helped me figure out ways to make room for more people to live in my porch and back yard during the production.  The mother had sent a check to help pay for their food while they were here so I cooked for them and brought them out to eat, twice.  That money helped since I didn’t have any after all my bills.

Friday came around and we took some time to just relax. At dinner I thanked them for running around all week in the pressure cooker we were all feeling. They thanked me for having them and giving them the experience of making a movie. Then we ate and laughed and relaxed before the next storm wave.

The next day we went to a production meeting. There was good news. The Direcor decided to just bite the bullet and pay some key crew members like an AD. He also found his cousins to do sound but knew they were druggies and later during the shoot, the AD would yell “Sound,okay?” (a truck would be beeping as it backed up) and they would yell back “Sound, okay.” No surprise that the director had to spend $400 an hour to do loop work later – where the actors come in and re-record their lines in a studio with good sound called ADR – Additional Dialogue Recording. Taught me a great lesson, sound people are priceless!

The Director was treating me worse and worse. There was a part for a servant and he even denied me this little extra role and said “you’ll get your break some other day”. What a jerk. I wasn’t interested in acting, just for the fun of it. Instead he went racist and said he wanted someone “dark”.  Then it got worse. Instead of producer, he called me his employee. If there weren’t only two weeks left before production, I would’ve quit.  Instead, I saw two more weeks, payoff for all this ridiculousness, and then freedom.

The Director was late to this production meeting and everyone was unimpressed with his pep talk which was just yelling at everyone. The DP was just out of film school but he was good. He was excited to film on film and use the Director to pay for all this good footage he could use for his career. He rolled his eyes at some of the ridiculous things the Director was saying. I felt better that I wasn’t the only one fed up with this guy.

That night we went out to a Hollywood party. I was tired but the guys wanted to go and they were working so hard, I couldn’t deny them.  First we stopped by 7-11 and bought a Variety magazine. I was so happy. Our short film was listed under “production” and my name was there, with the title of screenwriter and producer. I was in the Daily Variety. I had made it. I was on my way.

At the party I met some new people, talked to people I knew, gave out my card, etc. The guys were learning, they gave out their numbers and were schmoozing like I had taught them. I met an actor and he said “You are the famous Carol.”  I was like “What?”  He had talked to the guys and they said “our producer brought us here to have fun.” It was cute, being famous. He said I’d be a good director since I’m thoughtful enough to be tired but bring the guys out.  I thought “yeah, I’m nice. I’d be a good director. Not mean, like the guy I’m working with.”  I also thought he had money so that’s why he’s making a movie and being director, but being a good director might take more than money.

The first week of June finally arrived. I knew it’d be a tough month trying to make this movie and losing my job (they fired you if you got sick so I knew it was hopeless trying to “be sick” for a week).  I worried how I’d make it through, financially.

All the stress of putting together a movie made me feel more lonely. I had no real friends to talk about what was going on, who would understand filmmaking. I dubbed LA the loneliest city in the world.  I had college friends in other parts of the country, but they didn’t know a thing about film.

At my work, while I still had it, was an actor, or wanna be actor.  He said that his manager told him who to be seen with around town and they even hired beautiful women to go out with him. I was appalled by this. Showed how fake Hollywood is.  I was also learning that all is not what it seems.  There were some famous stars with rumors of hiring dates and even having fake spouses  to cover up their true sexuality.  I realized I could never live a lie. I guess I didn’t want success that badly. Plus I was starting to feel like if I hated this town and filmmaking I would leave and give myself credit for at least trying.

The short film was now really being directed by the DP. He knew what he wanted and started to run the meetings. He and his crew of friends would chuckle at the director when he was asked about some visual detail and the reply was “I don’t want to make decisions about that.” He felt like jewelry and costumes were below him. It was starting to look like he didn’t know what a director really does and was in it for an ego boast.

The DP frustrated me because he rattled off names of the crew’s positions and I was so far behind trying to figure out who these people are and what they do – 1^st AD, 2^nd AD, PA, DP, AC, etc. I figure TP should be in there too since everyone needs toilet paper and the location wanted us to provide our own for the crew anyhow.

spring into action

Spring was, well, the same weather as always, minus a few raindrops from the wettest winter ever in LA history. I had just moved from Santa Cruz so I thought it was normal for rain in California and I didn’t understand why they kept talking about a child – El Nino.

