A Little of Everything

I'm finding it difficult to post, mostly because I have a LOT to say. That's the silliest part about blogging--whenever I have nothing to talk about, I can write about how I felt about a movie made in 1999 for two pages. However, when tons of stuff happens, it's exhausting to thinking about updating because I know it might just take forEVER.

Let us commence.

The most thrilling part of my week was when I thought the people at Present Pictures MIGHT have offered me a job! I am still completely unsure, to be honest.

Here's what happened. There are basically three main ladies that work for the company, and one of their sisters has also been really involved in what they're doing. When we were in a meeting (thrilling!), one of the main ladies asked me what I thought I wanted to do after I graduate. I thought she was just curious so I gave her my big rehearsed talk that basically has no concrete information. What I mean to say is "I don't know" without sounding like "I don't care." It's a tricky dance. So afterwards, she told me that they are probably going to start production in May and that they would really love to have me around. I told them that I wasn't really sure if I wanted to stay, but that I definitely would let them know and it sounds amazing.

The issue is that I fully believed that they wanted me to stay as an intern, and I know that I wouldn't be able to do something full time without getting any money. HOWEVER, I was talking to the sister, who is VERY involved, and she told me that everyone really likes me and that she really hopes I come on board and some things about the company that made it seem MUCH more like they wanted me to be with them long term, which of course, sounds like a job.

Well, this was at the end of the day so I didn't really have much to say... I hardly could even react. When I got in my car, I almost wet my pants, though! I could feel it in my stomach! I ACTUALLY missed 2 turns on my way home (note: there are only 3 turns... awkward) because I was SOOOO excited. I told my roommates, mom, grandparents, and Claire! But the next day I didn't have work with them, and I began to feel like maybe they really DIDN'T want me to be there as a job. Maybe they DID want me as an intern. I deflated a bit. So I talked to Kevin about it for a long time, and we agreed that I should just ask them. Although it seems a little crass to ask about whether they will give me money, I want to be able to just tell them YES! This is my DREAM JOB! ALL I WANT IN THE WORLD is to be a part of AMAZING movies! Going to festivals, really getting to the vision of an artist... that sounds like a dream come true! And I don't care how much money I make as long as I can survive and start paying my loans back. But I want them to know that I'm on board so they don't look for someone else because they don't know how committed I am.

Anyway, I ended up talking to the girl who made me think they might want me for a job. She told me that she doesn't get to choose, but that I should ask the two main ladies about it. She said that they really need someone young and that I really click with them, and it's difficult to get people who you really click with. So even though I don't have an answer, I feel good that at least my enthusiasm for the job is out there... with the sister of the woman who needs to make the decision. Honestly though.... DREAM job!

I must mention that I'm really starting to understand how independent movies are really like a small business. I guess that's obvious, but it has a marketable product that COULD go huge but usually stays pretty small. It employs several people. It makes a little bit of money. But the people are passionate, they work hard, and they make a really individualized product that gets to do what it wants because they don't have higher up censorship. Backbone of America. I get it!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, if you have ANY ideas of blogs or facebook pages or twitter pages that people who might want to watch independent movies would go and see, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!! Pages of people who like Jason Ritter or Justin Kirk. People who like drumming or air drumming or hoola hooping. Maybe people who like romantic comedies. One of the movies has Jane Lynch, Adrien Grenier, and Michael McKean (This Is Spinal Tap). ANYTHING would be helpful!

Anyway anyway...

Also, I met another girl who is super SUPER nice and working at Present Pictures... she might be another intern or... more than an intern. I'm not terribly sure. But she's Jason Ritter's sister!! I don't want to be weird about that because I see her everyday, but... I think it's awesome!

Which leads me to my celebrity portion of the blog!

Darius McCrary:

You may recognize him a Eddie Winslow in Family Matters... which is how I recognized him. I saw him in the hall and I did a double take and he smiled at me. I didn't think I would be able to mention him, because I'm not allowed to mention celebrities I see in the hall in case it gives away a guest star from one of the shows. Turns out, he plays "Malcolm" on The Young and the Restless... so I'll probably actually talk to him at some point. Great.

Peter Bergman (Jack on Y&R):

SUPER sweet! Plus he really gives of an aura of being a star (but I don't mean snobby at ALL! Just ... regal). I really can't emphasize enough how nice he was. Also, I think he had the most legible signature.

Eileen Davidson (Ashley on Y&R):

Also very nice, although I only met her for a minute. I'm sure at some point I'll have to ask her to autograph some pictures.

