Let me start with giving one great fact: for the first time ever in my adult years of flying to places, someone offered me a ride to/from the airport (that someone being Cully) and I accepted. I'm usually too proud to accept such kindness, but I've finally gotten to a point in my life where I realize the importance of accepting help when it's offered. Without making that change in my stubbornness, I would never have gotten to L.A. in the first place... not just the ride to the airport, but the place to stay while there, as well as the whole ticket itself (Steve, the awesome story of your skymiles gift is still being told to anyone who'll listen).
If you know me, really know me, you know how hard it is for me to accept these things. I often felt that accepting help was a sign that I was failing at being self-sufficient, or acceptance of help would leave me open to criticism or unwarranted scrutiny from others, or perhaps it was just me not feeling fully worthy of such assistance. Any of those reasons are just plain silly, of course, and it's taken a lot of self-examination over recent years to finally be open to help. This information has been stated up front simply for the record. I made a public record of my gratefulness last Thanksgiving, if anyone really wants to go back and see it.
The flight: bumpy. I mean REALLY bumpy. There were brief moments of calm, but the majority was rough like sitting in the back of a school bus while driving over a rural dirt road for 5 hours. Did I puke? Nope, but I came close a time or three. Did I freak out ever? Also nope, but here's a little advice: whatever you do, do NOT watch the original 2-hour tv premiere of LOST the night before you have to make a flight any kind. It wasn't until I was an hour and 45 minutes into various people's perspectives of turbulence and then plane going down that the thought occurred to me, "Um, maybe I shouldn't be watching this?" What saved me from the sickbag or a panic attack was the awesome in-flight movie, which is also a first for me. I'm usually stuck with something like SNOW DOGS or REMEMBER THE TITANS, but somehow I lucked out and got to re-watch WALK THE LINE on this flight. And because I could throw myself into the storyline, I was able to forget the jarring flight for much of the journey.
landing
On my first whole day in L.A., I got to go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology and trust me, it's not what it sounds like it would be. Even the museum's website doesn't do it justice and I'm hard-pressed to figure out a good way to describe it beyond "other-worldly" and "go see for yourself." Here are some shots of some of the unexplainables:
dice made of crumbling compounds
radiological stereoscopic images of flowers
bizarre and forgotten old wive's tales
and stage illusions in miniature
My second day, Saturday, was filled with important goings-on. At 10AM, I had a meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel with a half-dozen agents and execs. Beforehand, I hung my posters at the Egyptian Theatre, then I walked down Hollywood Boulevard to the Roosevelt, taking photos while the homeless slept in doorways and before the traffic and crowds converged.
the Kodak Theatre was already blockaded with
bleachers, cones and police tape way before the Oscars
the previous photos were taken in front of the El Capitan Theatre
I looked down and saw that I was standing on Harold Lloyd.
I moved down the sidewalk to Ray Harryhausen
to take a picture of the Chinese Theatre.
I glanced down Hollywood Blvd one more time
before heading inside the Roosevelt for my meetings.
The meetings: BLEW MY FREAKIN' MIND! Leila (my film's narrator) just happened to call me right after I left the hotel and she got such an earful, but for the rest of you who haven't already heard, here's how it went down
I was put into a group of suits who represented animators, and who were supposed to be talking TO animators from the festival selections. I, however, had mentioned in my bio that my dream job would be something at Pixar or Skywalker Ranch, and after one animator became a no-show for the festival, they stuck me in his spot in the meeting. We were all given bios of everyone and were allowed to look them over for about 15 minutes before the meeting. I noticed one guy, an agent, had gotten his Ph.D. in film studies at Emory University, so that immediately made me want to ask him if he know my porn director friends. Oddly enough, the organizers sat me with him first and so within minutes we were talking about our mutual friends and life at (and after) Emory. It also turned out that he was about to be representing another Atlantan very soon who just so happens to be one of my ex-husband's oldest friends. Fucking small world.