Spring also meant that I finally got to spring onto a film set.

It was for a short film – another UCLA reject that decided to go on anyway.  I learned a lot – watching a big crew using a real film camera – 35mm and they even used a cool jig arm crane which moved the camera up.  Plus the actors were in movies I had seen!  This was exciting.

I soaked up everything and learned all possible.

One of the best lessons had nothing to do with film but how they treated each other. Some of the crew complained that this was a “first time director.” That’s a curse to be called but luckily it only happens once.  I also saw how relaxed the producers were and they even played kickball while filming was going on inside. 

That was the total opposite of my short film.  The director and I weren’t talking anymore, only fighting. He accused me of not being dedicated. Truth was I was putting more energy into writing my Indigo Girls script and networking for that since I didn’t trust him anymore. Yet I still wanted to help, to learn more about filmmaking and protect my writer’s credit.

Around Easter I got an idea to help my Indigo Girls movie. I would go around the country, mostly to Native American reservations, and go to the places where the film would take place. Remember the whole idea came from the Honor the Earth tour where the Indigo Girls go to different reservations and raise funds for Environmental concerns.  I called my friend Arnold back in Minnesota and asked if he wanted to join me.  He responded "Did you eat too many Easter eggs?" He must've too since he said "yes."

The director nagged me to send out a fundraising letter. So I did, to my family and friends all over the country. I wrote how I was making the short film, then buying a digital camera (SONY XL1000) to make a documentary all summer traveling around reservations, and the next year planned to film the Indigo Girls movie no matter what.  Three or four people responded with $20 checks and one woman gave me $100 since her son was going to stay with me and help out in the short film. (Later she cancelled that check).  These are important details for what would happen later.

So, I looked for crew and rounded up people I knew for our short. I wrote people all over the world to come be on a movie set. Friends I had made in my world travels now said they would love to break into movies too. A pal came from Canada, a cousin from Canada, a cousin from Virginia who had studied film, and my friend’s son and his pal (who sent the big check). Plus I even got an announcement onto the “Pig” radio station in Santa Cruz and two middle age people with big vans (to lug things around) said they’d come down for the week in June. Things were coming into place.

Now more details had to be prepared and my language ability came into use. My friend who I brought on as another producer helped me walk around the neighborhood of the house where we would be filming.  We had to get signatures from all the neighbors so LA would us our film permit.   Half of the block spoke Spanish. They were all used to this since that house films a lot and they all said “si”.  The house looked like a convent and “foreign” so it enhanced our film with  a Middle East look (later they added a loon sound in post production. I don’t think loons are looney enough to live in the desert, they need lakes).  I just chucked it up to another sign that this director was clueless and just using people, though I would find out soon, we were all using him.

The best thing I learned from being the “producer” of this short film, is what is everyone’s roll  on a crew. And I learned fast that you better get their title right or they got snippy.

I got a list from Director’s Guild of America (DGA) and called asking people who wanted to be directors if they would be our First AD (Assistant Director), 2^nd AD (the person under the 1^st AD) and 2^nd 2^nd AD (below everyone but above the Production Assistants (PA) who do the grunt work and might have little to no experience – the true entry level job on a set).  Some said yes.  The ADs and production assistants help run the set – the 1^st AD is the one who actually yells “action” on a big set, calls lunch, makes sure the extras are in the background, etc.  It is an excellent way to learn all the ropes of how to control the army of people it takes to make a film.  That was the other thing I learned once I was on the sets – I would never look at a movie the same anymore. Now I don’t just see the actors and action on the film, I see the camera and the whole crew standing on the other side – and sometimes you can literally see them in a car reflection on the screen.

At the same time I was still helping on the other short film. I was part of the props department which I think I should have pursued more. I loved finding the “Mexican American” style to decorate the house for their story. I brought in my dollies that women made for me in the Mexican village where I lived. Unfortunately when I left I took one of the owners “American” dollies and never got a chance to return it to them. I guess that’s one of the risks of lending your house to an amateur production. Later I’d see more how to run props the right way – clear labels in ziplock bags for everything.

