One job leads to another

Yeah so today was no big deal. Just picked up Matt Wilder from his apartment, grabbed breakfast, drove him to the office, got offered a job to work on set in New Orleans on the shoot of his film Inferno...

Yes! This made me ecstatic. I don't even know if this will work out, but regardless, it shows the process of getting your foot in the door, then busting down the door with that foot.

Breakfast with Matt was very interesting- he looks at films in a similar way that I do. BASIS has taught me plenty about analyzing books (Thank you Kittredge, Harings, Toews), and in my personal time, I've made it my job to apply these skills to film. Matt learned a similar process of analysis, but at Yale. This education combined with industry experience made him a perfect interview subject. I now feel as thought I have a greater understanding of the generally hush-hush process of pitching an idea and financing a film, both of which are important in looking at the economic aspects of cinema.

After a morning of driving from errands to errands (his driver is out of town this week, and I was the next best thing [so to anyone who knows what this means, Shelby has driven around a movie director!]), he offered me a job to work as a Production Assistant on Inferno, with Malin Akerman and Matt Dillon, when they shoot this summer in Louisiana. I don't know if I'll be able to take this job, as I said, but it was a very humbling gesture that gives me optimism for the future.

After that, I moved on to more mundane office tasks, but in the mid-afternoon, I got a fun assignment. One of our bosses at the company is an avid art collector, so I was to go to his house and help his wife unpack a work of art that he just bought at auction. Then we had to transport it from his home about half a mile to the office. This was the work:


If you're not familiar with the piece, it's by Andy Warhol. So that was kinda cool. I touched the bubble wrap surrounding an original Warhol.

Tomorrow I have to go in early so I can drive a co-worker to the airport, then I've got the office to myself. Most of the day, I'll be playing real estate agent, showing the downstairs office that is still available for rent.

The days here get more and more interesting. Even though I still miss Tucson and all of you guys and some other folks, I'm enjoying my time here. I'm sure that right when I decide I'm perfectly content to stay, my time will be up and I'll go home the next day. But until then, it's good stuff.

Interesting work. Los Angeles. Blog Post.

Two weeks down, six to go here at Muse.

This past week at work was the most interesting so far! The majority of this week, I started going through our massive external hard drives (6 TBs each) to find video, and put together short videos for Muse's website. The purpose for these videos is still unclear-- they range in topic from documenting the personal life of our CEO to behind the scenes footage of films. But whatever. I just do what they tell me to do. Also, people aren't really watching them yet. So you guys could start. Here's one:

And you should subscribe to our channel.

A few notable memories from this past week: Jonathan said, nonchalantly "Yeah Josh we're gonna need to get some documents printed out at the equivalent of a Kinkos or something like that in London, so if you could get-" Me: "Did you just say London? Like... London... England?" Jonathan: "Uhhh... Yes?" Me: "Oh. Okay. Yeah. Sure." And then I skyped this print shop in London, and they printed out our stuff.

We're trying to rent out the office on the ground floor of our building, so I cleaned that out. I found a few things, including a silverfish colony, a handful of spiders, a post-it with Jessica Alba's phone number, and a box of costumes that Ms. Alba and her co-star Kate Hudson wore in The Killer Inside Me.

Just moments ago, Matt Wilder e-mailed me back! He's the writer/director of the upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic that I mentioned last blog entry. As a person making his living in the independent film industry, I feel as though he has a strong grasp on the conflict that is at the core of my project. So we're going to talk about that conflict, and that will hopefully shed some light on a lot of the problems I've had finding answers in my research. Look at me! Already "catching breakfast" (to use his words) with Hollywood folk.

(For Gabriel: I ate Chef Boyardee at lunch this week. It was nice and warm. Thank you, microwave.)


On a completely different note, I am sitting on my bed right now, but it's like 800 miles from MY bed. I'm kind of settled in here. The initial feeling of being totally displaced from everything and everyone I know dissipated after a few days. I haven't made friends, but I've gone out and kept myself busy for the most part. I've become a master of finding free things to do around town. I've hit up a couple museums, from The Museum of Jurassic Technology to the world-renowned J. Paul Getty Museum. Yesterday, I went down the neighborhood recreation center, where on any Sunday, one can attend a free archery class. So... I did that. I also caught a special 10th anniversary screening of Memento, followed by Guillermo del Toro interviewing Christopher Nolan. I'm also planning on going to a few concerts over the next month and a half. I feel okay budgeting some entertainment in there, since I'm making all of my own meals, so I'm saving money there. Gotta live a little in the big city.

I'm also not used to doing all of my own grocery shopping and laundry. (Back home, where my mom does the laundry, you would never find a plastic fork almost melting in the dryer.) It's also strange that I don't have anyone to tell me what to do. Like... I could go out and party all night! Or I could neglect to do my research, or I could eat ice cream for dinner. But so far, I've found myself carrying on as normal, doing nothing too crazy. To sound like a cliched BASIS senior, I bet this will be good for when I go away to college next year.

