WEEKLY WRITER'S BEND IN THE PATH #17
5/8/05 9:48 AM
[FADE IN. CAR HUMM NOISE IN BACKGROUND. RADIO CHOIR MUSIC.]
It’s May 7th? No, it’s May 8th, Sunday and I am speeding south on I25 to Albuquerque just hitting La Bajada. I’m going to Albuquerque to interview for a position today and it’s pretty exciting but very scary. It is the production secretary for a new independent film called “Bordertown.” I’m going to meet with the production coordinator at 11. It’s about 9:50, it’s about ten ‘til ten. I’m trying to get there early in case I get lost. I will find my way to Studio 41 at 4121. . . is it Carlisle? No, Culver I think.
So this could be a real change for me. From what I can tell talking to Carol yesterday, it is a five week preproduction schedule and an eighteen day shoot schedule which could stretch out to nine weeks. Nine weeks! And the pay is $600 a week. I would get an extra $50 for having my laptop, Macintosh, my “kit.” (I’m so proud it’s considered a kit.)
There are a lot of good reasons for me to be trying to move into this industry and I never would have thought I would have the opportunity to even think about it. One is that my early love was film. I made two films when I was 18. The Ravel film and the one that used the soundtrack from “Ain’t MisBehavin;”, “I’m Feelin’ Black and Blue,” and it was about slush. Chicago slush. I even put in the soundtrack. I spliced in physically actually spliced in with a razor blade the soundtrack and I’ve been interested in film ever since. In 2000 for two years I tried to make “Singing Onegin,” the opera documentary— spent a lot of time with that.
So this position is called production secretary and from what Carol told me yesterday, it is mostly publishing an interactive schedule. I don’t know if it’s online or through software that this media group uses and I guess the feeling is that that is my primary job. The hours are long—12 to 16 hours a day, can be 12 to 16. She doesn’t know if the production office actually needs to be open in the evenings. It depends on if there is a night shoot. All this verbiage is just so exciting to me! I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to her.
It poses quite a few problems, though, with the family. $600 a week, even if it’s $650 is, let’s see, $1300 a paycheck if I have no taxes taken out, right? That’s gross. Right now I net $2100 a paycheck. So that’s like, two-thirds. But, when I first heard about this job I thought it may be out-of-town, it may be totally free, it may not even be a paid position. But this certainly sounds like a good paid position. Sue Jett is the producer, or one of the producers, and from what I could tell on the internet, “Bordertown” is about a journalist who . . .it’s based on the stories of people dying near the border because of factory illegal chemical dumping? And it stars these famous personalities: J Lo and Antonio Banderas, so, you know, there’s money there.
The fact that it’s . . . wait, I must gross 24, so UGH! It’s not even two-thirds of what I make now. That’s tricky, that’s really tricky. And the fact that it is an ending job and I would be freelancing afterwards is another tricky thing. But I just see this as an incredible opportunity and I would love to get out of Impressions and that’s why I started recording in the first place, to discuss how disgusted I was with my job. So I am on my way to meet Carol at Studio 41 and I will be back with you to tell you what happens.
later . . .
[UNBELIEVABLE: VIOLENT FEMS]
So I kind of fucked up, I maybe fucked up, but hopefully I didn’t. I got to Cutler, to the studio, and I was five minutes early and the gate was locked so I called Carol on my cell phone and she said, Not today! Tomorrow, Monday! And I don’t know where I found the balls to answer her, just honesty, I guess, I said, I can’t come tomorrow, I have to work. But she didn’t hesitate, she just said, OK, well, I’m shopping, why don’t you grab a coffee and we’ll meet you at the studio in an hour.
I found the Rocket café and jittered away an hour, but I didn’t have caffeine. Not long after I got back to the studio, one of those fancy, Chrysler PT Cruiser pulls up with two women in it, one gets out and undoes the padlock and I follow them into the lot.