I also got to be in the wardrobe department which shows how desperate they were because I’m an awful dresser and even had unmatched socks on that day.  I was horrified that the clothes weren’t that organized so I couldn’t find a red shirt that the little boy needed in the shot. Everything has to match up to the previous shot so he can’t have red on one moment and blue the next.  I was frantic looking for the damn shirt and heard over the walkie talkies “we’re waiting for wardrobe”

Great, I was holding up the whole shoot. I finally found it and sent the little tot on his way.  And I got the best gift ever, alone time with the main actress who was in my favorite movie from Mexico -  Like Water for Chocolate. I had seen it in Mexico, read the book in Spanish there, then showed the movie (edited) to my Spanish 3 students. Now she was giving me the gossip.  It was wonderful.

She said the shoot was so long and they were isolated on a ranch that the bit part actors were going crazy. She and the director, Alfonso Arau (who I so admire) stopped talking but later she married her son.  The two main actors really fell in love (happens often) but stayed together (rare).  So maybe my fight with the director was normal and soon I’d find out, love would be common on a set.

Yareli, the actress, laughed with me and then went downstairs to act in a sad scene. She was on the verge of tears which made me tear up. I was blown away by her talent.

It was her last scene so the 1^st AD said she was “wrapped” and everyone clapped for her. This is the way it’s done, I learned.

Before she left she gave me her contact information on a postcard she made promoting a movie she and her husband wanted to make called “A Day without a Mexican”. I saw the finished product years later and it’s hilarious plus it got a lot of attention when Californian protestors tried to do that in the immigration debates of the 2000s.

A Cold Los Angeles Winter

No thanks to the scam artist or the temp agency, I found a job.  I actually really liked it and if I had found this job first, versus the boring office, I might have stayed and had another career path.  But this is Hollywood, Babe, and I was on to bigger things.

I was hired as a receptionist at a company that provided music and shows for radio stations throughout the world. It was interesting. The people were great. I loved answering the phone not knowing whether I would have to speak Spanish, French, Italian, or English. Plus, I loved being a DJ in college.

The problem was that it interfered with producing the short film.  Okay, so we didn’t get into section two of the Making a Short Film class, but the director told me he had the money and wanted to make the film anyhow. Plus, from meeting other people, they seemed to say that the way to make it in film, was to make a film. If he was paying, I was in.

I tried to make phone calls to recruit a crew and get things we needed (like film stock) during work hours but the phone kept ringing and it was my job to answer it. I then made calls at lunch but everyone I called was at lunch too. So, I sadly, had to leave this job. I told them it was because I was going to make a movie. The man who hired me said that he had lived in LA a long time and most of these dreams go up in smoke. I knew I was different!

Instead I applied for a job where my housemate worked – an insurance agency. Great money working on a computer all day and even better, weird hours – 6am-2pm so I could make calls all afternoon. I got the job and settled there the rest of the “school” year.

Another group that did get into section two invited me to join them (and share the now group cost of tuition). I went to one class but backed out due to my lack of money for another class. Yet, the contacts I made helped me get onto my first film sets since I was hungry jump into production, any production.

But the short film I was producing wasn’t going as great as I thought. Here I was changing my job for it, not going on with the UCLA class, and thinking of investing some of my savings into it. But the director was giving off signs that maybe he wasn’t trustworthy.  Once we got rejected by UCLA he got another writer and started hinting that she’d get credit too. In the early stages of a film career you don’t work for money, you work for credit. I needed a screen to say I was the writer so that I could then write other movies in the future.  That’s one reason I decided to work with him – to write the movie.

We had our talks and our arguments and he promised I’d get co-writing credit since I wrote the first scripts. I had heard of these things happening in Hollywood, I just didn’t think they happened so soon. I had heard the horror stories of people writing scripts and then getting written off the credit scroll.

I decided to stay with the project just to make sure I really got my credit. For mental survival, I  to put my heart into my Indigo Girls script and focused on working with women in the future.  At this time we also added another producer, a male acquaintance of mine from one of my many day jobs. All of a sudden the director and this guy (who was supposed to work under me) were talking sports and I felt pushed out.  I was starting to think men couldn’t be trusted in this town.

