Alright, already.

I know. It's been over a month since I 'blogged'. But lots has been happening and I've been very busy! Regrettably I did not win ScreeMo and I still have a lot of work to do. Thanks to a very, very wonderful family friend (and now cousin, sort of!) I found myself being the office assistant on a TV pilot for the month of November and was not left with a lot of time to write.

But being in the 'industry' (as we say) is SO COOL!! Now of course as soon as I found out what show I was going to be working on I went home and IMDb-ed the director and writer and lead actress (stand-up comedian Laurie Elliott - see YouTube.) and was completely starstruck when I actually met them just for having seen their names in the big print on IMDb. It was a short show, just five days of shooting and some prep time. Most of the people who work in the Production office are freelancers, so they all come together, set up an office and a company, make the whole thing run smoothly and then shut everything down. They are super efficient and know exactly what they're doing. I, on the other hand, was completely lost and on the first day I showed up and embarrassed myself royally by sitting down in the board room with the producers because I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. But they started to give me more direction and I started to get the hang of it. They rented a car for me for the month so I did all the running around getting the actors' contracts signed, shopping for the office, picking up payroll, dropping off the daily footage and running errands to and from set. I learned so much about how production worked, it was so encouraging for the writing!

It's funny, though, to work with people who work on every movie or TV show that is filmed in Canada. As it turns out, Toronto is the best place to shoot a movie because it's cheaper than practically anywhere else so even some really big American films, TV pilots and all the horrid low-budget horror movies get shot there. After seeing our 'set' on the streets of Toronto I started to notice production entourages all over the city. One day when I was running an errand I saw a huge line-up of trucks and a few crew-members. I walked by and casually asked, "So, what production are you on?" The guy tells me they're filming Boondock Saints 2. Inside I was yelling, 'Boondock Saints 2!!!!??? WHERRRRE is Sean Patrick Flanery???' But outwardly I oh-so-casually just said, "Oh cool, a sequel after 10 years, eh?"

Back to my office I was spouting about my run-in with the coolest-vigilante-movie-ever-part-deux and they all look at me sort of blankly, "So?" Later, I learned that the accountant was at the party where Edward Norton hired some "female escorts of the night" and was subsequently dumped by Salma Hayek and the production coordinator's good friend invited Renee Zellweger home for Thanksgiving while she was in Toronto filming Chicago, etc. Sooo I learned to 'play it cool.'

Now that the pilot is done, I'm nannying for said wonderful new cousin, we're opening a restaurant and I'm finishing up my screenplay and hope to start getting it read in January. Stay tuned for next... month's... edition.

Love,

Lady Liberty