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?

I don’t know how Meredith Grey does it.  I’m completely surrounded by doctors and ailments that I can hardly concentrate on getting to the fun relationship stuff.   I don’t know how she does it. All I can say is that I have truly underestimated writers who do this sort of thing for a living.  I don’t know how the writer’s of Greys or All Saints can do this without ten years of med school…

Hopefully I will get around to a draft this weekend so I can get it done.  But next week is hectic too because I’m supposed to be completing my second draft of one of my features this coming week.  AGH.

WII FIT:

Lost .5 kg and .15% BMI.  GO DIET SHAKES!

______

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…)