The dating scene was even worse. I loved all the meeting of people and networking and sometimes there was flirting. I knew my body type didn’t fit in – I wasn’t a size 6 or 10 even.  One guy at a party said “I know what you’re thinking ‘I don’t fit in’. Don’t worry. Guys will like you because you are nice”. Nice? In a town built on not nice?

I had a lot of first dates and false hopes. Even dated briefly an old friend who lived nearby but that crashed and burned from his shy and weird issues.  I mostly just networked for my career and wrote my script.  I felt like the L in Los Angeles was really for Lonliness.

Scam me once

One of the things I noticed about everyone that moved to LA, we all got scammed. Some fee paid for something not delivered or a packet of paper of info that is actually free to get (especially now that the Internet is more sophisticated then it was in the mid-90s).

I was no different. I had heard of Central Casting – a famous casting company that has worked for years giving TV shows and movies some extras – the background people who don’t need to, and are assumed to, have talent.

I thought I took a piece of paper with their number but I got it mixed up with some other flier about extra casting and called that company instead. I had red flags as I walked into a small office in downtown Hollywood. I use Hollywood to mean the business especially in Los

Angeles but the nice offices are in Santa Monica or Burbank or Century City, the actual city of Hollywood is a dump. The alcoholics and prostitutes sometimes wander into the tourist parts of the star studded sidewalk and Mann’s Chinese Theater. 

There was an old, literally rotting away headshot of some actor on the wall and a huge man with a  dirty shirt. He promised he’d get me an extra job on a commercial for Macy’s the next Monday and told me I had to give him $100 cash. I didn’t have it and offered a check. He said “cash.” Like an idiot I went to the ATM and got it since he promised I’d be paid $100 a day (which is the fee for most extra gigs). 

I called on Monday, he said “not yet”. Same thing on Tuesday. By Wednesday no one answered the phone and the next week it had been disconnected.  I was scammed, just like everyone else I knew. So now I tell everyone, don’t pay a dime and do your research. Yet, when I contacted the real Central Casting they do charge $25 which is reasonable. Yet a million people are signed up with them and you have to call into their system and the few times I did, I didn’t get the gig.  At least it wasn’t $100.

chasing a dream

The good thing about being under employed is all the time.  On my drive down beautiful 101 from Northern Cally to SoCal I got an idea.  It was so good that I stopped at some restaurant and wrote and wrote. This was it. A great idea for a movie. I wrote it as much as I could since I had to talk to the main players right away. I knew it would get made since these famous people are friends of a friend. I was so naïve.

I had worked closely in the past in Minnesota with Winona LaDuke of Greenpeace, Green party, and Indigenous Environmental Network. She ran a concert series called Honor the Earth. They were going to Vegas and I didn’t really have a job and my aunt lived there so I went and met everyone back stage. I finally got to meet the Indigo Girls, kinda said “hi” to Jackson Brown, and re-met Bonnie Raitt who I had met a few years earlier with Winona. I also got to meet my favorite Native American rock star – Keith Secola.  Winona, unfortunately, was not at the concert, but I told the Indigo Girls and Bonnie Raitt my great idea – a movie about two women following the Honor the Earth concert.  To me it was perfect – a road movie since I love to travel, and a political message like my favorite movies. 

I had a script ready but realized it was a sucky first draft and I was smart enough not to give it to them.  They gave me the names of who to call in their offices.  I knew with these stars, this movie would fly. I had a lot to learn.

But as I worked on the script, I kept working around town and taking my UCLA Extension classes.  I got a two week temp job at Warner Brothers.  They also had a big studio lot which I should have lunched more at since one day the people in the office saw Kevin Costner but since I was poor, I brown bagged it.  The office where I was was off the lot and that would prove dangerous for me. Well not dangerous, but I got robbed.

I was a kinda the receptionist but the phone never rang and by the time it did, I had forgotten my training. I told them to call back and call the boss on her direct line. That was my last day (preplanned conveniently)

The other job was to walk the office first thing in the morning and deliver any faxes that came in. But basically, I had nothing to do so I surfed the web looking up Indigo Girl fans and whatever else I could find for 8 hours a day.  It was weird to see that big glamorous studios could have just normal office workers in cubbies, but apparently they also had too many positions like mine where you didn’t have much “work”.  To be honest I was just a temp till the real woman was going to be there and maybe she would have more to do that they didn’t bother training me to do.

