June Gloom

Few days ago I thought, "I've been in Los Angeles for almost 2 weeks now, and I have YET to go to the beach." I had to fix that problem.

I wanted to plan a morning to go to the beach with group of The Academy interns whom I have made friends with. My current roomie, Andrea Saavedra and I woke up at 8:30am to leave around 9am for Santa Monica Beach! Sadly, "June Gloom" is still with us (even though it is officially July). What is "June Gloom" you ask? Well, let me tell you. As soon as I arrived in Los Angeles, the people here were explaining this weather forecast to me. Unfortunately, L.A. is not as warm and sunny all the time as you may think, especially in June. Every morning you wake up to cloudy skies. Usually, the sun will come out each day around noon, making it pretty warm outside. Once the sun starts to set around dinner time, it gets pretty chilly outside again. I've learned to always to make a cardigan part of my outfit each day. So, "June Gloom" was with us for most of the day. The beach was pretty foggy looking. When I went to Santa Monica Beach in January you could see everything very clearly, but not during June!

Although, even with the cloudyness we still got some sun on our faces. A bunch of Academy Interns found us on the beach. I got Zac Kinman and Sullivan Fitzgerald (Sully) to play nerf vortex whistle football with me on the beach. It was awesome! Around noon we were all getting hungry and went to this new mall nearby to eat. From there we went to Santa Monica strip that is home to many popular stores like Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, Ed Hardy, Michael Kors, American Eagle, Zara, and tons more! What is neat about this outdoor road is that it is the home to many types of street performers. Crowds of shoppers gather around to watch them perform their music, dancing, or other talents. After I came out of Forever 21 I saw one of the interns, Minh Vu had been pulled from the crowd to be part of his man's acrobatic act. It was fantastic.

Next, I took Andrea to Hollywood Blvd to see the Walk of Fame stars, the Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater right next door. She tooks dozens of pictures with the stars and hand printed slabs at the Chinese Theater. I took Andrea, Minh, Melanie Lubin (fellow IU student!), Jason Ikeler, and Brian Pacek to the Kodak Theater balcony to get a good view of the Hollywood Sign in the hills. By this time we were all draggin from a long day of walking and being in the sun. We all said our goodbyes around 8:00 pm. I got home around 9:00pm and ate the best bowl of fruit loops I've ever had and crashed. So yes, Andrea and I were in bed by 9:30pm on a Saturday night in Los Angeles. ha.

Now we have to figure out what to do next during this long 4th of July long weekend! I'll let you know what happens.

Starting out as an Intern

June 30, 2011

I started my internship on Monday, June 27th at Bunim/Murray Productions. It was a very long day. I met so many people, and took in so much information. My brain was about to explode. I was so exhausted that night I went to bed at 10:00pm. Tuesday and Wednesday I learned how to be a logger for The Real World: San Diego Season 26. Honestly, I had never even heard of a logger or knew what they do. I thought the room full of kids around my age were others interns. My mentor, Mark Raudonis told me they were loggers and are paid employees.

My definition: log·ger [law-ger, log-er] - noun 1. a person who sits at a computer for long periods of time watching thousands of hours of raw footage while typing what happens in 1 minute increments.
Mark wanted me to understand and learn everything that goes into post production for a show from the bottom up. Loggers are at the very bottom of the ladder, but are EXTREMELY important. They are the only people that watch all the raw footage that no one else every sees. (There is about 5,500 hours of footage shot for one season of The Real World). They have to identify, organize, and keep track of each and every new person/character the Roommates interact with in the show. They also much keep track of every single location the Roommates go to. This makes it very difficult to log a tape of the Roommates at a bar or club. They interact with so many people who never give their names and many of them do not sign releases.  This makes it tricky for the loggers to keep track of the hundreds of extra persons in the show. After 2 days of logging tapes from The Real World: San Diego I have a great respect for loggers. They are such an important step in the process of editing reality television. From there, the Dailies editor takes the loggers notes, producer and director's notes to roughly cut the footage of important scenes that happened in ONE day of shooting, hence the word "dailies." Next, the story coordinator, director, producers, and editor can find the story from the footage that is gathered. Eventually the show goes into Offline Editing where all the creative and story lines are edited together. Once all the final cuts are made to the story, the show goes into Online Editing. This is where all the footage goes through all the technical changes. It is changed back to high resolution that it was shot in, color corrected, audio sweetening, the graphics are created, etc. In only 3 days I have realized how much time, steps, and people are involved into making one season of The Real World. It blows my mind. Next week I should be hanging out with the Editors from my favorite show of all time, PROJECT RUNWAY!!!! I'm so excited, I will keep you all posted about it.Remember to leave me comments if you want to! =)

Finally settling in

June 26, 2011

After a really rough week of figuring out my living situation I have finally settled down. I am currently staying with another Academy intern, Andrea, in Westwood near UCLA. The area is really nice and full of UCLA students. I will be staying here for the next 3-4 weeks before I move into Alyssa's apartment in Glendale. I want to give a huge thanks to Brittany Margaritis for putting me in touch with her friend Alyssa. She has agreed to let me stay in her 1 bedroom apartment while she is gone filming in Alaska for a few months. I just met with her today and saw her cute little apartment. I can't wait to stay there and get a new feel of L.A. by living in a whole new area.

But, lets rewind a few days. 
Before I moved out of the boy's apartment in West Hollywood, Kevin took me on a hike at Runyon Canyon Park. There are three routes to hike Runyon Canyon from the Fuller Gate - Runyon Canyon Road (easy), the Star Trail (medium), and the Hero Trail (difficult).
First we decided to go up the steep incline dirt path with railroad-tie steps on the Star Trail. We made it up to the mid-level Inspiration Point and descended down the east ride of the Clouds Rest paved road.
Each point has an incredible view of the entire city, very similar to the views from the Griffith Observatory. (They are both located in the Santa Monica Mountains). There were SO many people there hiking, walking, running, and many, many dogs. It is a great place to take your dog. There are so many hills and mountains in L.A. I wanted to go hiking, and was able to knock that off my list in just a few days. I want to adventure on new trails in all different areas now.

The Academy interns and I found out that we are part of film group screenings in the The Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre. It's pretty big and is equipped to project 16, 35 and 70mm film as well as video, delivering high-end audio through an advanced JBL sound system. The theater has great seating, and lots of room for your legs. It has a huge red curtain in front of the screen with 2 huge Emmy statues on both sides. Each week, 2 to 3 films are shown in the theater. They are movies that have been out in the public theaters for 1-2 weeks. Last night Andrea and I went to see The Hangover Part II with 2 other interns, Zac and Jason. (It was hilarious). After the movie all of us went to Denny's and met up with another intern Minh Vu. We had a great time getting to know each other and hearing about each of our internships.

WELL! I start my internship tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it. It is going to give me something to do each day, which I love. I will keep you posted on how my first day goes and all the things I will be doing each day. =)