Though I have had no celebrity sightings as of yet – to which I am very disappointed, by the way – my first week has not been terribly uneventful.

I have:

• Found a box of kittens on my doorstep.  Yes, kittens, just plopped there with no mommy.
• Been to Disneyland.  Met Belle, she’s a hottie.
• Had a mental breakdown over tiny matters, including but not limited to “how much to feed the fish.”  I’m very emotional right now.
• Visited the Cheesecake Factory of Pasadena, in theory where Penny from “The Big Bang Theory” works.  I did not see her there.
• Woke up from from a good night’s sleep to find a domestic worker in the kitchen.  Apparently she did not get the memo about the Europe frolicking.

And, as of this afternoon, I have sent my resume to real life Hollywood TV shows.  Yes, that’s right.  There are people who work on TV that have my resume in their possesion.  Well, at least in their office…  their fax machines.

I systematically and indiscriminately worked my way down the list alphabetically.  I was going to work until five, but somewhere around mid-alphabet (where all the cool shows undoubtedly sit) I decided that though there would probably be people there for hours longer, I did not want to be the resume that sits on the “late afternoon” pile.  I want to be with the early morning birds with worms resume.  So, I put the rest of my career on hold until tomorrow.

So, A-E have a jump start on my awesome talent, but don’t worry Rest-of-the-Alphabet, you’ll catch up.

Check back next week, I’ll probably be famous by then.

ADDENDUM:

Not three hours after I posted this, the house four doors down from me caught fire and burned down.  I stood in the driveway watching the firemen, just in case it decided to ninja across three lawns to my house. Just thought I would add it to my list.

Being in the the suburbs and nowhere near the city, 7:30 a.m. is peak commute time for a great many.  It is very possible to watch two or three buses pass by my stop packed full of people on their pre-journey to the daily grind only for the following bus to be “standing room only.” This happened to me today.  As I piled onto the crowded yellow bus I was the luckiest of the unlucky – based on sheer positioning of the sardine can – who had the option of perching on the step leading to the back seats if I so desired.  I desired.  I’m not proud, but it’s a forty five minute ride into the city ¹ and my bag is heavy with a capital heave.

As I sat there on the grody germ-filled stoop staring out the window, I noticed a bookshop sign; plain block letters, but the “O” was tilted to the side, adding the slightest bit of whimsy.  I asked myself, why did a bookstore need whimsy–

SQUERREEAAAALLL!!!

The bus driver breaks suddenly, lunging the standing commuters forward.  Myself, not actually being in a seat of any kind, hurtled forward, almost airborne, straight towards the female ass in front of me. 

Time slowed.  I had enough time to form well articulated thoughts — well, at least thoughts of any kind — about the situation I found myself in.  I knew three things for certain, at this point.

1. The woman ahead of me wears leggings to work.
2. She does this because she clearly works out her glutes.
3. My face was going to make contact with said derriere.

But then, it didn’t.  I felt something tugging on my pants, preventing  me from going further forward.  An angel perhaps?  No, not quite.  The man in the real seat next to me had instinctively reached out and grabbed me by both sides of the jeans and pulled me back onto the step.  The man — somewhere between middle-aged and oldish – smiled back at me. 

“You were falling.”

He said this in a way that implited that if he hadn’t I might not have realized what event had just befallen me.  Who knows, I might have even crashed completely to the ground and not known have known that it had happened. 

I thanked him and clung for the nearest pole.

Moral of the story?  Perhaps it is that we all need a little whimsy in our lives.  Or at the very least, an old guy.

___

(I hope I can get through this without falling asleep, I’m starting to get blurred vision.  Though FINALLY a semi-valid excuse for typos)

So, what did I do to occupy my time?  Mostly, peed a lot ¹ and watched movies.  The movie selection wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.  I ended up seeing a couple semi-new-ish movies that I had been curious about and a couple I didn’t really have an opinion on one way or the other (until now).