Yet as I did my morning duties one day someone else helped themselves to my wallet. It wasn’t on the lot so we didn’t have the gates and guards just an office guard who waved everyone in from his side desk. So I checked my messages at home and there was one from my credit card confirming I had just spent $1500 (maxing out the card) at Toys R Us in some town I had never heard of. I went to call them back and that’s when I realized I didn’t even have my wallet so I knew right away what happened. I called and cancelled the other card too and at that time, didn’t have to pay a dime. But I was mad that they took the cash I was so proud to not have spent in the past few days.

Unfortunately my social security card was in there and one dumb job wouldn’t take my passport so it did cost me one job but it was in construction so maybe it wasn’t a big loss. That was about the time I realized I had to get out of day jobs in Hollywood and have some job that’s schedule allowed me to concentrate on making movies.

Merry –go – round day jobs

I figure the LA economy could not survive without the dozens of actors, wannabe directors, and writers that take day jobs, lose day jobs, quit day jobs for a time, then return to another day job. One friend replaced an actor who just left his waiter job – the actor who left was Woody Harrelson. (whoM I later met but we’ll talk about that when the time comes)  For accuracy purposes, that could have been in New York though, probably same economy based on wannabe show biz folks.

The boring job was only part time and my search for another part time job wasn’t looking too good. I almost took on a job as an office manager in the afternoons but it was across town and I figured I was wasting all this time with two part time jobs and wasting gas money by traveling all over. Plus, it wasn’t a show biz job.

Then I got the job offer that seemed golden. A real show biz office. They distributed and produced movies- top movies. Okay, they mostly just sent them to Italy but still. I told them I could speak Italian but never studied it so I couldn’t write. They forgot that important fact later.

So I thanked the nice office but said I had to go. They thought it was awful of the other office to make me work right away, and that was a warning that they might not have the best scruples. So I left and after the weekend I was on the Italian Job.

The first thing I learned was that you had to dress your best, especially the day one of the most powerful people in Hollywood came over for a meeting – Jeff???? Of ICM talent agency.  It also meant I was out of money to buy a new office attire wardrobe before I even had the chance to make any money.

The two bosses who started the company and a few other big wigs were gone in Italy the week I started there. They were at a conference called MIFED.  It’s a market where countries buy movies to show in their country.  It became my goal to go there – a ticket to making it in Hollywood, I thought.

The second thing I learned was that Hollywood has a very abusive past. The other two, nice, office assistants warned me that everyone gets abused then they become the boss and abuse. I thought this was nuts. They told me to watch the movie Swimming with Sharks with Kevin Spacey. I did. It is dead on. 

So, when all the bosses and big wigs came back I saw how mean they could be.  The woman near my office would yell at me for not knowing how to unpack her bags from MIFED because you were just supposed to use telepathy.  She was always rude to me. But I didn’t take it too personally. She was rude to everyone. Even the guy who came in to fix our fax.  I wanted to yell at her to leave him alone, he didn’t have any aspirations of making it in Hollywood and was doing us a favor by fixing our machine.

The boss and I never interacted. He had his own assistants who he abused. He asked the office manager to buy some pens, then called him into the office and threw the pens at him saying “These are not the fucking pens we need for this office.”  Again, no need to take it personally. When his son called who was having trouble in the Beverly Hills elementary school he yelled “Don’t ever fucking call me at work.”  But, I also found out, we were always working. 9-5 was an illusion. And no lunch breaks.

So after putting $1000 on my credit card for a new wardrobe (suits and jackets and skirts), I got fired. It was only a month but they had gone through a receptionist a month. That’s what I was. Yes it was hard to photocopy a script in their crappy 50 pages at a time photocopier machine and the phone kept ringing. But the incident that set it off was when the sweet Italian accountant (again those lower on the totem pole or without big Hollywood dreams are the nicest) was out to lunch one day (she got lunch), the boss wanted to dictate an Italian letter to me instead. I sent word back to him across the long Century City office that I couldn’t.  It would look like a first grader, that’s how bad my written Italian was.

