A last minute change of plans

Vicky called me this afternoon and asked me if I wanted to do NALIP in Santa Fe. It starts today, and the girl who was supposed to go back out at the last minute.

I agreed, and am heading to Tucson tonight, leaving for Santa Fe tomorrow, and won't be back until the 22nd. I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into. We'll see...

Less-Than-Three You, Monique
Listening to: Spin City

"Let's tear up Santa Monica like it tore you up" -Jesse

After a whole summer of talking about how wonderful and safe and perfect Santa Monica is, Katie and I got our wake up call. Figures that it had to come out last weekend in town (Katie's last night in town, no less, as she is now back in Phoenix) but this Saturday night our house was broken into and both of our laptops were stolen. We suspect that it was some punk kid from the neighborhood, since he clumsily left behind finger prints, and the power adapter to my computer which he had unplugged and wrapped up thus leaving behind more finger prints. Our landlady is so shocked by what happened she is convinced that it couldn't be someone from the neighborhood and must be someone we know. A scary thought - but one that Katie and I refuse to believe. So after the initial shock of being robbed, waiting until 4am for the cop (a cute one, actually) to arrive, a manically giggly photo shoot reenacting the nights events at 5am, and being woken up by the forensics investigator at 6:30am and 8am respectively, it was quite the evening. Jesse slept through most of it, including the cop's visit, and now his sleeping self is pictured in the photos from the police report because we didn't want to wake him to take them. 

As pissed off as we both are, it doesn't (completely) taint the Los Angeles experience, as even that very day that we got robbed we were out having lots of fun. Since I've hijacked one of the desktops at my internship, and my supervisor is out sick on my last day at work (boo) I have the opportunity to point out all the fun we've had despite the theft. 

Our weekend pretty much started on Thursday when we went out with a bunch of Comedy Corner alumnus (Box, Ross, and 4 or 5 others) to the improv club iO for a free "cage match", two competing improv troupes. The show was meh, very much worth every penny that we didn't spend for it, but the company was good and we got lots of stories about the heyday of Comedy Corner. 

On the ride back from Hollywood, we chatted about the mentality of LA. Justin, our driver for the night, was talking about the differences between here and Chicago where he had been living before. He touched upon exactly what I miss about East Coast Cities - public transportation. Not just because driving in traffic is extremely annoying, but more because of the feel of a city and its residents when everyone travels together. As cheesy as it sounds, you develop a weird mindset when you're constantly separated from the rest of the city by your windshield. 

Friday brought the arrival of Jesse, which had been much anticipated. Saturday we drove up to Malibu with Chris and Box and some Comedy Corner alums to picnic on the beach and watch the enormous waves. Then, we went to Point Break Live! We had been talking about going since pretty much our first week in town and it was well worth the wait and the twenty bucks. I recommend it as a must do in Los Angeles if you like comedy and specifically laughing at the awesomeness of Point Break. Afterwards we had a late dinner and dessert in Westwood before we all headed back to our respective parts of the city and Katie and I had the awesome discovery of "holy shit our door is open. holy shit our window is broken. holy shit where are our laptops?" 

After about three solid hours of sleep Katie drove back to Phoenix (crazy girl, luckily she got in fine) and Jesse and I spent the afternoon at The Getty. The grounds of the Getty are absolutely beautiful, and sadly since I was so exhausted I found them more engaging than some of the art. There was a particularly cool photography exhibit featuring two pioneers of color photography, Paul Outerbridge  and the more contemporary Jo Ann Callis that I quite enjoyed despite exhaustion. Once I hit the point where I felt like if we didn't leave then I'd be too tired to drive back, we headed back home and took a nap before "tearing up Santa Monica like it tore me up" which included a chinese food dinner, gourmet churros, and seeing Moon. 

Currently I'm at my last day of my internship, quite bittersweet especially considering that it looks like it's going to be an extremely slow and boring day. Tomorrow I'm spending the day at the beach, as a final goodbye to the ocean which I will miss dearly, and then Wednesday I drive back to Tucson. I'm not quite sure what I'll do there, seeing as I have no laptop, our cable is shut off, and it'll be hot as hell. Hopefully my days there will include a lot of Nick and George and other honorable mentions still in Tucson. Saturday night I take a redeye to New York (essentially taking the reverse trip that Monique will be making earlier that day) and spending a few days in the Hamptons with my family and my new laptop (which the kind parents are getting for me prior to my arrival). Then it's two weeks in Boston to see friends, more family, some doctors, and generally recuperate from the LA summer. 

