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trinityofoneAnd thus ends three of the most insane weeks of my life. Not only did we finish our upcoming issue, we threw the first of our huge annual events. AND I fulfilled the deepest desire of my 12-year-old self and was in the same room as Harrison Ford. I also interviewed Kristen Bell at a party last night. That rocked.
*is exhausted to the point of understatement*
I am also kind of hungover right now, and am thus finding this hard to explain. But basically, after weeks of miserable and draining work, the magazine that employs me threw a bash called the Hollywood Style Awards last night at the Pacific Design Center. I started the evening by working the VIP check in, which meant I spent a lot of time going, "Hey! It's that guy from The Class [Cristian de la Fuente] whose name I would not know if it weren't on this list in front of me!" and "Christ, [Emily Blunt, Monet Mazur, and every other female celebrity ever] is obscenely, scarily skinny" and "Boy, Avril Lavigne sure brings a lot of makeup people with her, I better check her off this list quickly and stop thinking about the fact that I wrote fanfic about her." Yeah.
I spent the actual show in the sound booth because our magazine is real high tech and BossMan wanted me to get an audio recording on my microcassette recorder. I think he expected me to stand in the aisle and point it at the stage, but I talked to the sound guys and they hooked me up to the main speaker feed and let me sit with them. This was kind of like hanging out at the geek table at the prom, but I felt much more comfortable there.
Next was the afterparty, where I was supposed to troll around and interview famous people. The problem was, all the really famous people (Nicollette Sheridan, James Denton, Teri Hatcher—and note how our standards drop to mostly include people from Desperate Housewives) left after two seconds, so I was stuck interviewing Santino Rice from Project Runway and Marisa Coughlan, whose biggest credits appear to be Boston Legal and Freddy Got Fingered, but who was incredibly, incredibly nice (she seemed to actually want to hang out and have a conversation with me), so go see her next crappy movie!
And I did get to interview Kristen Bell, mostly because I pounced on her the second she came in. For once I had the advantage of size and stature: she is tiiiiiiiiny. I'm rather small myself, so it was very weird to be tilting my tape recorder down at her; I felt like I was looming creepily the entire time. Anyway, it was my job to ask her about fashion, which had a certain irony to it, considering her common fuggings. And![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
psychopepsquad and other rabid GFY readers will be amused to hear that she cited leggings as a trend she really likes! (It was so. hard. to keep a straight face for that one.) But she actually looked rather nice last night (you can see pictures here), and I got to tell her how much I like Veronica Mars, so that was awesome.
(I'm actually waiting rather desperately for someone from our event to show up on GFY. That would make my day.
However, this breaks my brains into billions of painful pieces. TURNBULL/TORI AUGH!)
In general, what I learned from all this is how unglamorous Hollywood really is. The same was true of The Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival Awards, which I went to last week and which brought me within ten yards of Harrison Ford (seriously, my 12-year-old self if flailing and fanning herself), George Lucas, James Cameron, Malcolm McDowell, and Jane Goodall. The ceremony was at the Shrine Auditorium, where the Oscars used to be held (and where apparently they may be held again—good, because I hate the Kodak Theater) and yes, it is very beautiful and has a gorgeous ceiling, but the bathrooms are less posh than the ones at my old high school (I was so, so off with the description in "Idol" it's not even funny—no marble in sight) and the arm came off the chair two seats down from me in the middle of the show, causing a thunderously loud noise. Luxury!
The Hollywood Style Awards were much the same—there's a veneer of glamour, sure, but the actual event involves so much clumsy posturing—and I mean for the celebrities as well as the people working it. I mean, they have to deal with problems with the teleprompters, and with the tiny cramped backstage, and with posing for a hundred photographs, and with waiting for dopes like me to go through names and tickets at the VIP check in. Not to mention the hilarious illusion of the red carpet. Now admittedly, it's different at, say, the Oscars, but for most events, do you know what the red carpet is? It's a patch of wall about 12 feet long with the names of the event's sponsors printed on it and some red felt on the floor, all of which exists purely so that red carpet photos can be taken by the group of clamoring, shouting (seriously), rabid photographers. It is bizarre and hilarious to watch. Glamour! Luxury! Hollywood!
So, yeah, nothing will leave you disenchanted with Hollywood so well as working there. Which is not to say that getting to talk to Kristen Bell wasn't cool. It's just not...well, certainly not earth-shattering, though I don't think I'd ever have thought it was. But not as wonderful as how it felt when the party was finally over, and I was outside the PDC at midnight, the building all lit up in neon green and blue, and I took off my shoes and walked barefoot in the wet rolling grass. That was the best. So.
So I'm behind on everything and I owe tons of people e-mails and I want to sleep for a thousand years. But I survived.
