The Filming of Fish out of Water

I was surfing the internet looking for writing contests when I saw a listing for NBC Playground’s search for new sitcoms. The odds were against me, but I knew I had to enter. The contest had a short window – two months – and the applicants were asked to submit a 5 to 10 minute video and a 3 to 5 minute pitch of their original show idea.

I’ve entered numerous writing contests in my career. I’ve even won a few. But this competition was asking for something I had never done, create a video. I would normally be too intimidated to pursue the project. I am a bit of a technophobe. My friend, Andrea, calls me a Luddite because my old flip phone sits neglected in my purse. I can’t tell you how many bewildered looks I have received from folks when I tell them I don’t text. But I finally decided to embrace technology and bought a droid. I now text, take pictures and even take a few videos of my grandkids. I often forget to turn the camera off and accidently shoot footage of ceilings, floors and my chubby thighs, but it’s a learning process. 

Ironically, some of the outtakes came in handy later to simulate a fall. But more on that another time.

My mind started racing about how I could create a video and enter the contest. Things started to fall into place. My friend, Michele, told me about a great comedic actress named Viva. She told me Viva’s mother, Carole, was a great organizer and could probably help me find other actors. Before I could say “huzzah” I had two talented actors for two of my lead roles.

Both Viva and Sean are not only gifted thespians, they were willing to work for free. The only glitch was timing. Viva was still in school and only had a few days before she would go on vacation and I had to complete everything before I left with my spouse for a work assignment.

Fortunately I am not intimidated by deadlines. I have my journalism professors to thank for that. Everyone else might have two months to create their videos. I would do mine in two weeks. My biggest fear was the actual filming. However, my good friend Joan came to my rescue and agreed to pull out her camcorder and do the job. I would do a little backup filming with my new Droid.

I looked at my script and tried to envision how I could simplify it enough to capture the story without a lot of expensive props. It’s one thing to write a story but quite another to put it together without a talented crew to handle props, sound equipment, music and lighting. Fortunately, several friends, family members and classmates agreed to volunteer for the project. Two of my favorite clients, International Academy of Hair Design

and The Village at Arrowhead Shopping Center allowed me access to their facilities. The shopping center became a meeting place in my faux version of Beverly Hills. The beauty school became the site of an exclusive fashion show.

I purchased two rolls of rope lighting to create a runway, brought a blue sheet to hide a large display of makeup and aesthetic supplies, and again with the help of Joan, as well as Traci from my yogalates class, we moved furniture, stuck a work light on the end of a gardening tool and began filming.

Prior to filming I went on the internet to research strange things like – how do you replicate vomit. The answer, by the way, is corn chowder. I bought five cans of the stuff and Viva drank the stuff and spewed it on the runway like a champ. After filming and editing this scene I lost two pounds due to the gross out factor. Needless to say, I don’t think anyone who helped on this sitcom project will ever eat corn chowder again. 

When the filming was done the video was still a little short of the five minute minimum so I threw together another scene, at yet another location – Viva’s house. Due to the ensuing deadline I didn’t have time to find another actress to play opposite Viva, so I asked my daughter, Brittany, to take to the stage.

My other daughter, Alicia, helped film and did the editing. Even my granddaughters who are 4 and 6 years old had parts to play. 

 Finally, the filming and editing were completed and Alicia uploaded the video and pitch to the NBC Playground site (not an easy feat.) After hours of watching clips and making decisions about editing (Alicia did the editing but I was still the one making the decisions on what to use and not use) I have new admiration for all the unnoticed details that go into making a short video. I could probably write a book about the subject but this blog post is as close to a book as I’m going to write about the subject.

The morale of the story is I undertook a big challenge, and with the help of friends, family and other kind volunteers, I was able to see it through to completion. What seemed like an impossible task for a professional writer like me with minimal skills in direction, photography and production, was able to complete a project before deadline and with no budget. 

And as a card-carrying member of the AARP I was not too intimidated to compete against young, energetic students from UCLA. Will my project be picked as one of three finalists? Who knows? The winners will be notified by September 30. I hope all of you who read this will send my project, Fish Out Of Water, positive vibes. 

But in a way I have won already. Just by competing I overcame a huge obstacle. It all boils down to if I didn’t try I would  have lost before I ever had a chance to begin. And that would have been the worst defeat of all.

