Hollywood East

The other night, a friend told me about a major new film production studio being slated for our area.  They're calling it "Hollywood East".  This friend is convinced that I need to grab this opportunity to get back into the entertainment industry.  Tempting.... but let's recall a few of the unglamorous aspects of working for high profile directors, screenwriters, producers and stars, shall we?
1.  Back in the day, we were regularly summoned by pagers and we never took them off.  One night I was startled awake by a rumbling, thinking we were having an earthquake (this being L.A.).  I quickly realized it was just the waistband of my pajamas vibrating. Of course these days we use cell phones, but it would still make my pj's vibrate. And not in a good way.

2.  Being someone's verbal punching bag takes a kind of restraint I no longer possess.  When you're a lowly assistant, sometimes you just have to smile and "fall on your sword" as they say. But really, who wants to be yelled at for offering someone a cup of coffee?  One well known female director whipped open her trailer door just so she could scream, "I'm making a goddamn $40 million movie! Don't you think I know when I want a cup of coffee?".  In response, I made the rookie mistake of giggling at the absurdity of the situation. Probably shouldn't have done that.

3.  One day during post production, I was asked to provide voice-overs of a gasp, a shriek and an exclamation because someone was too chicken to ask the woman who was making $20 million per movie to make her own noises.  Doesn't a gasp, a shriek and an exclamation get me a SAG card? Although I wasn't paid for my voice overs, I'm pretty sure the actress still got her $20 million.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the process of making movies and t.v.  It was exhausting but exhilarating and 80% of the time, I worked for talented, kind people.  It's the other 20% that I could tell unflattering stories about. But I won't. Because of my good manners.