(And to welcome me back,siriaeve made me a beautiful new banner and fixed my layout! Check out the pretty, yay!)
*is exhausted to the point of understatement*
I am also kind of hungover right now, and am thus finding this hard to explain. But basically, after weeks of miserable and draining work, the magazine that employs me threw a bash called the Hollywood Style Awards last night at the Pacific Design Center. I started the evening by working the VIP check in, which meant I spent a lot of time going, "Hey! It's that guy from The Class [Cristian de la Fuente] whose name I would not know if it weren't on this list in front of me!" and "Christ, [Emily Blunt, Monet Mazur, and every other female celebrity ever] is obscenely, scarily skinny" and "Boy, Avril Lavigne sure brings a lot of makeup people with her, I better check her off this list quickly and stop thinking about the fact that I wrote fanfic about her." Yeah.
I spent the actual show in the sound booth because our magazine is real high tech and BossMan wanted me to get an audio recording on my microcassette recorder. I think he expected me to stand in the aisle and point it at the stage, but I talked to the sound guys and they hooked me up to the main speaker feed and let me sit with them. This was kind of like hanging out at the geek table at the prom, but I felt much more comfortable there.
Next was the afterparty, where I was supposed to troll around and interview famous people. The problem was, all the really famous people (Nicollette Sheridan, James Denton, Teri Hatcher—and note how our standards drop to mostly include people from Desperate Housewives) left after two seconds, so I was stuck interviewing Santino Rice from Project Runway and Marisa Coughlan, whose biggest credits appear to be Boston Legal and Freddy Got Fingered, but who was incredibly, incredibly nice (she seemed to actually want to hang out and have a conversation with me), so go see her next crappy movie!
And I did get to interview Kristen Bell, mostly because I pounced on her the second she came in. For once I had the advantage of size and stature: she is tiiiiiiiiny. I'm rather small myself, so it was very weird to be tilting my tape recorder down at her; I felt like I was looming creepily the entire time. Anyway, it was my job to ask her about fashion, which had a certain irony to it, considering her common fuggings. And
psychopepsquad and other rabid GFY readers will be amused to hear that she cited leggings as a trend she really likes! (It was so. hard. to keep a straight face for that one.) But she actually looked rather nice last night (you can see pictures here), and I got to tell her how much I like Veronica Mars, so that was awesome.(I'm actually waiting rather desperately for someone from our event to show up on GFY. That would make my day.
However, this breaks my brains into billions of painful pieces. TURNBULL/TORI AUGH!)
In general, what I learned from all this is how unglamorous Hollywood really is. The same was true of The Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival Awards, which I went to last week and which brought me within ten yards of Harrison Ford (seriously, my 12-year-old self if flailing and fanning herself), George Lucas, James Cameron, Malcolm McDowell, and Jane Goodall. The ceremony was at the Shrine Auditorium, where the Oscars used to be held (and where apparently they may be held again—good, because I hate the Kodak Theater) and yes, it is very beautiful and has a gorgeous ceiling, but the bathrooms are less posh than the ones at my old high school (I was so, so off with the description in "Idol" it's not even funny—no marble in sight) and the arm came off the chair two seats down from me in the middle of the show, causing a thunderously loud noise. Luxury!
The Hollywood Style Awards were much the same—there's a veneer of glamour, sure, but the actual event involves so much clumsy posturing—and I mean for the celebrities as well as the people working it. I mean, they have to deal with problems with the teleprompters, and with the tiny cramped backstage, and with posing for a hundred photographs, and with waiting for dopes like me to go through names and tickets at the VIP check in. Not to mention the hilarious illusion of the red carpet. Now admittedly, it's different at, say, the Oscars, but for most events, do you know what the red carpet is? It's a patch of wall about 12 feet long with the names of the event's sponsors printed on it and some red felt on the floor, all of which exists purely so that red carpet photos can be taken by the group of clamoring, shouting (seriously), rabid photographers. It is bizarre and hilarious to watch. Glamour! Luxury! Hollywood!
So, yeah, nothing will leave you disenchanted with Hollywood so well as working there. Which is not to say that getting to talk to Kristen Bell wasn't cool. It's just not...well, certainly not earth-shattering, though I don't think I'd ever have thought it was. But not as wonderful as how it felt when the party was finally over, and I was outside the PDC at midnight, the building all lit up in neon green and blue, and I took off my shoes and walked barefoot in the wet rolling grass. That was the best. So.
So I'm behind on everything and I owe tons of people e-mails and I want to sleep for a thousand years. But I survived.
(And to welcome me back,
siriaeve made me a beautiful new banner and fixed my layout! Check out the pretty, yay!)