I apologized to the woman driving when she got out, it was Carol. She waved it off. Carol is short, and I mean shorter than me, wispy red hair, almost freckles, a very straight, no nonsense attitude. Carol is the production coordinator, and introduced me to her assistant coordinator, Barbara. They took a while to find the right key. On the steel door was a copied sign with the “t” in Bordertown a cross like on a grave. It was cool in the building and we sat in an almost empty reception area.
I knew it was going to be fine from those first minutes. Carol explained a little more about the film story—the maquiadoras, factories on the border—and about the position. I showed them the chart of accounts from the agency for proof of how much I could handle, and some spreadsheets I use for budgeting. I got them talking about what would be new to me and they opened up, explaining things in a friendly, teaching way, and so I really got the idea that they would be fine with someone who didn’t know the ropes—they’d show me.
The biggest blow was the timing. They have to know in a day, and the position needs to start in three days. By Wednesday. By Wednesday my whole life could turn around.
I left, shook hands, got out of their hair in less than 40 minutes. I feel good. I’ve had enough interviews—I’ve interviewed enough people—to know when it feels right. So I’m going to the office to grab my books and my pens and all the stuff I personally paid for because Russ wouldn’t and I am going to pack it up. Because if this doesn’t happen, I am ready to get out anyway. Something else will be right on its heels that will spring me, because it just really feels like it is time to go.
6:30 PM
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Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web calling. I just wanted to get back to you on doing the machine-bound books we actually do not have a way of doing that, my bindery man . . .
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[PHONE HANGS UP.]
5/10/05 8:49 AM
[TALKING ON CAR RADIO. FADES.]
It’s Tuesday morning on May 10th and I’m driving to work. Today is going to be my last day at Impressions. I don’t know if it’s going to be for two months or forever. Tomorrow I start working on “Bordertown” (with J Lo and Antonio!)
The call came in yesterday. I was having lunch with Ron at Tia’s and we hadn’t even ordered yet, we were just sitting down in a booth and Carol Keith called me and I took the phone outside and said how much I enjoyed meeting with her Sunday and she said, So. Would you like to come work with us, Melissa? And I said I would.
About 4:30 I checked in with Russ and asked him if he was rushing out the door at 5. He said, no he was rushing out the door at 5:30. So at one point during the afternoon, I went to Sav-On and bought a bottle of Gentleman’s whiskey. I had told Russ I wanted to talk to him about Sarah who’s our part-time person and the Chamber Music Program book. When I came into his office at 5, I brought the bottle of whiskey and two glasses and put them on his desk and peeled the plastic off the bottle top and said, I have a favor to ask. so I brought you a present. We drank our shots. I drank most of mine in one gulp and he drank about half of his. Then I said, I need some time off. And he said, well, you know, John’s been here a year and he hasn’t had any time off and we have to think about him. How much time off do you want? And I said, Nine weeks. His eyes just bugged out of his head and he said, Starting when? And I picked up my glass and motioned for him to pick up his and said, Cheers and said, Starting Wednesday.
He pretty much didn’t have anything to say for the rest of that meeting. I explained to him that I hadn’t been looking for a position but this just came up and I interviewed with them Sunday and they offered it to me on Monday and it starts on Wednesday and I wanted to take a leave of absence. This was my brother David’s idea. I called him yesterday morning and I had already written my resignation letter to Russ and brought it with me. But Dave suggested that I do a leave of absence mostly just because the film industry is just not, you know, it might not be busy enough really for me to find something after this one’s done. Although actually I was going to take that risk because I know there’s another film coming into New Mexico in the fall and you have to have a certain number of your crew as New Mexico residents in order to get the full Governor Bill Richardson tax cuts and benefits. So I was ready to take the risk, then I talked to my brother and I thought, well, asking Russ for a leave of absence is probably a lot nicer and a lot smoother and he doesn’t have to tell people I’m gone. And maybe I can come back and maybe that’s how it will work. And I can also bring back tons of information. Now whether Russ really believes me and whether I can come back is what I’m going to find out today.