Each of the others had small connections to people I know as well, but it wasn't until I got around to my fifth meeting that my mind was truly blown. This exec was one of the heads of Creative from Warner Brothers Animation and she loved me right from the start. She, being a woman (of course), already wanted to do anything she could to help me break into animation editing so there would be another woman in the frat house. Somehow it came up that she also had a friend at Skywalker Ranch, whom she'd recently visited there, and that she herself was in geek heaven and something about being married to a comic book writer. When I asked what her husband wrote, I was not at all prepared to (A) know the book, and (B) be on intimate terms with the book and the artist himself and that the artist was the very same person who had driven me to the airport! She flipped out. I flipped out. We were squealing like 10-year-old girls over the bizarre coincidence. When I left the meeting, I called Cully and shared the freaky glee.
There was a lunch that followed and I got to spend more time talking to another of the execs who was very interested in my documentary that's still in production, being that he makes documentaries in his spare time, when not producing animations. He gave me some great advice on length, places to look for funding, and other tips that I would never have gotten from anyone else.
The only bad part about those meetings (as if there would be a bad part!) was that I had to miss my first screening of my film. I was told that the first screening was always the most important, but since it was at 10AM, I couldn't imagine a lot of people showing up. I later found out that there had in fact been more people to show up at that screening than I could have guessed. My 3PM screening had less than 20 people total in attendance, including the 6 filmmakers ourselves. BUT, it was being shown in the beautiful, big theatre, rather than the small screening room, and I couldn't ask for a more breath-taking place to see my own film.
The art deco ceiling was amazing. Check this out:
center
right
After the screening, I hid from the Q&A time. Why? Because I'm painfully shy and just weird that way. Truth be told, if it had been a bigger audience, I would have been LESS shy about getting up and speaking again, because I'm weird that way.
I didn't win anything, but it was an honor just to be blah blah blah. Scott from SAG Indie was so awesome for coming out to see a fellow GSU alum's film and the next night, I got to see him perform at the Improv Olympics, which was also a great experience.
The next day, Sunday, and I was back at the Egyptian for another award ceremony, and also to do some shopping and more picture taking for the kids.
Edward G. Robinson and I share the same birthday
and apparently, the same shoe size.
Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Steve McQueen
I'm standing on Tom Cruise
While avoiding eye contact with Darth Vader, I look down to see I'm stepping on none other than
and next to him, I step on
Trying to avoid eye contact with the guy on the right
I snap a photo of the full Roosevelt Hotel
There's the El Capitan Theatre again, with its red drapes you see during the red carpet walk of the Oscars
I swear that dude on the left and Darth Vader (hidden center) are following me!
The Roosevelt, again
and the Hollywood Blvd sign on its corner.
Woo! Lookit all the tacky crap!
Like this
Yes, I went inside see:
You think your piercing is rad? Check out these next two!
And finally back outside for more and more and more tacky crap! Yay!
Later that night was the Improv Olympics, then a quick jet over to Santa Monica to meet high school chum, Scott L. (who looks way more like Keanu Reeves now than I remember him with that mohawk back in the day!) out for sushi and sake (and more and more sake!).
After that, we headed over to Brendan's film shoot at a coffee house and I got to see some state-of-the-art shit and finally we ended up that night in Beverly Hills. Or at least I think that's where we were... I know we were in it when we left the jazz club, which is where he introduced me to his friend, director/producer Raven, who resembles Johnny Depp.
The best part of that had to be the dueling Christopher Walken impersonations after the club closed and I'm still not sure if it was the amount I'd had to drink or the fact that I was looking at a guy who could slip into Keanu gestures and another pretty boy who could pass for Depp easily tossing Walken lines back and forth. The surrealism of it all brought rolling tears of laughter down my cheeks.
The next day, the return flight: rain. Yes, rain in L.A. Then the inevitable delays, delays, delays, before the final takeoff, but not much turbulence (thank god)... instead flatulence. The guy next to me passed out into dreamland immediately and then ripped silent-but-deadly bombs for the next hour or two. After that, it was screaming baby 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off for the remainder of the flight. Here's another flying tip: don't go out drinking the night before and get only 2 hours of sleep and hope you'll be able to sleep on the plane. Thankfully, I had another good movie to watch: ELIZABETHTOWN. I hadn't seen that one yet. It definitely had its cute and endearing moments.
By the time I touched down in Atlanta after 10PM, I felt like I'd been up for 2 days straight and my eyes were slamming shut and refusing to open.
But that, everyone, is the good stuff. Really. I have some crazy-ass shit to spill as well, but it will all have to wait until the next chapter, because this one's long enough already!
Whew!
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