I don't know when I'll have the blogging opportunity next; it could be in a week when I'm in The Hamptons, in a few days when I'm in Tucson, or in a few hours when I steal Jesse's iPhone - but hopefully Monique will be updating about the shoot and her last days in New York to fill any blog void. 

I wish that I could document my last days here with detail and depth, but it looks like that's just not in the cards.

Bye for now, kids,

Sarah

Listening to: The hum of the office. 

Yup Yup

In copying Monique, here is the view from my bed, which for whatever reason Photo Booth decided to flip and make the mirror image of. Whatevs. In honor of the backwards picture, this post will go in backwards chronological order. Enjoy. 

The air mattress on the floor is the current sleeping place of Mike, who is visiting for a few days. 

After he leaves it will be the sleeping place of Jesse who will be the last visitor in our little abode. 

Today marks the first day of the last week of my Los Angeles summer. We have just returned to the beach, and despite the fact that it was one of many many visits to the Santa Monica beach. The water was the warmest it's ever been, though I didn't stay in for long because it was low tide and the waves were small. Mike bodysurfed as I enjoyed my favorite ocean activity - bodypummeling, the act of just letting yourself get beat in the face repeatedly by oncoming waves. After the water I laid in the sun, thinking about how every other trip to the beach we made felt rushed for some reason or another, like we always had things to do later. Today we lay in the sun unsure of if we were going to leave in the next minute, or next few hours, and just allowed ourselves to soak in the sun. We ended up leaving after about two hours in the sand and walked over to the pier for soft pretzels. 

I only have two days left at my internship, which actually makes me very sad. I developed a nice little routine and a good flow through the office. I make small talk and gossiped with all of my "co-workers" said hellos and goodbyes to everyone while walking in and out each day, and got generally comfortable with being there. Yesterday and Monday were the only days in the office that I had real stress. It was good stress, the kind where after it's all over you feel an immense rush of calm and pride in finishing your work. I was assisting a producer as he prepared for a shoot next week in Vancouver. This producer did not treat me like an intern, did not give me little bitch work tasks to keep me occupied (though I did have to run out and buy him and the director fresh fruit and muffins one morning) but instead he told me exactly what he needed to get ready for this shoot and left me to figure out how to get it done. After the initial rush of I'm-not-qualified-for-this fears, I got my shit done. I asked people in the office when I wasn't sure of protocol, I googled like a motherfucker, and called Canada more times in a day than I might have in my life. I got to count three grand in cash (the most I think I've ever held at once) and then sign my life away calling myself the person responsible for said money and making sure that the producer got it. After filling out the forms for the payroll company, one of the people in accounting said to me "you know, now you can say you've been a production coordinator for a day or two". 

On Sunday, Katie and I went to the Museum of Neon Art in the Historic Downtown of Los Angeles. It's funny that we went there the day after my "where are all the pretty parts of LA like in (500) Days of Summer" post because...there they are. The Historic Downtown's building we're beautiful, though slightly dilapidated, and had much of the older architecture that was featured in the movie that I hadn't found anywhere else in the city. The area had the feel of an East Coast city, and easily could have been an area of Boston or New York. The neon museum was small but extremely enjoyable. I could see other people bitching about the price of 5 whole dollars being not worth the dozen or so neon signs on display, but for me it was the kind of place that I love giving money to: a small organization who is excited about the art that they show even if it's for a niche audience. The signs themselves were pretty nifty, they ranged greatly in size and purpose, and I snapped a few pictures with my crappy point and shoot digital. 

That sums up the past few days. I'm still clueless about my script, and still in my returning-in-a-year mindset about Los Angeles. The next week will include, if all goes to plan: a visit from Jesse, a self-guided (500) Days of Summer tour, a trip to Malibu to watch Alex surf (and hopefully see the dolphins that I missed out on yesterday while I was at work), Point Break Live (finally!), maybe a Getty trip, my last days of work, and then a somber drive back to Tucson. 

I'm now off to shower the salt water out of my hair and clean the sand out of my belly button. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Hey Ladies

Before I get to the bulk of this blog entry I will re-state what Mo already beat me to which is: Alex is coming back to LA! He's coming back only a week before I leave, but whatevs. I talked to my boss-man at my company and Alex will be working three days a week (two of which are days that I work, though since we only overlap a week that won't matter much). --End Blog Overlap--

Speaking of that company at which I work, I've spent today and yesterday doing a lot of answer phones, dealing with the exec's and their demands, internet shenanigans, and chatting with the other assistant in my area. I've gossiped with her before during other days that I've been perched in that area, but these past few days have had some particularly interesting conversation. 