So . . . I’m pretty excited. I can even wait until we’re out of preproduction before I have to get there really early. I can drop the kids off at 7:30 at school and get there by 8:30 and I think that’s going to work for them for the next 4 weeks.
So today. Let’s see. I guess the good thing yesterday is that he didn’t ask me to turn in my key right then although he may do that this morning and I’m ready. I did have to tell him who offered me the job. When I told him it was in the film industry, I said, It’s Sue Jett’s film. Because what happened was last week, Russ came into my office and he was the one who told me about the position, about Sue Jett’s needing a PA with a lot of computer experience. Well I told him yesterday, I said, Russ, this isn’t just a PA job, it’s not a little gopher job, it’s the production secretary—for the production. Certainly it’s not a big important job, it’s important but well, you know, it’s halfway decently paid. Anyway I talked on and on about how Sarah can work 20 hours and how in two months I’d be back, and when I told him it was Sue Jett’s movie he made this kind of, HUNH! kind of sound almost like Homer Simpson hitting his head and going, Dope! Because really that’s what happened. He was a dope for telling me, I guess is how he thinks of it. And after that he didn’t say a word. He was fuming inside and staring at me with these eyes that were really intense and mad and you know . . . I don’t know.
[SIREN IN BACKGROUND.]
I know it was a shock. I told him I’d understand if he didn’t want to give me a leave of absence. But you know, last night, I was filing my papers and stuff and I went back and I found a file that I had labeled Job Satisfaction and a memo I had given Russ on February 14 of this year and it was really well written and it was very honest and it said, This is what happened two years ago: I had no help, I was working 60 hours a week or 70, and this last year now that John has come on it’s been smoother but there are things that I’m feeling need to improve at my job for me and they were very reasonable things, like I need extra help, the office needs to be cleaned it’s depressing, like nobody ever washes the windows but me. I didn’t put that in the note. But I just listed all these things, like I hadn’t had a raise in two years and the annual rate of raises is 3.6%.
[JAZZ ON CAR RADIO.]
And I also listed what I really liked about my job, too. That it was local clients, I had a great office, it was pretty, and it was downtown. But as I went through the list, the computer upgrades, the necessary help, the only thing I got was an extra person. Russ did OK there, saying Sarah could come in and help me. But nothing else was even talked about or looked at or considered. I mean he never got back to me on any of this stuff. And since that time we’ve had some real big arguments about how much we pay photographers or why is Chris . . . Ron calls her the Doorstop. Why is she still there? He has been making her do a lot more work but only after years of me complaining about it. So I look at what I’m doing to Russ now and I’m like, He got warned. He was totally warned.
So I guess what I think will happen is I will go in today and I’m only like 3 minutes away and it’ll be very uncomfortable and I’ll have to say, You know, I’ve asked Sarah to come in at 1:00 so I can show her what to do with the program book, is that OK? And he’ll just shrug his shoulders, or he’ll grunt or, you know, with his excessively great communication skills he’ll indicate whether it’s OK or not and that’s how it’ll end and he won’t say Good luck like John did. I told John yesterday and he was totally supportive, you know, he knows someone who writes music for the film industry and he knows you’ve got to take it when it comes. You’ve got to take the job when it’s offered to you. If you start turning down jobs, you won’t get any. And he was very supportive. He said, You know, Melissa, I was in a job for 10 years, I was a partner, and I was going to be part owner, and they never made me part owner and they never followed up with all the thinks they were going to do for me and I got tons of job offers during that time because it was when pdfs were just being created and used and administered and he was an expert in it and he kept his loyalty to the company and it did not pay off for him. So he was like, You’ve gotta do what you want to do in this life and he was great.
All right. It’s May 10. It’s 9:00. Time to face the music. Talk to you later.