So I got some temp jobs. That’s what everyone does. I was even shocked to meet an actor at the temp office. He would get unemployment between acting gigs. I’m not sure what I think about that since it’s such a temperamental type of career.  Isn’t space between jobs what the whole thing is about, especially as an actor?

The temp agency sent me all over and I learned a lot. Just like at the Italian Job, I learned all I could. Read every script, saw how they analyzed the scripts through script coverage, how they packaged movies to sell, etc. I don’t mean plastic, I mean finding actors and directors and packaging it for producers and distributors to put money in.

During my time as a temp, I got to work one day at a commercial agent’s office.  The directors who wanted to make an ad, faxed drawings of what they would shoot.  I even got to work a day at NBC studies in George Clooney’s office. Unfortunately he wasn’t there. In fact, no one was and the phone didn’t ring. I didn’t have much to do.  But I touched everything – the chairs, desks, staplers, batman poster of himself, notebooks, etc. since he probably had touched it.  I called my sister and said “Guess where I am?” She was his fan at that time, since this was his office for being on the hit show ER yet it was obvious he didn’t use it much.

Whenever I was somewhere exciting like NBC studios, I made sure to walk around.  I ate at the commissary and some people came in talking loudly and some were wearing bathrobes.  One complained about his head injury make up. I knew from the tour I took the year before of the studios and had met that nice page, that they filmed soap operas here. I was excited to figure out these were the actors, eating lunch, just like me.  I think I was mostly in Hollywood since I’m a big dorky fan/groupie to anyone famous.

I was still looking for a job since I wasn’t getting that much work as a temp – they take the temporary part seriously. It was getting near Christmas so at least I could go hide out “visiting family” for a few weeks. I had an interview on a Friday at Universal Studios.  It was for an assistant job to someone in the International Department. After the interview I walked around. Hey, I was already here. So I walked the back lot and saw that they were setting up for their Christmas party.  Hmm, I think I’ll stay and meet someone important.

I hung out in their commissary all day until finally it was night. 

The trams that they use for the tours where you see Jaws and feel an earthquake were now filling with employees. This studio is huge so they have lots of employees.  I saw that they all had a sticker on to show they were supposed to be on the tram. I didn’t have a sticker, since I wasn’t supposed to be there.  So I walked and tried not to get run over by the trams.  It was a windy day and a cold walk. 

I got to the party part, by the sets of New York, Court square i.e. Back to the Future, Europe, etc.  A security guard asked about my badge. I acted surprised, “It must have fallen off”. He didn’t seem to believe me but said I should talk to the people at the table. The friendly lady there totally believed my story. I was in.

It was a great party to sneak into. One moment I was eating nut balls in New York, the next I walk over to Europe and grab the gingerbread man.  They had top notch choirs singing Christmas Carols – one was even a gospel choir with robes and all singing on the steps where Micheal J. Fox got zapped to the past. 

I sat down for the dinner and started talking to the woman next to me.  She asked where I worked. I said I don’t, I snuck in. She said “with guts like that, you’ll make it Hollywood”. That made my year.  She had worked in the biz for years, in the music side of things and had met the Beatles and Elvis. Wow.

I got to take a tram back, at least, and drove home tired after a long day of not work.

I move to LA, how cliche

Summer 1997

Every morning before I went in to teach, I wrote for an hour about a teacher killing her students.  Somehow that helped me survive the wrong career field for me.  June rolled around and I was free. 

I went back and forth to Los Angeles, luckily my brother’s best friend from highschool kept letting me crash at his house. He had studied acting and when he first came out to LA he worked in films with later stars such as Brad Pitt. Now he was doing children’s theater. I couldn’t understand why he spoke so bitterly of the industry.

I found a perfect rental.  It was a back porch turned into a one room apartment on a house with 6 acres near La Canada, the official valley.  I knew I would have little room but my dog could run around happy.  The cat would be pretty happy too until she saw another cat get eaten by the coyotes, then he always came inside right at dusk.