My List (in viewing order, may contain spoilers)

1. The Joneses
2. Precious
3. The Bounty Hunter
4. Babies
5. Just Wright

The Joneses

I like clever plays on popular memes and Demi Moore, so this wasn’t a bad pick for my first choice.  If I only knew it was setting the tone for the mediocrity for my following inflight experience.

“Stealth Marketing” is the name of the game where Demi Moore and David Duchonvy along with two teens form a fake family who are paid to move into a neighborhood and advertise various trends by being really really cool.  Look at my sweet Audi and new phone and awesome clothes, you should buy them too, look how happy they make us, we’re the perfect family. Etcetera.

It was a decent premise and a good enough story that was actually a lot more dramatic than I would have pegged, however, it copped out in the end by taking the easy ‘romance triumphs’ subplot.  I have no problems with such subplots, but it wasn’t really the dramatic question of the movie so I felt it inappropriate.  It wasn’t “Will Mulder get with Ashton’s wife” but “can the rookie perform and the fake family achieve the status that they all so desperately want?”  Or something to that effect.   It’s fine that Mr. Jones realizes in the end that this isn’t the life that he wanted to lead, but him wooing the ice cold Missus with him was a bit lame.  But otherwise enjoyable.

I rank this as ’3′ of the night.  Day.  Something.

Precious

Wow, just wow.  It was as heartbreaking and as beautiful as it promised to be.  The supporting cast was brilliant and Monique played a terrific monster.  It hammered away at my soul for two straight hours, but it was well worth it.

All I have to say is, fine, make her a rape/incest victim, give her two children by her own father, one of which has Downs Syndrome, let her mother physically and verbally abuse her and her children, ² make her illiterate, but then to make her HIV positive to boot?  Wow, movie-makers are jerks.

My favorite of the flight, but only by a hair.

The Bounty Hunter

Whoever would have thought that the movie entitled “The Bounty Hunter” would be romance comedy (and I do use the word “comedy” loosely).

Let’s be frank, this movie was shit.

It went exactly where you would expect it to, just the way you guessed it would – which I’m not necessarily opposed to on principle, but it tried so hard to be funny and wasn’t and the characters were downright unlikeable.  Gerard Butler wins the award for being the silver-screen’s largest douchebag.

Two characters who hate each other and have no chemistry end up together, and for what reason?  Hell if I know.  Butler’s character is clearly a moron.  The couple supposedly got married after six months of dating and they fought the whole time and then got divorced.  There was a reason for that last part.  They were terrible together and though I certainly didn’t know it by watching it, apparently they spent the hour and a half growing reluctantly fond of each other.  You could have fooled me, the only reason I know that is because they kissed in the end.

To make things worse they had a slapstick caricature stalker of Jennifer Aniston’s character and they threw in a ‘dirty cop cover-up scandal’ action subplot to pad out the ninety minutes.

This was the most perfunctory writing and storytelling I have witnessed in a long time, and I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing.

Least favorite of the night.  And I’m Team Aniston.

Babies

Babies! What can I say? This was adorable.  A beautiful documentary that I highly recommend.  It follows for infants (one from Mongolia, Africa, Japan and the USA) for the first year (ish) of their lives.  It has no dialogue and focuses entirely on the babies.  We hardly get glimpses of the parents’ faces at all, it’s all about how the infants interact with their surroundings/world/situation.  Brilliant storytelling and really gripping for two hours worth of babies wallering on the ground.  Everyone go rent it.

This came very close to being my favorite for the night.

Just Wright

Another default Rom Com.  Rich basketball player is injured and unwittingly falls for the tomboy, die-hard fan, who is his physical therapist.  Unoffensive and watchable, plus Queen Latifah.   Though, I could only guess that they got together in the end, we landed right in the middle of Prince Charming’s big speech, so I don’t know Latifah’s answer.  Maybe there was a twist that I didn’t see coming.

Side note, this was the second movie during this marathon that co-starred Paula Patton.  In this film she played Queen Latifah’s sexy gets-all-the-boys cousin and in Precious she played the eponymous characters’ role model and teacher.  God she is hot.

This movie slots happily into number ’4.’

I’m not foreseeing the domestic legs having my own personal television sets, so who knows what I’m in store for on the next leg.