I have had some interaction with folks from back home-- A week ago, our friend Jayanth Ganesan found himself in LA. He told me to come by his hotel between 8:30 and 9, and we would grab breakfast. So I got there at about 8:40. We drove around Hollywood a bit, and found a little diner, and sat down by 8:50. Once the waitress brings us menus, Jay casually mentions that he needs to be back to his hotel by 9... Typical Jay. Nonetheless, good to see you, buddy.

In conclusion, you should all write me letters.
Josh Waterman
3321 Patricia Ave
LA, CA 90064

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

The former. Definitely, the former.

I'm two days into my internship with Muse. It's a lot of fun.

On Monday, I was told to get to the office at 9:45. I figured I'd show up early, make a good first impression and all that. So I get there at about 9:20, and ring the bell. No answer. I call the office. No answer. Around 9:45, a guy rolls up and shouts from right outside his car, "You must be Josh?" I respond in the affirmative, and he walks over, and we shake hands. He unlocks the door, and we walk upstairs without saying another word. Then, "Uhhh so the first thing we do in the morning is get the mail. So... do that."

And nothing but work since then! I've been reading a lot of scripts. I read the script for the new Emile Hirsch film, then did coverage on it. Yeah, science guys... I have jargon too. Coverage is when you read a script and condense its 120 or so pages to a page and a half long summary/review. Essentially, I was giving my boss my thoughts on whether or not he should give the production money. Kinda hefty for my first day, especially considering we're talking 7 digits of dollars! (But be on the lookout- the script was good, and is coming to a theater near you. Once it gets funding. And gets shot. And gets edited. And gets distributed.)

I also read some scripts that Muse is producing that I mentioned in my previous post (Inferno and Yellow). They are, respectively, a biopic about infamous porn star Linda Lovelace and a chronicle of a woman's addiction to (yellow) pills.

On the subject of Inferno-- one of my jobs at Muse is to answer the phone (kinda difficult, since I don't know any of the answers to the questions that people ask me) and answer the door (we keep it locked because we're a block from Venice Boardwalk and Venice Boardwalk is sketchy). So today, I went to answer the door, and there was a gentleman in his 40s. He was very polite, and introduced himself as Matt. This was a nice change of pace, having dealt with my fair share of self-important Hollywood-type producers. So I led him up to the office, and he had a meeting with my boss. Overhearing a few key phrases, I realized that this gentleman Matt was in fact Matthew Wilder, the writer-director of Inferno (not this Matthew Wilder). Always the thinker, I tied this into my project, noting the differences in personality between businessmen (producers) and artists (in this case, directors). Just food for thought... Never too early to get those senior project presentation gears flowing.

Aside from reading scripts and answering phones, I've been doing some research and other little tasks. I looked into who owns the rights to "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" a faux-case that appeared in the Harvard Law Review, as Muse wants to make a film out of it. I've also been running errands all over Venice, which is nice, since it allows me to familiarize myself with the city.

And lastly, some pictures.

This is the office:

This little guy is my desk.



And yeah Gabe, we also have a kitchen. I can keep my food cold in the refrigerator or warm it in either of two microwaves. Or I could cook it in the oven or on the stove or even a toaster. Or if I wanted to, I could make a movie with that camera lying around in the kitchen.


This is the staircase up to our roof, where I ate lunch today.


And this is a picture of the Pacific Ocean, where I ate lunch yesterday.


Anyways, that's where I am now! Keep the posts coming, everybody! We gotta stay in touch!

Josh's SRP

Yeah! First post!

Just a little bit about my project--

I'm leaving Tucson bright and early Saturday morning (two days from now!!) to drive seven hours to sunny California. Over the weekend, I'll find my way around LA and check out the office where I'll be working.

And on Monday, I start my internship. I'm interning at Muse Films. They're an indie film studio that constantly has a dozen movies in production. Some of their more notable films are American Psycho, The Virgin Suicides, and The Killer Inside Me.

It's not exactly clear what I'll be working on, but my duties will be a combination of general intern duties and some activities that require a higher level of thinking. Aside from simple office tasks, I'll be making in-town runs to pick people up, drop them off, things like that... But also, I'll be working on a few films. I've talked with my advisor over there about specifically what I'll be doing. He says based on both the producers' discretion and my desire, I may work as a production assistant on set. This would be lots of fun, and give me the best hands on experience-- literally making a movie in Los Angeles.

Before I talk about my research, here's a brief rundown of the movies that Muse will be working on over the next few months:

Yellow directed by Nick Cassavetes stars Ben Foster and Sienna Miller. Follow the link to learn more about the project.

Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story was originally going to star Lindsay Lohan as the title character, but (much to Waggoner's dismay), she was dropped from the project; Malin Akerman is now set to star.

Both of these should be shooting in the time that I'm there.

As fun as this internship will be, it is all for a purpose. As I said in my research proposal: While it is possible to create an “artistically successful” and acclaimed film that is also financially profitable, I will endeavor to discover if a correlation exists between an independent film’s large budget and viewership and its artistic success.

In conclusion, I'm really looking forward to this. It's kind of been a dream of mine to do something like this for some time, and that is becoming a reality next week. I'll definitely keep everyone updated. I'm also looking forward to hearing what everyone else is doing.

Lastly, check out this map. The "A" is my office. One block from the beach. Awwww yeah son

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