She tells me, despite being a self-proclaimed feminist, "I truly hate saying this, but you don't want to work for a woman". She claimed that while she expected powerful women in the industry to embrace younger women trying to make their way she found that most of them were easily intimidated and often would not help other women working beneath them. Sadly, I can see it. Not like the male exec's are promoting their female assistants left and right, but there is a very odd sense of competition in the dynamic of a powerful female in the industry and the women working below her. I am not sure if this is the same with male/male boss/assistant relationships, but it's certainly an intriguing thought. 

Women and Hollywood had an entry a while back about Nora Ephron who stated in a recent article that she wanted women directors to "stop whining and just do it". I personally agree with that statement from Ms. Ephron (not just because I love her, I also think she's right), but the Women and Hollywood blog seemed hesitant, asking why Ms. Ephron didn't do more to aid up and coming female filmmakers. I do not think that Nora Ephron is guilty of the same bitterness that comes from the aforementioned female execs. I do think, unfortunately, that a lot of times it's very true that the people who are hardest to the women in the industry are other women. Even with a (slowly) growing number of female filmmakers, how many of them employ female department heads in their crew? Or female crew in general? WaH put out these fun statistics a few months ago. 

So, in the words of the Beastie Boys: "Hey ladies in the place I'm callin' out to ya"...go make some frickin' movies and be nice to other ladies. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Listening to: (Surprisingly enough, not the Beastie Boys) Hey Mama Wolf - Devendra Banhart  

Dear Monique,

It's 2:01 here, making it 5:01 in New York - happy Friday afternoon.

I was planning on responding to your letter earlier in the day, but I didn't expect to have something to do the moment I got into the office. Friday's are the best days in the office because Melissa is here interning as well, and because we get free bagels. As always, when I come in first thing in the morning I check in with my supervisor to see what needs to be done. He pointed me in the direction of the bays to help one of the shoots organize their wrap and said that Melissa was already over there helping. We spent the first few hours of our day organizing the talent and payroll sections of their wrap book and got free lunch out of the deal. Right now we're just chilling, waiting for another task to pop up. Melissa is falling asleep next to me but I don't want to wake her up. Teehee. 

It's interesting how you say that those things are over. I don't picture babywine, cupcakes, and John laying on our floor being over at all. I picture the next year being pretty much exactly as it was (minus a cat and plus a Tom) with babywine, cupcakes, et al. It's the fact that the year can continue as always and then it will end suddenly that makes me so bummed, but I never considered a real change to our lives once back in Tucson. 

Brandon is leaving tomorrow for Tahoe for the rest of the summer so we are having a farewell dinner for him tonight. Our tribe is shrinking quickly. We all still hope for an Alex return but no news yet. Katie and I are the next ones scheduled to leave, we're heading back to Tucson on the 29th. I'm not at all okay with how fast the summer is moving. There is too much left to do- and too much left to not do. 

I read your script. It was a definite mess of ideas, but a lovely one. I'm excited to see what elements you pull out of it for more refined draft. There's too much going on in the draft I read to discuss now, but that means there is plenty to work with. My script is...a script. I've written two completely different stories out of the same idea. There's a chance I'll write several more completely different scripts before figuring out which elements I want to keep from each. I also made things interesting by telling Jesse that if he writes the script idea he's been talking about and I like it better than my best attempt at a script I might make it. Who knows. 

Be well and happy. Despite random freakouts about the future, I have been able to be both of those things. I don't even mind the stress about the future, I'm embracing the fact that we're all at least a little masochistic because it's the things that keep you up at night that are worth pursuing. 

Love,

Sarah 

P.S. Though I am sad you didn't get very close to the action at the HP premiere, at least you didn't get swine flu from the Weasley boy. 

Kumquats and Other Silly Things

I still can't believe that it took me a whole month to get myself to the Santa Monica Farmers' Market. I still can't believe I've already been here a whole month - but that's a different story. In another example of how living in Santa Monica is like living with rose colored glasses (that block out the view of smog, traffic, homeless people) and will certainly give me a jaded view of living in LA, Katie and I walked to the farmers market. The fact that we have places to walk to (with nice scenery on the way) is impressive enough, but being walking distance from good food puts me over the top. 