_____

Image courtesy of examiner.com

Okay, by “meet” I mean, of course, “sitting in a crowd listening to a speech” and by “maker” I mean “the guy I really really like,” but that’s what it felt like yesterday when I went to see Joss Whedon speak at Sydney’s Opera House.  This is the guy who wrote the show that changed how I viewed and still view television. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first show that I watched and then actually retained.  I mean, there were shows that I liked and watched frequently, but it always went in one ear and out the other, but Buffy was different - it’s hard to explain and it’s a story for another day, but all I know is that I’m grateful it happened.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this thing yesterday. I figured he was going to talk about how cool it was to do the stuff he does and then he was going to be grilled embarrassingly by over-zealous zealots he calls “fans.” I have some friends who saw him in Melbourne the night or two before and said that he was charming and intelligent (which was no surprise) but the host they had didn’t facilitate well. Even though I believe we had a different host, I thought the worst that could happen is that we’d have a douche up on stage showing his ass, but  I mean, a bad host is better than no Joss at all.

We were warned right.  Will Anderson, a local comedian, was a crude and disrespectful facilitaor.  Not that I think he meant to be, as I understand it, he is quite the fan, but he wore flip flops and swore a lot.  Sometimes there were awkward pauses in conversation where the audience and Mr. Whedon were like “ehwha?”  Not to mention he would occassionally interrupt the guest of honor to get his own less funny quip in.  That said…

…then there was Joss.

And oh boy, was there Joss.  He came out on stage with a bang.  Smoke and blue light brought a silhouette out into the shape of a man; a hero to so many. Then he started to speak.  The fact that he was just talking several yards away from me made the fangirl in me want to piddle in excitement.  At that point he could do no wrong.  Then, something brilliant happened.  He said that he was going to talk about something different this time around, that he wasn’t going to give the stock standard speech about networks and little trivia about the shows that we could find out anywhere on the internet, he was instead going to talk about himself and what made him tick.

Oh. Em. Gee.

That. Just. Happened.

It was amazing.  He got really intimate.  He spoke about his childhood and his fears growing up and what scared him and what his “dark place” was.  He said before he never knew why he wrote teenaged girls with superpowers.  He always just thought they were cool, but something must have been asked at the Melbourne talk that made him think because he said that the last few days has put some things into place for him.  Yes, he will always write about teenaged girls with superpowers, but more than that, he will always write about hopelessness.  He said that these young girls he wrote were his avatar because he is a small scared man that will always need to be saved. Wowza.

Ah, now, that is interesting.  He said that he was always frightened, helpless, and alone.  He talked about his father and how he was scared of his disapproving scowl ¹ and how if you dropped him three blocks from his house and turned him around twice, he would likely die of exposure.  There was a vulnerability and a truth to what he was saying that I have never heard from him in any interview or DVD extra.  It was amazing.  Amazing is not the best, most articulate way to express that, but it’s all I got. There was something very human but still “Joss is God” like about him as he continued to talk.

When he spoke about himself and his eccentricities it was amazing how much I related to him.  I know that must sound pompous, but I can’t help it. When he spoke about a plain, uneventful, childhood unworthy of a memoir and his social inability to speak to people, especially women, and I was there with him.  When he said that he said he wanted to be everything, to do everything; to paint, to write, to draw, to dance, to play in a band — but then only got good enough to then quit, I wanted to jump out of my seat and shout ‘amen.’ When he said that he was not scared to be alone but often was, I empathized wholeheartedly, thinking about the little study I have made for myself that no one is allowed in. And when he said “I will never be less than a storyteller,”  and spoke with a subtle, non-pretentious passion that oozed from ever pore, I was inspired and filled with hope.  It was so moving that I didn’t want it to end.

But it did.  Will Anderson came back on to try to be funnier than him and the mics were opened up to the audience to ask the equivalent of “what was your favorite childhood toy and why?” ²  I just wanted to scream at them all and get Joss to keep talking about whatever it was he wanted to say – politics, religion, shoe polish, anything – but alas, that would have been really awkward and Joss would have looked at me funny, so I allowed it to continue on course.

