Welcome to La La Land!

I can’t believe I was still in Boston just a week ago. So much has happened, and life’s been pretty hectic. I moved in to a spacious apartment in Park LaBrea on Sunday, and my suitemates are awesome. I share a huge room with one girl, and we have a walk in closet that you could practically live in.

It’s still so surreal that I’m here; I’ve wanted to do this program since high school. The weather is gorgeous, the palm trees are beautiful, and the smog isn’t TOO bad (but it definitely does exist). Some of the other people in the program have already seen celebrities (including Steve Carrel from The Office in the 7-11 across the street, B.J. Novak from The Office at the Grove, and Marcia Cross from Desperate Housewives), but I still haven’t seen any.

Driving in LA is crazy, especially since I’ve only ever driven in a suburb before. There are tons of rules I’d never heard of before. Because of the intense traffic, there are strange rules. For example, there are some left turns that you can’t make during rush hour. But I’m starting to get used to it; except when I went to an interview at Spyglass Entertainment, and accidentally ended up on the freeway. That was scary. But most of the time, driving around here reminds me of Entourage. Which, of course, is awesome.

My two internships are going to be awesome. The first one I got is Goodspot, which is a movie trailer production company. They specialize in lower-budget films. I’ll be helping to design trailers, select fonts for use in trailers, and with other office tasks. I’ll have an even better idea for what I’ll be doing when I start next week. The internship I got just today is at The Ant Farm. This is another movie trailer production company, but they make the trailers and posters for many of the mainstream movies. They’ve done Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Shrek, The Kindgom, and so many more. They work on 50-80 movies at a time. I’ll be working in the music department, helping to organize the music database and suggest songs for use in the trailers.

So big news relevant to the writer’s strike: the director’s guild has made a tentative deal with the AMPTP. So hopefully this will have a domino effect, and the writer’s strike will be over very soon. It’s definitely easier to find out the latest insider news over here. It was also strange seeing the picketers for myself this morning on my way to The Ant Farm.

So if I don’t disappear in (1) an earthquake, (2) a forest fire, (3) a riot, (4) a gang fight, or (5) the smog, (yeah, BU spent like 5 hours warning us about the dangers of LA) I’ll post again soon. Despite the awesomeness of being here, I do miss Boston.