Something to Laugh About

I’m a reformed joker. My gag-telling abilities used to make me the life of the party, but sadly jokes seem to be relegated to the internet these days. Now I’m a rusty. My humor is limited to things I can write about.

The advantage of writing comedy, as opposed to performing it, is you get a chance to fix potential problems without having to worry about someone lobbing a tomato at your head. Although with the cost of fresh produce, perhaps I could save a few bucks and take a basket on stage with me instead of heading off to the local grocery store.
But I digress.

My dream for many years was to write for sitcoms. It started when I was a kid watching reruns of the Dick Van Dyke show. Although Rob Petrie, Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrell wrote for a fictional comedy/variety show, I was thrilled to learn that comedy writing was a legitimate career.

Unfortunately, I lived in Arizona, not Los Angeles (or even Manhattan where the fictional Alan Brady Show was aired) so my dream of writing for television took a detour. Instead I took a traditional route in writing and pursued a degree in journalism. However, whether I was working my way through school as a waitress at Red Lobster or landed my first job as a public relations coordinator for the City of Mesa’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Division, I found a way to write humorous skits for special events and celebrations. Some were spoofs from Saturday Night Live, others satirized city employees, but all of the humorous productions were a big hit with the audience. Even in my spiritual life as a Buddhist with SGI-USA, I penned skits that used characters in popular television shows to satirize philosophical messages.

One day I took a trip to LA to scout out the area and see what I would need to do to pursue my television-writing career in earnest. I chatted with a successful sitcom writer and she informed me that it was nearly impossible to work as a sitcom writing in Hollywood after you reached your 40th birthday. She suggested I turn my attention to screenwriting instead. I followed her advice. I’ve written numerous screenplays, but hadn’t written a television episode for a long time. Using logic, rather than tapping into any internal sources of empowerment, I decided to discontinue my goal of writing for a sitcom. This decision took a toll on my psyche. A little piece of me died with the shelving of this dream.

Then one day a concept for an original television show crept into my sleepy, little brain. Unlike other fleeting notions, this one was persistent. I had no choice but to create characters, develop a clever plot and tap the whole thing out on my computer. I didn’t know if my script would find a home, but I was so happy to write comedy again that I didn’t care.

Ironically, I learned about a contest for original pilots and was getting ready to enter. However, while I was doing research I learned about another contest. This one called for writing a spec script for an existing show. My daughter had suggested Modern Family. I watched numerous episodes several times, examined the scripts, and came to know the characters as if they were members of my own goofy family.

The bottom line is I came up with plausible ideas for an episode, had a few friends that were familiar with the show vet it, and I mailed my creation off to be judged. I did all this in the matter of three weeks. To be honest, two months ago I wouldn’t have embarked on this expedition. However, I listened to the inspirational words of Linda Johnson, a national women’s division leader for SGI-USA, and realized I was limiting my potential.

I also reminded myself of a few helpful hints from Chapter 9 of a book written by me and my friend and co-author Jacqueline Howard. Here are a few tips I’d like to share.



ERASE NEGATIVITY

•Clear your mind of negativity and imagine what you really want your life to be like. Allow yourself to feel the joy of realizing your dream.
•Write your negative beliefs on a piece of paper. Read it aloud. Burn a candle, light incense or perform some sort of ceremony, then burn the paper. As the paper burns say aloud. “These statements are no longer true. I release these lies to the universe.” Feel free to allow yourself a moment of sadness. Many individuals cry as they allow these negative thoughts to incinerate.

EMBRACE THE MAGIC WITHIN

•Design a rough plan of what you wish to create. The universe will take care of the details, but you have to have an idea of what you want.
•Once you have your idea in place, write or draw the steps you will need to achieve it. This could be, taking a class, reading books or doing research on the internet. Visualizing is fine, but you have to take some sort of action to kick things into gear.
•No matter how rough things are, remain open to the idea that wonderful things can happen.
•Never, ever, give up on your dreams.

It would be great if this story had a fairy tale ending and I could report that I was selected in this program, but the truth is none of the applicants will know anything for several months. But it doesn’t matter because I feel that I already won. I challenged my doubt (and even common knowledge about Hollywood and ageism) quickly created something I’m proud of and I got my script in the mail before the deadline. And that is a victory in itself!