television

…And the blessed Irish shamrock with the fairest green of all

I recently finished working as a production coordinator on a TV show, the first TV show I’ve *really* worked for. (ie. gots paid)

One of the tasks to which I was assigned in my last job was to collect the scripts and segment descriptions from the Associate Producers on the show and send them to the hosts. The documents they would send are referred to as “greens” in newspeak. Three times a week I would send out an email to the APs asking if their greens were ready. Eventually, in an attempt to make this process more interesting for them, and for me, I started doing stuff like this:

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Right? That subject line makes you think!

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Getting creative with Google Translate.

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 It’s true. Don’t go to Chicago for the fish.

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Then I started to incorporate imagery to my silly emails.

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He’s not, for whatever that’s worth. He’s just the only one with “green” in his name that I could think of…

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I sometimes made them relevant to the people I was working with… (we did fashion segments)

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I incorporated some of my own taste…

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 Briefly turned into a greeting card company.

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…Got political. (Not shown, the email where I just directed all the APs to the Green Party of Canada’s website, I must have deleted that one. Or CSIS had it removed from my PC.)

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…Got Kermi-ed.

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…Got sporty.

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…Used idioms to describe my feels.

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Got market branding involved.

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…and finally sent them all off with an epic psych-out.

I feel like a few are missing, (I most definitely deleted the one where I sent a picture of a nice, healthy crop of marijuana.)

The point of sending them wasn’t to make a blog post out of them all. That was never the intention. But because it brought me joy to take a second out of my day to think of some silly way to make my co-workers day a little bit funnier, or happier, or at least to distract them for a millisecond, I thought I’d share them with you. I was, after all, pretty lucky to get to work there.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (Tomorrow)

Pilot Inspektor

My old friend

Last week was Reading Week.  While many students take the week as an opportunity to spend their parents money on cheap vacations down south, I believe I have spent every Reading Week I’ve ever had working.  This year was no exception, except that I didn’t get paid for it.  Unless you consider experience payment.  And I do.  So I did.  I guess. Get paid. What? Gah.

What I’m trying to say is… I spent half of my reading week working/interning as a Production Assistant on a pilot for what will hopefully become a television show for the Comedy Network starring stand-up comedian Tim Steeves.

This guy.

The whole experience was really quite interesting as the only experience I’ve ever had with television, apart from watching copious amounts of it as a child and teen, was going to a taping of The Ron James Show earlier this year, and taking a tour of NBC Studios when I visited New York a few years back.  It was neat to get to see the inside of the CTV Masonic Temple, to see the place go from an empty stage and space, into the Tim Steeves project – an idea that’s gone as far as it possibly can before actually making it onto television.

They did teach us about the process of pitching television pilots at Humber, but there’s no doubt something more tangible about working on the real deal.

Over the week, my tasks included:

  • several coffee runs
  • discussing the huge importance of Twitter in our day-to-day lives
  • waiting
  • sitting
  • salivating over deli corned beef sandwiches (and pickles… oh HEAVENS, those pickles…)
  • standing-in for the host/panelists on the stage for the camera-operators (FUN!)
  • assembling IKEA chairs
  • coffee runs
  • sitting
  • waiting
  • drinking water
  • sitting
  • waiting
  • seat-filling during the taping
  • recycling stuff
  • hanging out with the Luke, Rachel & Eli.
  • escorting guests to the Green Room …

(Huzzah for Canadian talent!)

 

What an ultimately thrilling experience!  It’s funny how even sitting and waiting are made that much more exciting when you’re in a TV studio.

This little taste of DOING TV Comedy was delicious and I hunger for more.  Much much more.

Chomp chomp.

Another Yuk’s Night -> Reading Week Edition

It’s February and it’s reading week.  Over the past two days, my apartment has become a completely different entity; no longer the disastrous shit-pit it was only a week ago.  There’s now a functional bed (ie. one that won’t collapse just resting my school bag on it,) the futon has returned to an upright couch-like position and I feel like I have room to breathe again.

So naturally, I’m writing this blog post at Starbucks.

I felt it might be a good idea to ride the wave of positive feedback after a pretty good set at Yuk Yuk’s to more creative things.  Normally, I just let that happy feeling drain away as I embark on the one hour journey back home on the 501 streetcar.   And, although this location will be closed in 20 minutes, I intend to find somewhere else nearby to help me work out a few more pieces including a radio play I need to edit, which we will be performing at Comedy Bar on Monday March 5th (Mark your calendars.)

Many of us second years are currently working hard trying to shape our showcase sets for our end-of-year stand-up performances taking place the last Tuesday of March & the first Tuesday of April.   These are the shows Mark Breslin, industry professionals and Humber alum will be present to evaluate our performances.  Basically everything we’ve managed to pull together over the past two years of stand-up comedy classes,  on display for everyone to judge.

  • My slot’s on Tuesday, April 3rd.  If you don’t know why that date has any significance, you should probably go check my Facebook profile.

Nah, I’ll save you the trip.  That’s my birthday.  (Mark your calendars.)

It seemed like it would be a pretty stressful night to begin with before I knew it was going to be on my birthday.  Most people probably think, “Meh, it’s a day like any other.  What’s the big deal?”  But I don’t know.  I just feel like a lot’s riding on this because if I bomb, not only will I have made a fool of myself in front of my peers and potential future employers, but I’ll have done so on my BIRTHDAY!  The day of my birth!

That being said, if my showcase gets the response my set received tonight, I think I’ll be OK.  One thing’s for certain one way or the other -> The booze’ll be flowing big time the night of April 3rd.

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STAY TUNED as my next post will hopefully have something to do with BRIE’S FIRST ADVENTURE IN TELEVISION.

It’s OK to be curious.