Sharon Case (Sharon on Y&R):

She was kind. She definitely has a LOT of fans and the juiciest story right now.

Daniel Goddard (Cane from Y&R):

Okay he actually looks more like this

I only had to drop something off to him, but he was one of those instantly charming guys. He was about to change so he had to leave right away, but he shook my hand and called me "baby girl." I was a little shaken up afterwards.

Jess Walton (Jill from Y&R):

Also very nice... I guess I don't have much else to say on that. She had the best smelling dressing room... although none of them smelled BAD... and I told her that to make conversation, which was a little awkward.

Christian LeBlanc (Michael on Y&R):

Yeah I gave him the topless photo. I'll tell you what, he was AMAZINGLY sweet! Everyone was perfectly kind, especially Peter Bergman and Michael Muhney (whose picture I put up last time), but... Christian LeBlanc was incredibly great. I really liked him a lot!

But actually, another thing about Michael Muhney (Adam) (here's another picture because the last one was a little lame... but do you see the Justin Kirk-ness?):

Anyway, when I brought him up last week, I hadn't said anything to him... I just saw him in the office. This time I had him autograph stuff... and he was SOOOOO enthusiastic and pumped about everything! And totally sweet. He was in the dressing room of Sharon Case and offered to sign while she was. I only had one pen so I offered to run up to get another one, but he wouldn't have it and went to his dressing room to get one. There is more to this story, but I don't think I should really talk about it in a blog. BUUUUUT two days after that happened, I saw him because he switched dressing rooms with someone, and as I was leaving he said "bye Blythe!"

HE KNEW MY NAME!

Isn't that sweet??!!!! It makes me want to root for his character... even though his character is EASILY the most evil one right now. Oh well.

Also, I technically met two other actors, but I wasn't impressed enough to put the energy into finding a picture, posting it and saying they were fine or okay or something. It's better just to say that I wasn't impressed with two people. ALTHOUGH neither were actually bad or really bitchy or anything. Maybe in a few days I'll think they're great.

ANYWAY, the best part about working at The Young and the Restless is PROBABLY reading the fan mail. I just think it's great, and it really informs me a lot about the show. Also, everyone is super nice. Not just the actors obviously, but all the people with whom I have to interact. They also let me sit in the studio to watch the shoots practically whenever I want. That is REALLY cool, although you can't really hear the dialogue too well, which I guess is to be expected. But the set is like a big dollhouse. All the rooms are open faced, and they look real on camera, but they look totally fake in life. When I was walking through the studio to get to the booth with another intern (there is another intern, although it's not really worth talking about... he's very nice though), we actually walked through the sets which I'd never done before. It was weird and it made me want to play house BIG TIME! HUUUUUUUGE TIME!!!

If I had all the money in the world, and very little guilt about how I spent it (or ideally, if everyone was living in "perfect harmony" so there was no need to feel guilty about having money), I would have a studio in my back yard with set rooms and I would throw big PLAYING HOUSE parties!!! Because then you could have a fake book store and a fake coffee house and you could quickly get to other people's houses to have fake drama. SO fun! I guess what I really want is access to THIS studio to play house, because if you really had tons of money and your own house and friends who had their own houses... if might ruin the fun of pretending you have a house. Whatever. You get the gist.

Also, I miraculously seem to know everyone who works in the offices already. I also know almost everyone that I have to interact with in the booth. I know two people in hair and make up and two people from wardrobe. I don't know the names of the editing people or special effects, but I know where to drop things off for them. And I know all of the actors that I've met and some whom I haven't yet met. It's getting easy pretty quick.

The last thing I want to mention is class. My two classes taught by one professor are pretty great. I've learned a TON, even though some of the stuff is a lot like economics or running a small business. But it's cool because I can relate what I'm learning to what I've been doing at Present Pictures. That's neat. In the other class, he just brings in speakers, which is fun, but also they seem to stress me out about how difficult it is being in this business. So... that kind of sucks... but it's also exciting. One of the guys was the director of photography (cinematographer, DP-- all the same) for Saw I-VI. Two were a big part of Martin Lawrence's career. One worked for the company who did Memento. So it's pretty cool.

The other class... well I'm growing some resentment. The biggest failure is that she asked us to create our own broadcast day... like make a schedule for a channel for an entire day.... and then we have to explain it. Fine. She told us it was due Feb. 11. In the syllabus it said it was due Feb. 11. I wrote down in class that it was due the 11th AND that it was due the day this lady was coming in, which is the 11th. So imagine my surprise when this monday I get an email saying that it's due THIS Thursday!