I did not expect to be a giant fangirl about this.  I thought it would just be something fun and cool to say, like I mentioned, he was the guy who started it all. Showing up was the only way I could show my gratitude.  I’m now so glad that I went, I got so much more out of it than ever thought possible.

____

It was a pretty tough call for me.  On one hand, I’m in no position in my career to be turning down a credit, especially on a feature film.  I have nothing against the film and I wish it success, but it was a small, fairly new company trying to get a low budget comedy up and running.  The likelihood of it turning much profit was slim.  (Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it will go one to rake in oodles.)  Unfortunately, the other hand is that I need to pay rent now, this month, and I can’t take weeks/months of unpaid time because I have enough trouble paying the bills and my credit card off as it is.

It would have been nice to have a credit on that film.  I have a fairly anemic resume at the moment and another feature film could have helped me a lot in getting my next (paid) gig.

So this is what it means to be an adult then; making decisions based on being able to eat opposed to “pursuing a dream.”

Hopefully, next time this sort of thing comes up I will have the cash saved away that I will be able to take the time off, but unfortunately now, my car insurance needs me.

1. I got a grownup job.

Whoever thought that would happen.  I am now the script assistant for the Australian medical drama entitled All Saints.  It has been an absolute blast.  I am learning so much about the biz and at alarming rates.  It doesn’t hurt that I also love the people I am working with.  Let’s hope it gets picked up for another season so that I can keep this dream job.

2. I have written a TV spec script.

I will be submitting  a 30 Rock spec script as part of my application for the ABC Disney Talent Writer’s Fellowship.  I send it in next week. It is nowhere as good as I would want it to be, but what’s the worst that I can happen?  I already humbled myself by showing it to friends.  EEP, never again.  Reading over it I was embarrassed at the draft I had given them.  However, it did inspire me to rewrite it.

3. I signed up to Twitter.

Yep.  I gave in to peer pressure.  It’s oddly addicting, this Twitter thing.  Who would have thought I cared what people could say in 140 letters or less.  It’s strangely complex and there’s a whole new language one must learn.  But I must keep up with the youths.  You may follow me @carrieisgett. I will eventually link it to my site.

So there, stuff happens.  Isn’t it all grand?

As an American, I am not an expert on Australian television, especially their dramas.  I’m not totally opposed to it,¹ but it would seem that the more actively I pursue my interest in television the less time I have to sit and watch it.   Ain’t life grand?  I have seen only a handful of All Saints episodes, so it can be easily said that I was a bit disoriented at first but I think I caught on fast enough.

Because we ² were plotting out an episode that doesn’t air until next year sometime, I don’t really know what I’m allowed to say about the actual episode in terms of respect for the show and respect for spoiler phobia, so to be safe, I’ll just stick to the “My Day” part of the story.

The day before I was sent a brief rundown of what the episode was that we were going to be looking at. After I got over the “I don’t know which faces to put to these names” portion of my anxiety, things went a bit more smoothly. (Turns out there are a few new characters to appear an that’s why they weren’t able to be found anywhere on the web).  I was also informed that they were starting at 10, so please be there by 9:45.  

If only I had gotten there at 9:45.  Not wanting to be late, I left my house at about 8:45, knowing that though the distance to Channel 7 studios wasn’t far, the traffic in that area could be a real bitch.  Of course, with my luck, there was no traffic.  None.  In fact, from what I could tell, the roads were bored.  I got there at nine. NINE!  Yes, it is good to be on time and even a bit early, but I believe an hour early falls into the category of “Annoying” because your hosts have to discreetly find a place to put you so they can get their actual work done.  So, I went and grabbed a coffee, which took about three seconds, so for the next half hour or so I just drove around the three or four block radius in order to kill some time.  At 9:35, I thought that maybe I had crossed the “Annoyingly Early” threshold into the “Professional” area and headed on into security. 

I, by any means, did notdress up for this, but I did make sure that I looked presentable, which included a pair of boots with a very small kitten heel on them.  I like them and they look nice.  However, I was the only one there who had any form of hard sole on ³ and every time I walked across the hardwood floor it echoed and felt like then entire studio could hear me.  I may be exaggerating here, but not by much.