I applied to every job possible. When I was in town I bought one Hollywood Reporter and one Variety magazine.  I just knew I was going to get an exciting job. I applied to anything that looked entry level – receptionist, office assistant, show runner.  The later turned out comical. The man was nice enough to call me to explain that a show runner was actually a producer/director of a TV show, not someone who ran between shows like I assumed.

I got some interviews which was a miracle.  In one office the woman interviewing me had a stack as high as a computer monitor full of thin fax paper resumes.  The reason I was picked was because I spoke Spanish, French, and Italian.  This always seemed my way to get into the biz.  She liked me so I got another interview with the men who ran the talent agency.  They said they remembered starting out just like I had, working their way up from the mail room. We had a nice chat but later as I went to get a smoothie, some body builder tried to sell me his pill/exercise program. I told him I just came from an interview. He said “with those scratched up shoes.” Right then I knew I didn’t get the job.  My lack of fashion sense would suit me in LA LA land.

But one job did keep asking me back for interviews. Again, they liked the fact I could speak Spanish, in the rare case I might need it. They even hired me. Part time, every morning. I was so happy. Here I go – my exciting new life in show biz.

The job was dreadfully boring. Especially the days I worked all day. There wasn’t enough work. It was just putting information into a computer. Everyone was nice. It was interesting to see the fringe of the business. It was a company that helped put products onto game shows.  Yet, I wasn’t meeting Pat Sajak. I wasn’t doing anything glamorous. I was disappointed to learn that show business was not all high adrenaline all the time. 

Something important did help me at that job. One thing always seems to lead to another – wherever you are in life, I believe. A sweet woman that worked there was also an actress, this happened a lot in this town.  I had told her that I write screenplays. She mentioned she had to go out on an audition and had to pick up her sides.  I asked, “What are sides?”
”You have to know what sides are to be a screenwriter. You need to take a class.”

So I did. I signed up for night classes at UCLA Extension. That would change everything and propel me further into Hollywood.

I did finally learn what sides are and even used them later. But she was wrong, you don’t need to know what sides are to be a screenwriter, just an actor!  (hint: like most things in movie making it’s a strange word for something pretty normal. In this case, pieces of paper, or parts of the script that is sent to the actor to audition)

Back to school:

I had so many choices for classes at UCLA Extension (night courses). I chose to take the most interesting one.  It said “Make a Short-Fiction film.” It was going to teach screenwriting, producing, and directing all in one. What a bargain for only $700!  I thought they would pay for the film and everything. I was so naïve.

The class was actually broken into three parts.  The first one had a lot of guest speakers, we watched a lot of short films, and had an overview of filmmaking. Then, you had to apply to the second class where they would focus in on the skills of making a short film.  Third, you had to apply again to be chosen to actually make the films and be guided along the way. That was the best part because then in the fall they held a screening for big shots in Hollywood to see your film and start your new awesome career.  Of course, the actual film would have to come out of your own pocket and even the cost of each section of the class increased.

I loved hearing what people said about making their films and how, always after 15 years, their careers really got started. Some of the professors had even won Oscars.  But when they asked who wanted to be a writer, almost all hands went up, including mine. When they asked who wanted to be a director, tons of hands went up and I left mine down. “Who wants to be a producer?”  Three or four hands, so I threw mine up. Why not?  Then I was swarmed by the other two categories. They gave me screenplays so I could be the producer on their project. Screenwriting would have to wait, I thought.

I choose one movie because it spoke to me. It took place in a foreign country – I love to travel and immerse myself in other cultures.  It had a lonely woman, just like the big breakup I was finally starting to heal from by finding my new passion in life, I could relate to her wanting to be alone.  And best yet, it was just an idea. The “director” wanted/needed someone to write it, so I did.  I was now a producer and writer. I made business cards to say that. That was a great career decision.

This could be the start of a great career (????)

September and October1997

It started with an unhappy ending.  A break up. A split the Midwest in half earthquake feeling break up even if I hadn’t moved to the West Coast yet to fell any earthquakes.  Rob was supposed to be the one, my other half, my happy ending. Yet he left me a note and drove off in his clunker to Washington State. Leaving me with a dog and a cat.  It had been, after all, my idea to get them in the first place, and a new apartment.  Luckily it was month to month so I left in a month and flopped on my sister’s couch all summer figuring out what to do. I loved Minnesota but I couldn’t see meeting anyone there. Everyone I knew was gay or alcoholic or both.  Minnesota seemed hopeless for my goal which was to replace my one true love, Rob, as soon as possible.