"I think there might be some confusion that I will take all the credit for: Broadcast Day is due this Thursday. I look forward to your ideas and creative approaches."

WTF!!??

Now, maybe I got the email at 10pm on Monday (when I got back from class!!) or maybe I got it on Tuesday (I also have class until 10pm). But either way, I essentially had Tuesday and Wednesday to do it for Thursday. AAAAAAAND I don't have a printer (most of us don't) so we have to go to the office to print, which closes at 5pm!! And I get out of work at 6pm every day! So the only other time to print is if you have class in the office, then you can print before or after class (they don't open the doors until class starts and they lock them after class is over). I only have class in the office on Monday and Thursday. So there was literally no time that I could print, except if I did it in my office at work, which I wasn't comfortable enough to ask to do... and I don't think I should have to, especially given the circumstances! So I ended up doing the day on my night off (Wednesday), although still late because I had scheduled a lot of phone dates for that day because that's the only day when I don't have to ask people to stay up until 1am to START a conversation with me! So I ended up staying up until almost 3am finishing this broadcast day. AAAAND I was asked to come into the office at 9:30am the next day to proof a brochure before it went to print. It was SUPER lame.

So the day this thing was due, I planned to print before class if I had time, although she often gets there a bit late and starts right away (and she has to unlock the door so I couldn't get in and do it) or print it afterwards and bring my laptop for the pitch. WEEEELL during class she had the GAUL to scold the people for emailing the project to her! (I didn't do that, but I felt for these people)! She told us that we should consider her as a boss and if a boss asked you to do a project, you wouldn't just email it to them because you didn't have time to print because that means you don't care. I WANTED TO SCREAM! I thought, if a boss had been telling me something is due in two weeks, and then pushed it up a week four days later, I would ABSOLUTELY not feel bad if I had to email it to them. I mean... there was simply no other way. They should be glad I even got it done!

Fortunately, only a few people presented their projects, and she told the rest of us to hold onto ours for two weeks from now (although I'm obviously going to redo mine (it was really crappy) for this week, because who knows). Luckily, I never tried to email her mine, so she has no idea that I didn't get it printed. So... I do feel lucky about that, and I am grateful... but it was still really lame.

And not to harp on this subject (too late), but the class is really useless. I understand that I'm already pissed by the above situation, which I believe is TOTALLY reasonable by the way, and that this is coloring my opinion of the class. However, ALL we discussed in class was whether we thought the Oscar nominations were reasonable, and whether there should be 10 nominations. That's IT!! In 2 hours (she left 1/2 hour early)!! I've only seen Avatar and Up, and she told us that she refuses to see Avatar for childish reasons (her words) and she told us that it was sad that almost all of us had seen Up but only one of us had seen The Hurt Locker. Why the fuck is she even teaching this class?! At the end of class, someone asked her if we had hit on anything in her curriculum, and she said we went through a lot of things. "We went through story and... " and then she got distracted and started talking about something else.

To be fair, I am resentful that I've only seen two Oscar movies... and not even just two for best picture. I mean two total. I think that's the worst I've ever done, and it's especially sad since my life suddenly revolves around movies more than it ever really has (and let's be real... it revolved around them a lot before). It just didn't help that I couldn't participate in one of my favorite conversations because I hadn't seen anything.

Still though, that class is USELESS and I don't like having to go to it exhausted.

Seriously last thing, but speaking of exhausted, I fell asleep for nearly my entire lunch hour yesterday. I was in my car and set my alarm just in case and then I just passed out. I woke up with a throbbing neck. Then when I got home, I fell asleep at 7pm while waiting for The Office to load. I woke up again at 11am today. This schedule is REALLY exhausting. I calculated the hours: 39 hours of work, 7.5 hours of class. Plus, I talk to Kevin for about 8 hours a week, which I kind of don't NEED to do, but in a much more real way, I REALLY do.

Today I spent the entire day catching up on The Office and The Daily Show. The Daily Show took hours because I was behind for about 2.5 weeks. Last weekend I had a lot to do and I spent ALL of Saturday finishing the 7th Harry Potter (good god! BRILLIANT!!). No time for Jon. I can't even catch up to The Colbert Report. I just have to catch it when I can. I haven't watched since it resumed after winter break. Luckily, I have almost no friends here, so the grueling schedule and days of catchup on the weekends are not ruining anything.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to update more next week. But who knows.

SORRY THAT WAS SO MUCH STUFF!!