what's steven seagal like?
a lot of people labor under the illusion (furthered by most behind the scenes and gossip reporting) that everyone in the entertainment industry is acquainted, and that we all meet socially on a regular basis. a question i often field is "what's joss whedon/johnny depp/alan ball/william shatner like?" to which i invariably have to answer "oh, he's great, we smoke cigars daily at the carny folk social club."
the truth of it is that the biz is far less glamorous - most of us lead lives that are simultaneously nomadic and workaday: much of our time in offices that will only belong to us for the duration of whatever show we are on at the time and are thus designed for efficiency as opposed to aesthetic benefit (the producers of "lost," for example, didn't get the "nice" offices on the disney lot until the third season), but do so much work in those offices that our social entanglements are few and far between. my social life tends to also be defined by the show in which i am working and whatever amount of leisure time it affords me (which is usually zero).
all of that goes out the window when you leave los angeles to make a show: the hotel in which i am staying (and the cluster of restaurants in its immediate orbit) is a well known hub for visiting carny folk. in that way, it is like that idealized version of the entertainment idustry in which famous actors, not so famous writers and everyone in between are constantly in each other's hair, meeting at the bar and doing laundry in the same few machines.
the last time i stayed here was in 2003, for "jake 2.0:" and i am fairly certain i had the exact same room in which i am typing this now...and there are so many production guests at the place that you are actually warned by your production to make sure you get on the right shuttle van when you go out in the morning - production vans all tend to be the same color white or gunmetal silver, they all tend to house a sensitive writer, an energetic director, an unflappable director of photography, an assiduous assistant director, a highly put-upon locations manage, and several other well-established personality types.
if you are sleepy, recovering from a long night, or too focused on your cell phone call, you could easily wind up on the scout for the pilot competing against yours, or one of the other twenty plus films shooting in vancouver at any given time (i'm hoping to try to use that excuse to sneak into the "watchmen" van, but have a feeling their security is pretty tight).
(speaking of types - we writers have a weird way of sniffing each other out: maybe we all look similar or something, but it's uncanny how many times i have gotten in the elvator with another doughy, pale, bespectacled guy in his thirties who has turned to me and said "who do you write for?")
the greatest embodiment of the myth of a highly centralized entertainment business where everyone knows everybody is probably the bar here - a wood panel lounge with an unusually high carny folk to civillian ratio - where many of us go to drown our sorrows night after night for the duration of whatever project brought us here (or until we have the precious free time to scout other restaurants in the area): going down there and having a drink in the vicinity of whoever is guest starring in "the bionic woman" this week is a crucial part of the frisson of runaway production in the great white north.
so, it has taken fifteen years - but finally i am part of an entertainment industry that looks like what many people fantasize it to be...i get to have bourbon a few feet from a controversial TV surgeon, to stop my car so that a starship captain can walk in front of me, to walk by an icon of seventies series TV as he raises his voice to make sure his cellphone call is intellgible, to ask a sex symbol turned TV mom if it's ok for me to reach over her for the peanuts on the bar, to tell one of the defining actors of 1990's teen TV that he is in my airplane seat...and, of course, to eat sushi under the blanket of security provided by steven seagal's entourage.
the truth of it is that the biz is far less glamorous - most of us lead lives that are simultaneously nomadic and workaday: much of our time in offices that will only belong to us for the duration of whatever show we are on at the time and are thus designed for efficiency as opposed to aesthetic benefit (the producers of "lost," for example, didn't get the "nice" offices on the disney lot until the third season), but do so much work in those offices that our social entanglements are few and far between. my social life tends to also be defined by the show in which i am working and whatever amount of leisure time it affords me (which is usually zero).
all of that goes out the window when you leave los angeles to make a show: the hotel in which i am staying (and the cluster of restaurants in its immediate orbit) is a well known hub for visiting carny folk. in that way, it is like that idealized version of the entertainment idustry in which famous actors, not so famous writers and everyone in between are constantly in each other's hair, meeting at the bar and doing laundry in the same few machines.
the last time i stayed here was in 2003, for "jake 2.0:" and i am fairly certain i had the exact same room in which i am typing this now...and there are so many production guests at the place that you are actually warned by your production to make sure you get on the right shuttle van when you go out in the morning - production vans all tend to be the same color white or gunmetal silver, they all tend to house a sensitive writer, an energetic director, an unflappable director of photography, an assiduous assistant director, a highly put-upon locations manage, and several other well-established personality types.
if you are sleepy, recovering from a long night, or too focused on your cell phone call, you could easily wind up on the scout for the pilot competing against yours, or one of the other twenty plus films shooting in vancouver at any given time (i'm hoping to try to use that excuse to sneak into the "watchmen" van, but have a feeling their security is pretty tight).
(speaking of types - we writers have a weird way of sniffing each other out: maybe we all look similar or something, but it's uncanny how many times i have gotten in the elvator with another doughy, pale, bespectacled guy in his thirties who has turned to me and said "who do you write for?")
the greatest embodiment of the myth of a highly centralized entertainment business where everyone knows everybody is probably the bar here - a wood panel lounge with an unusually high carny folk to civillian ratio - where many of us go to drown our sorrows night after night for the duration of whatever project brought us here (or until we have the precious free time to scout other restaurants in the area): going down there and having a drink in the vicinity of whoever is guest starring in "the bionic woman" this week is a crucial part of the frisson of runaway production in the great white north.
so, it has taken fifteen years - but finally i am part of an entertainment industry that looks like what many people fantasize it to be...i get to have bourbon a few feet from a controversial TV surgeon, to stop my car so that a starship captain can walk in front of me, to walk by an icon of seventies series TV as he raises his voice to make sure his cellphone call is intellgible, to ask a sex symbol turned TV mom if it's ok for me to reach over her for the peanuts on the bar, to tell one of the defining actors of 1990's teen TV that he is in my airplane seat...and, of course, to eat sushi under the blanket of security provided by steven seagal's entourage.