Dad, being a father, suggested I use the teaching licensure degree I just finished up attaining.He even went so far as to find me a job, by the beach, an hour from his house. Beach? Okay. That was a no brainer. I packed the dog, the cat, and my stuff and drove to California. The land of dreams.

Santa Cruz was wonderful.  I loved everything about it, except teaching. By October I started to wonder if that’s my real calling. I liked the actual lesson planning and reciting the lessons but the students were so ornery and always fighting me. I felt more like a police officer. One class in particular was impossible. A bunch of 16 year olds who only cared about getting an A and acted like a bunch of chickens picking on the weak one (me, the newbie teacher).

Outside of my job I enjoyed making friends in Santa Cruz. One told me she had met a great guy, who later she found out was married but that’s another story, through a phone dating service. Internet was still new and suspect for dating but phone sex, I mean, dating sounded promising. I left a message about myself – that I was a teacher, that I liked to swim and write.  Then men would leave me a message, if they liked what I said. Most of the men barely lasted past one phone call – either I didn’t like them or vice versa. But one man left a message that said,
“I’m more interested in friendship and I just started writing movies so I thought it’d be nice to meet you.”

Wow. Movies are written? They aren’t made magically by Mickey Mouse? Who knew. Of course I called him back. I told him that I mostly just write in my journal but I’ve always dreamed of being a writer. He told me that yes; he writes actual screenplays and has an agent. I was fascinated. We did become friends.

He inspired me.  He sold his first screenplay for a six zero price and got flown to a Hollywood party to meet producers and smooze at a pool party with Jack Nicholson and Cindy Crawford. Jack loved his idea.

I saw myself in his shoes. I even told him flippantly one night on the phone that I should write a screenplay about a teacher who kills her students. Obviously it had been a bad day on the work front.

Then fate took over.  A few days later he talked to his agent who asked if he’d be more than a one hit wonder. She wanted to know his other ideas and future writings. He gave them to her. She hated them. Then he remembered what I had said and told her that. She loved it.  He was nice enough to tell her it was my idea.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Now I have to actually write this thing.”  Yet, I had an agent interested, so what was there to lose?

I bought books on how to write a screenplay and followed it step by step. Every morning I typed on my glorified typewriter, still Internet wasn’t necessary yet, and printed a page a day before going to work so if the kids gave me a hard time later in the day I would at least feel like I had done one positive thing before all the cruelty began.  But life as a teacher would get worse, only to push me farther into Hollywood dreamland.

November 1997

My best friend from college rolled into town for a conference. She stayed with me a few days so I took her to parties and the beach and such. She told strangers about her job using Spanish to communicate with migrant workers. I compared that to my job trying to teach Spanish to students who could care less. Something was stirring inside me.

Then we had planned to travel to LA right after I finished teaching the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Elizabeth came as a guest speaker but the kennel wasn’t open before school so I snuck my big Golden Retriever/Collie into the Foreign Language teacher’s lounge. 

Near the end of the day I got called into the principal’s office.  I thought I was in the dog house about the dog.  Instead the Principal and the Assistant Principal told me some parents had complained (from that ornery 16 year old class) but that they knew I was a first year teacher and they’d help me along.

Great. I was done, mentally. I’d given my best and only got grief back from these monster teenagers. I cried half way to LA. 

The next day we went to the NBC studios in Burbank for a tour. Afterwards I started talking to a man my age who was working as a “page.” I had no idea what that was but he explained that it was an internship where they helped out on shows like Jay Leno and around the NBC store. It was an entry level position. 

I saw the light. I could ditch the horrible teaching job, move to Hollywood, work as a page at NBC studios, or some other entry level job, sell a screenplay and live my true dream. I had wanted to act, sing, and dance like Gene Kelly since I was five. Somewhere along the way it seemed too hard or out of reach. Now it was in reach.  All I had to do was to continue writing my screenplay, survive teaching until June, then move to Los Angeles.