A Skewed View

If they keep stocking up on nuts for the winter, and winter never actually comes, will squirrels eventually explode? (admit it... you can't stop thinking about it now.  you're welcome.)

I remain pretty surprised by how dry winters are in Toronto. But while taking a walk one night, I was lulled from my usual route by the glow of a neighbourhood that gets into the Christmas season by decking out their homes regardless of the grass-covered lawns that mock their holiday spirits.  I see pictures posted online of car clusters with their undersides dotting the ditches off Highway 2 outside Edmonton and kinda get homesick for the adrenaline rush of realizing your car is no longer in your control and you just hold onto the wheel hoping that your tires will find traction before your windshield finds snowdrift. Oh well.  I can still run to the store at the end of the block in sandals if I choose.  That's a bit of rush, I guess.

SURPRISE BEAR ENCOUNTERS This stuffed bear had been sitting amongst random items behind the set for weeks until finally one of the writers could take it no more.  He hauled it into the boss' office and lay in wait until someone noticed.  We had all seen it and had a knee-slapper of a time over it before the boss came back -- walking right past us talking and asking about our afternoons while heading for her office without looking inside it.  Wondering why we were all just grinning and watching her, she walked into her office quite confused -- then leaped back out the office in a single bound.  (sadly, none of us knew that she was actually quite terrified of bears, poor thing.  on its face though, it was a marvelous moment.) I love being around creative people who think outside the box... through as warped of eyes as I do. Production Fave #5:  The Inmates Running the Asylum

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF Every day of prepping a script (meetings and revisions and plans and preparing what will be shot the following week) , the production office distributes a Prep Schedule to everyone.  The Prep Schedule outlines what meetings are at what time, and who is expected to attend.  So you can scan the schedule at any time and see where you're supposed to be ... or look at it for the explanation for why someone is not answering your phone calls.  A ha!  They are at the 2:00 to 2:30 meeting to discuss whether or not the background performers for scene 32 will be asked to show naked-side-butt (an actual term we started to use) . When there are no more scripts to prep -- because you are about to shoot the last script of the season -- there is little to do but prepare to take down the season's bad guy.  Efficient as ever, the production office pencils that in for you. Production Fave #4:  Scheduling Departures f...

(first, a disclaimer: I am not currently working in production... but I still have favourite things about it) LEARNING A NEW SKILL One day last year, the Producer came to me before a readthrough and asked if I would fill in for the Script Supervisor for a Second Unit shoot (ed. note: The crew that films the main actors/story is known as Main Unit.  If footage is needed that doesn't require the main actors and there isn't enough time on the schedule for Main Unit to pull it off, it is filmed by the Second Unit) .  Thing is: although my position is Script "Coordinator", that has absolutely nothing in common with what the Script "Supervisor" does.  Or vice versa.  Wanting to be known as a team player, I replied (very slowly) "ohhh...kay" -- and ran down to the Script Supervisor to ask her how the heck she does her job.  The above were my notes over the course of the 15 minutes she had time to give me.  I'm not even sure what they mean, ...

That my monkey is both the colour of Pink Script Revisions...  ... and Blue Script Revisions: (pure coincidence) Production Fave #2: Stealth Monkeys. __________________________________________ p.s. you thought I didn't exist any longer, didn't you?

Alrighty then -- so planning some fashion of orderly delivery of some of my favourite things about working in television production has resulted in radio silence on my blog. You know you noticed. Don't pretend you didn't notice. So... I shall heretofore endeavour to share my faves in no particular order, starting with: EAVESDROPPING IN ON THE SET WALKIE It's pretty quiet here today. Writers are writing. Or sitting in meetings. Or eating. There's lots of eating around here. Then there's the cast and crew, who are shooting in the studio today. On days that there's shooting in the studio, the writers room gets a walkie-talkie so we can hear when they're rolling (ostensibly so that we don't burst out of our room into the shot... which has happened... kind of... at least enough so that they've given us a walkie to try to curb such oopsies...). Basically, it's like listening in on someone else's baby monitor, or getting your...