LA was pretty surreal this past weekend. I still can’t believe I was out there filming for the documentary. It was actually odd as I sat in LAX with DLS waiting on the flight home. Both of us were completely exhausted as we sputtered out at random intervals:
Holy shit, we’re doing this.
I realize technically it began several weeks back with the shoot in Philadelphia but this weekend was the no turning back point. This was the defining moment that would give us the boost to carry on with the project. We didn’t achieve our over all objective of five interviews and one panel discussion, but we got damn close in the time we were allotted. Overall I deem this borderline impromptu road trip a great success.
Friday
When I first arrived at the airport and met up with DLS I was a bit dismayed by the fact that our one interviewee was adamant about filming at the hotel. This was a bit off putting since I had actually dumped the extra gear to the wayside at 2am the previous night because I was under the impression everything was to be conducted at the law school on Saturday. Had this happened to me five years ago I probably would have had a complete meltdown before checking in my bag. I was good. No screaming or cussing. I knew this was something I couldn’t resolve until I got to the hotel so that I could take inventory of what I had access to.
Once we got to the room I scoped things out. It wasn’t the best scenario, but I could work with it. We dumped the gear and ran off to the grocery store to stock up on caffeine. I knew there was no other way I was going to survive the weekend without it. I was also happy to learn that not only is DLS not a morning person but she’s violent before that first sip of highly caffeinated tea. That’s where we hit a snag. We found tea bags at the grocery store but our hotel room didn’t have any way to heat up water. That’s when my inner trailer trash kicked in and I started to search the grocery store for a sterno can, cake rack and four cans of soup. While the idea was brilliant, at least in my opinion it was, it was simply not meant to be. DLS had to settle for a rockstar to jumpstart her in the morning and I was left wondering why I hadn’t thought of looking up a camping store in advance of the trip.
Saturday
Five minutes before the first interviewee arrived I was still in my flannel cocktail PJs in a blanket cocoon. Thirty seconds prior to arrival I was caffeinated, dressed and setting up the shoot. Interview went well and it actually went over the thirty minute allotment we had set aside. As far as the documentary stand point this was great, scheduling for the rest of the day however took a hit as we found ourselves running to the diner up the street to eat breakfast in under fifteen minutes so that we could be at the law school on time.
We were late. By about ten minutes. The first panel was well on it’s way as we slipped into the back of the lecture hall. It was an interesting observation for me considering I don’t have any sort of teaching background. As DLS pointed various people out to me I couldn’t help but giggle a bit to myself. There were several well known people in the literary world in attendance that afternoon, but it was completely lost to me. What I found humorous was the grad students that flocked around these individuals. You could see these twenty somethings with their mouths gaped and hanging on every last word of these professions. They were essentially the rock stars of literature and they KNEW it.
I filmed the one panel we were slated for but then things got sort of grim. We were informed that the law school would only have us until 5 that afternoon and the separate interviews might not happen due to time constraints. Out of the four interviews we had slated we nailed down two when we combined the interview shortly after five PM. I kep waiting for the security guard the throw us off campus, but he actually was very cool about us being there. We didn’t leave the lecture hall until 6:30 that night.
The handful of people that were still left on campus invited us out afterwards. The irony in the invite was that none of them were LA natives so none knew where to go. Luckily an executive decision was made to return to our hotel lobby for cheap burgers and drinks. We BSed with them (the literary rockstars) until about ten and turned in shortly thereafter.
Sunday
Got up, got dressed and flew home.
It’s probably going to take me the rest of the week to recover.