I assumed that since the Farmers' Market is every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday that the Wednesday turn out would be light, but instead it was packed and there were so many tents in all different directions that Katie and I decided to do a loop around the entire place before buying anything. It was all a big tease, considering that the guest house we're living in has a kitchen consisting of a hot plate, toaster over, microwave, and mini-fridge which freezes half of our food (we were thrilled to discover that our milk had frozen yet our ice cream was completely melted). It was a little upsetting being around all that amazing food and knowing that we have no way to prepare or cook any of it in our little home. 

We ended up buying some fresh guacamole - I considered buying the ingredients to make guacamole instead but Katie pointed out we lack bowls and knives scarp enough to cut anything beyond butter. I also bought a bag of Kumquats and a variety of stone fruit. I was always a berry girl, but since I can't eat them too often anymore I've been venturing out in my fruit buying. There must have been at leave 20 stands with plums, peaches, nectarines, and apricots and we had at least 1 sample at all of them. I also had my first raw oyster after finding a booth that was shucking fresh ones. I've been reading Saucier's Apprentice, which not only makes me extremely hungry every time I pick it up, but after a scene describing the author's first raw oyster experience I couldn't resist getting one, even if they were 2 dollars per 1 little half shell. It was delicious. 

The halfway point of the summer is pretty mellow. Ellie and Tarreyn came down last weekend and the girls all went out for a cupcake raid of Sprinkles and Crumbs. Box, Jesse, and Mike are all possible visitors for the next month, and there is also rumored excitement about a triumphant return of Mr. Alex. I've fell into a nice rhythm here. I'm comfortable at my internship, I go for a walk by the beach every afternoon, and I have time to read and work on my script without feeling rushed.

Still, when I contemplate if I could live here in a year I start to get nervous. I could definitely call this city home for some amount of time. When I'm honest with myself, I could probably get used to living in any big city, but there are certainly things here that I really enjoy. But despite enjoying my internship it's given me some perspective about how the industry really works here and I don't know how happy it makes me. 

There are three routes: 1) You move out and say "I want to direct and only direct" and less than 1% of people who say this actually succeed and the rest fall back on something else. 2) You can work your way up the production ladder starting as a PA. The problem with this is a lot of people who aspired to be directors or DPs get stuck as grips and ACs permanently because they get too good at the jobs in the middle.  3) You can get a job at a production company and work your way up in the office. This is what I'm experiencing first hand, an office filled with people who mostly wanted to work in production or Direct but instead work closely with planning and dealing with productions but are never on set. Even if you work your way up in the company you pretty much get a bigger paycheck, but no real set time. The people in the office in their mid-20s all seem so bogged down that it's like they forgot or don't have the energy to pursue their original goals. This last option seems the most likely for me, but I'm not exactly sure I like what I'm observing and people who've gone down that road. 

During a long phone call with George the other night he said that most of what people stress about can be divided into F's: Friends, Family,  Food, Funds, Fucking, Film, Future.  This post has gotten absurdly long, and really should have been two separate entries, but I guess it properly sums up my current thoughts, though: food and future. Oh, and Free Willy, which Katie is currently watching. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Odds and Ends

I'm about three and a half hours into what will certainly be a slow and boring day. There is nothing going on in the office, nothing to research, and my supervisor isn't here. I have a slow day of Internet browsing ahead of me. 

Yesterday I worked my first shoot. While I can't say what the shoot was for, I will say that it was a very fun experience. It was a small shoot, I was one of five interns serving as PAs working alongside the professional crew and I was the only woman on set. It took about two or three hours into the day before someone finally said the words that I expected to have heard much earlier. As the wee PAs huddled in the area of the room most out of the way of the Big Boy's footsteps, I caught the 1st AC giving us all a once over. "So, you're all looking to get into the industry?" We nodded, he continued. "Get out. Chose another profession while you still can. The industry is dying, I wouldn't want to be trying to break in at this time." This comment, while a little brash, isn't really rude. The guy saying it was not unfriendly. It's the most honest and most common advice given to anyone in my position and I was surprised it hadn't come up sooner in my intern experience. 

My LA summer is just about half over, which is really depressing. I like it here, but I worry we're all getting too cozy and aren't exploring the city enough. While my internship experience is half over, Mo's is just starting and I can't wait for her to blog her ass off about New York and whatever shinanigans she experiences. Meanwhile, I'll be here. In the office. Reading digg and trying not to fall asleep on this slow, slow day. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Listening to: The really awful noise the printer has started to make behind me. 

