The Hollywood Submarine

A guest speaker came into my movie development class the other day and I have to be honest, I haven’t I have recovered yet. He is a well known writer who wrote Shrek and is in the middle of writing a new Disney movie starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

This writer was able to successfully describe what it's like working in Hollywood. He said, "Working in Hollywood is like working on a submarine. Once it descends you don't come back up for a long time and then you are stuck down there. Slowly your food supply disappears and eventually you come to hate everyone you are stuck with."

This made me question why people go into this business; a business where we are all stuck on the freaking yellow submarine. Sure the Beatles song, We All Live in a Yellow Submarine, makes it sound fun but I'm sure they were not singing about the Hollywood Submarine.

The writer continued to share more of his thoughts about Hollywood. He said, "The best writers are usually the ones who are the darkest. They are the ones that want to commit suicide." Well thank you sir, so if I want to become a great writer in this town then I have to be on the verge of suicide? I don't even know where to go to buy a noose in this town.

You could tell our professor was a little one edge as this writer kept talking about the dark side of Hollywood. She would try to get him to say positive things about the business but somehow he always came back to relating Hollywood to some black hole where you only go if you lost your mind.

I am hopeful that as I talk to more people in this business that their views of working in Hollywood won't be so dismal and suicidal. If I don't find happy people who work in Hollywood then I guess I'll just have to suck it up and hop on the damn submarine. Let’s just hope it's not the same submarine Charlie Sheen was on.

The case of a celebrity's purple track jacket

When I agreed to help out a friend and shoot an interview for Emerson's WEBN Emmys show, I realized that it was going to be my first experience with Hollywood. The girl that we were interviewing use to be a dancer on Dancing with the Stars. My friend was going to interview her and I was going to set up the camera and shoot it. I wasn't even sure how to work the camera but I needed to fake it since my friend said that we were not suppose to let these people know that we were students. "Just tell them we are from WEBN in Boston. They don't know that we are still in college." Wonderful, I thought to myself. How would I act like a professional when I didn't even know how to use the freaking camera? 


Chelsea, the dancer who we were interviewing, agreed to let us film the interview at her house that sat on top of Beverly Hills. If you haven't driven up Beverly Hills then I highly suggest you should but just let someone else drive you. Tiny, curvy roads with huge, gorgeous houses is kind of a bad combo since looking at these houses while driving is impossible without plummeting to your death down the mountain side. 


Once we arrived at the house we introduce ourselves to Chelsea and her manager. I guess I would have been star struck if I had watched Dancing with the Stars before and knew everything about the dancers, but I didn't thus I wasn't nervous when talking to this girl. I was more nervous about not blowing our cover as students. As we moved into the living room I started to set up the camera and tripod. While doing this I tried to maintain a professional conversation with the dancing star and her manager. 


As I take the tripod out of of the case I noticed that the tripod is wrapped in every different type of Emerson purple shirt one could own. I nudge my friend and gesture to all the clothing stuffed in the case. He whispers that they forgot to take out all those shirts after the plane ride. I quickly pull out the piles and piles of Emerson t-shirts and place them by the coach, which now looks like we brought a pile of our dirty laundry. Real professional, I know.


After I figure out how the camera works, I strap the mic on Chelsea. "Here take this," Chelsea says as she unzips her purple track jacket and gives it to her manager who is sitting on the coach. I place the mic onto her glitter covered tank top and we are good to go. As my friend interviewed Chelsea for the next half an hour and realized that she was the definition of a Hollywood B-lister. Long, fake blond hair extensions, overly tanned body, and that high pitched. Don't get me wrong though, she was a nice girl and did have some interesting stuff to say. I guess if I was a Hollywood B-lister and could afford blonde extensions I'd go for it. It's not until one is a Hollywood A-lister when they can afford the fake boobs I don't know if I would go for that though.


Right after the interview finishes, Chelsea whips out her guitar and begins to sing for us. Five minutes into listening to her high pitched voice squeal out notes, things began to feel a little awkward as we just stood there and watched. I discreetly began to pack up the camera and tripod. I go to the coach and start to stuff all the clothes back into the tripod bag, with my eyes still fixed on the singing blonde. When the pile of laundry is back in the case I try to zip it up but of course it won't zip.


My friend comes over to help me and as he unzips it a little he notices a purple track jacket buried in the bag. "Christine," he whispers. My eyes are still politely on Chelsea who is at this point is singing a song about shoes. "I think this is Chelsea's," he said. I look down and see him holding the purple sleeve of the track jacket. "Shit, well get it out," I whisper. Since accidentally stealing this girl's track jacket would look highly unprofessional, we yank out the jacket before Chelsea or her manager notices. We throw it back down by the coach and quickly leave.


Overall, my first encounter with a celeb is somewhat of an embarrassing fail. But it could have ended a lot worse. My encounters with the Hollywood world can only get better from here. Right?

Welcome, please take your shoes off before you come into the door

Well hello there. Most of you may know me as Christine Ryan but please, call me Christine. You are all here for one reason....I actually don't know that reason (perhaps it consists of something pathetic or just a horrible case of boredom) but welcome to my blog. I have only been living in Los Angeles for about three weeks and already I've had some random conversations with people in the entertainment business. Whether it's the guy who works in the next cubical over from me and is best friends with Taylor Lautner or the woman I escorted into a pitch meeting and had no idea she is the creator of the Jersey Shore, I have met some crazy people in this business and I wanted to share my encounters that I have with them. So so far my encounters with these people have been two things: random and somewhat disturbing. I need a place where I can write my feelings and talk about my encounters of the day because honestly there are some crazy ass people in this industry. As you read my blog just pretend you snuck into my room and stole my journal. You jerk! How dare you! As you read my journal all I ask is that you don't judge the way I handle the situations that I find myself in. I'm new to Hollywood and I am not use to being around these people. I know, I may have a tendency of saying random things to people when I first meet them but it's not my fault. I can't help speak of what's on my mind. So sit back, relax, and if your from Emerson, put on your overly large black framed glasses and enjoy the read!