I wrote a screenplay.
It took about two days, a lot of focus, and a couple bars of British chocolate.
During the month of July 2014, I had a blast. I traveled nearly every weekend and stopped unpacking my suitcase because I knew I would just be repacking it once more within a few days.
The first weekend, for July Fourth, I returned home to San Francisco. The week leading up to that decision was frenetic. The day before I was set to leave on a Megabus on Wednesday, I found out that I had two auditions. One was supremely far from me — a two hour, two buses transport — away and another for a major car company. On Wednesday, I woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the first audition, made it all the way over, stood in line waiting among other actors for half an hour, auditioned in the room for a total of two minutes, and then made the two-hour-trek back to the second audition. There, I waited, auditioned, and bolted to my apartment. Throwing clothes haphazardly into my backpack and packing in a record time of five minutes, I ran out to the train station, my laptop bag banging against my knee the whole way. Thankfully I made it to the Megabus just in time and was en route to my family for the long weekend. Wiping sweat from my brow and popping my earbuds in my ears, I could finally relax.
During that weekend, I found out that I was London-bound for a business trip the very next weekend. I was phenomenally excited and could barely contain my joy at being able to return to a country that I thoroughly loved when I studied abroad four years ago. Two days before I had to leave for London, I covered the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, waking up at 2AM to get to the theater for a 4AM calltime. After the nominations, I grabbed lunch with a friend and stayed up throughout the whole day, planning to sleep on my flight to London. When I boarded that plane, I could not sleep a wink. I ran over my lines, listened to my favorite British singers on the plane’s system, and stared out at the clouds and homes below, feeling like I was getting set for an unexpected rollercoaster ride. I had no idea what was in store and I could not wait to arrive on the other side.
After my whirlwind trip to England (more stories in another upcoming blog post solely dedicated to the magical experience), I returned to LA for one weekend to cover the press junket for Brett Ratner’s film, HERCULES. I watched the movie on a Friday night, then proceeded to the junket early Saturday morning. Rotating among rooms filled with camera crews at the Four Seasons of Beverly Hills, I interviewed the cast and crew about the personal heroes in their lives and their stories from set. Following the junket, I attended my producer’s engagement party before rushing back to my apartment to start preparing for the craziness of my first Comic-Con.
And that last weekend of the month was…indescribable. Driving down to San Diego from Los Angeles took nearly four hours for the 45th anniversary of Comic-Con and once our team arrived to our hotel, we barely had time to unpack before we started working. The four days at Comic-Con blurred together, feeling like a seamless 100+ hour workspan where we shot interviews, filmed b-roll, prepared questions, wrote scripts, and recorded voice-overs. The number of shows, films, and artists at Comic-Con seemed overwhelming at times but our team worked together to support each other and we definitely tag-teamed, splitting up into duos to cover as much as we could. The experience was a fantastically enriching one in terms of allowing me to put on my producer’s cap, brainstorm up questions in a short amount of time, work efficiently under pressure, learn to trust my instincts, and channel my inner eye of the tiger. On our last night of working at Comic-Con, we finally got a chance to breathe and eat together, enjoying a giant celebratory sushi boat and going on a donut run to the closest donut shop in our vicinity by the San Diego harbor.
The following week ushered in the month of August and my bosses warned me that the town would slow down. After years of working in Hollywood, they knew that the span of weeks between post-Comic-Con and pre-Emmys served as the unofficial vacation time for all of the members of the industry. Even though I appreciated the chance to catch up on sufficient sleep and somewhat pay up the sleep debt that I’d accrued, I soon became antsy.
I suppose it’s nice to have a summer vacation in this industry. However, I couldn’t sit still. After moving around for an entire month, I wanted to keep traveling. I didn’t want to unpack. I didn’t want to set my alarm clock radio, which I’d uncharacteristically turned off for a whole month because I didn’t want it to wake up my roommate while I was gone.
After the second day of having nowhere to run off to, I sat in front of my computer and wrote. I created a world, allowing my mind to travel with the characters. Even if my physical self couldn’t move, my imagination could. In two days, I had a 120-page feature. The next day, I had a 30-page TV comedy pilot. And a call for an audition. I emailed myself the PDF versions of my scripts, closed up my computer, shut the balcony window, grabbed my iPad, and locked the doors. I was on the run again.