Annabel Davis, the script department manager, a very nice lady who had been handling me up to this point,  introduced me around to the writer’s department before sitting me on a couch to wait for everything to begin.  As people started to trickle in I got more aquatinted with everyone.  Naturally I gravitated toward the writer’s assistant, Nicky, because I saw her the most as she set up for the day but I also got to speak with one of the show’s medical advisors, Camilla (unfortunately, I never caught her last name).  Finally I met the show’s script producer Louise Crane (an insanely hilarious lady with a great feel for story telling), the script editor Trent (aka Trent 2, for my purposes) and the actual writer for this particular episode Trent Atkinson.  I instantly fell in love with Trent Atkinson a bit, possibly because upon meeting him I just assumed he was twelve and not to mention he was just the most pleasant human being on the planet, which is so taken for granted these days.  Trent and Louise really worked well together, seeming to fuel each other, both in story telling and comedically.  Trent told me which seat was Lou’s and as long as I didn’t sit there, I would probably be fine.

Like I mentioned before, they are in the process of adding new characters, so Lou showed a couple of casting DVD’s of the people they have cast since the last episode Trent wrote.  That was neat, because I was able to familiarize myself with the new faces considering I really only knew “Frank” and “Von” by name/face and recognized the people who turned out to be “Dan” and “Bart” as “All Saints People” before this time. So then the writing process began.  Lou and Trent began to talk through the episode’s story with the occassional input from Camilla and/or Trent 2.  On the other end of the table, Nicky typed everything they decided on — eight hours of essentially typing what everyone said.   This is pretty much how the day went (except Trent 2 made an exit at lunch time).  It was really cool and one of my favorite parts was watching Camilla.  They could give pretty much and time lapse (ie, for surgery or recovery) or visual (ie, coughing up blood) and she could tweak the ailment to have that desired effect.  That was really interesting. 

It was a pretty exhausting day for me, and I wasn’t really doing much.  I did take notes though.  Apparently, observers are allowed to write a submission for the episode plotted in the room and someone will give them feed back on it.  I’m definitely going to do one in the coming weeks.  It’s going to be really hard, especially since I have no idea about any of the medical ailments that were discussed.  Annabel said that Camilla would have a summary for the episode’s medical but it probably wouldn’t be out for another two weeks, so I might have to wait for that so I don’t look too much like a tool.  

Yesterday really confirmed for me that this is what I want to do.  The creative energy was awesome and you could really tell these guys were having a ball doing it, even when they got serious and “down to business.”  And it didn’t really hurt to hear the “insider info” about the actors that you might not hear elsewhere.  They sound like great people to work with though, I’ll say that.  It seems like there is never a dull moment around those parts and I can’t wait to get my foot in the door.  I left my CV with Annabel just in case something ever comes up where they may need someone to do … anything really, I am not too fussed.

On a little side note, Trent is directing a series of short films hoping they will help him get funding for his feature.  I offered my assistance if he need it and hopefully he will take me up on it.  He told me to give him an email and he would let me know some details.  It would be cool to get back on set again, it’s been too long.

So, yep, yesterday was a bit A+ in my book.  Hopefully I didn’t make too bad of an impression (though, would that be better or worse than making no impression at all, and be forgotten instantly?)  I wish that I’ll be able to do something else like that again some time in the future.  Thank you so much Stephen Davis for getting me the connection with his show writer friend Blake Ayshford and All Saints.  It was definitely a great experience.

The episode will probably air in February or March, so it’s a while to wait.  Hopefully though I will be able to post my submission on this website after I submit it, granted I’m allowed to.

In other news, when I did my Wii Fit yesterday it said I lost .5 kg.  Today’s results are as follows:

BMI: 22.79 (from 22.94)

Weight: 61.3 (from 61.7)

So down .4 kg is a good sign I guess, but I’m still far away from my goal and rapidly running out of time. (Not to mention over a week ago I started at 61.4…)