Update Fail

I feel like there have been so many things to blog about that have been passing me by without the opportunity to write about them. I don't think I have the mental energy to do it now, I've been bizarrely exhausted the past few days despite getting a ton of sleep. I'll do a brief recap of the weekend now, with a promise of more to come later. 

Katie and I decided to explore Hollywood on Friday night, which would probably remain the biggest activity mistake that we make this summer. It was, in a word, skeezy. Like if you were in Times Square but instead of it being 100% tourists it was 35% tourists 25% local people dressed like cheap whores and 40% tourists dressed like cheap whores. We got the 'thrill' of walking through a group of paparazzi on the way back to the car and the parking lot attendant told us that they pretty much stake out the lot starting at 11 pm and that we missed Paris Hilton by two nights. I wouldn't say we 'missed' her. Seeing the hand and foot prints in front of the Chinese Theatre was pretty awesome, but next time I know to go on a Wednesday morning to see them and not a Friday night. Now we've learned: West Hollywood where the rest of the BFA gang is living  = cool, North Hollywood = I thought was pretty cool until Alex's car was broken into there, Hollywood proper = skeezy as fuck. 

On Saturday we went to see some short films at the Playhouse West Film Festival where Pennies to the Dollar, Alex and John's Junior Thesis Project, was playing. It was great seeing a piece I had worked on playing in front of an audience that knew nothing about any of us, which is very different from any audience our work has had in the past. It played very well, with strong audience reactions at the right moments. After we went to Shin, an all you can eat Korean BBQ place, and ate a ridiculous amount of meat to celebrate the film fest and the fact that it was Alex's last night in town. I think that copious amounts of meat was an appropriate send-off for him, and I'ma miss the little bugger. 

On Sunday, John, Alisha, Katie, Melissa, Adam and I went back to Disneyland. I have to say, after growing up going to the much more overwhelming Disney World, I'm a total Disneyland fan. My boss asked me Monday after I told him that we had been to Disneyland two weekends in a row if we at least went on mushrooms for one of the times. I told him no, we were sober, we just love Disneyland. I got another fortune from Esmerelda, and it was much more optimistic but did not sound like me at all, so I will not post it. 

The internship has continued to be fun and my activities there, while simple, have gotten pretty varied. I'll give a more comprehensive post about it later since I've actually accumulated a numerous amount of amusing stories that it's enough that they deserve their own post or two. The re-writing of my senior project is going well, even though if it's more in my head than on paper, I'm starting to figure out a story that I'm happy with. Melissa has agreed to be my camera operator and kind of a Co-DP which I am very happy about, and so far she and Allen (my AD) are the only crew I have, which is fine because it's hard to ask people to commit to a project with no shooting dates. I think my plan for today (a day off from work) is to go walk to the beach and try to write down some of my script ideas before doing laundry and food shopping which are both painfully overdue. 

Bye kids (for now),

Sarah

Listening to: Vicky Christina Barcelona (and half watching it, too) 

These Days

Here is the thing to keep in mind with any new internship: you have to go into it thinking that the best case scenario is that it's a resume boost and anything else is just an added surprise perk. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my time here, but if I had gone into this expecting to do real work I would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, it's exactly as I've expected. I answer phones, do small tasks, I have one summer long task to work on updating online reels for the company's database, and I mainly spend my day cruising the internet. People are nice and relatively chill, I got a free Sprinkles cupcake today (Schwing!), and I've been told that later in the summer I'll get to be on set once I've "gotten my feet wet" in the office. It's not like I currently have nothing to do in the office because people are being snobby, or untrusting, or mean, there just straight up isn't anything going on for me to do right now. But the company is cool, the work they put out is awesome, and people have been friendly so I can't really complain.

The settling-in portion of the summer has pretty much ended, we no longer feel the need to try to go out and be exciting every spare moment of our days and are spending less money in the process. We've mellowed out to meals at home, nights watching Mad Men, walks to/on the beach, and visits with the rest of the LA BFA Intern crew. 

I've been spending a lot of time brainstorming my project for this upcoming fall. I think I'm scrapping the story I had originally gone with for something that keeps the same visuals and themes but has a story that feels more like the work I want to make and is much less depressing. I have NO desire to be the film student with the over-emotional melodrama piece of crap in her portfolio. Nope nope nope. 

Bye kids,

Sarah

Listening to: The sound of typing and paper shuffling.