Did that just happen?

As I sit here in a hotel room minutes after leaving a wrap party for what can only be described as a unique/stressful/amazing/maddening/tiring/depressing/thrilling/stressclusterfuck/monumental/lifechanging sumer camp known as making a movie, I wonder if it is all real or was it a dream/nightmare?

I know that what I just said about this experience being a dream is quite hackneyed but it really is the only thing I can say about these past few months.

Let me provide an outline of sorts to give you a broad idea of what happened and then I will elaborate afterwards.

My last two months consisted of:

- minimum 12 hour days, 6 days a week for absolutely no pay. many days were closer to 15 hours. 90-100 hour work weeks at times.

- going home only to go to sleep to make a daily commute from lancaster to harrisburg.

- driving and befriending ernest fucking borgnine, anne meara, piper laurie, sunkrish bala, amber benson, clay bravo, and doris roberts.

- standing for 12 hours straight yelling "picture's up", "rolling", and "cut".

- figuring out how to move dozens of tightly parked cars in the middle of the woods out of the shot of the camera, quietly, in between takes, and not fuck up by ruining a take or damaging cars that didn't belong to me.

- no more than 3 days where i got a full night's sleep (8 or more hours).

- being yelled at by 4 different cranky famous people to get them home after they worked longer than their contract stated

- clearing out an abandoned mental hospital (well, two of them actually), both un air conditioned, to get them ready for shooting. this meant we had to make trashed, abandoned hospitals look like they were still functional. myself and the other interns scrubbed disgusting toilets, removed dead things, moved 8 houses worth of furniture, landscaped, painted numerous hallways. there were days when it was so hot inside that we were going out into the 95 degree outside to cool off....


Ok. I'm stopping the list because it looks like i'm getting into too much "hey look at how much more i've suffered than you." The thing is, there is so much more shit to all of this. Like I can't convey what it was like to be solely responsible for making sure a trashed mental hospital looks like it could be a functional retirement home. Like, a film crew, and actors were coming in to film something, fuck, spend money to make a movie at a place that myself and 5 other interns prepared. That is pretty fucking amazing. When everyone got there, no one complained. We did it ourselves. We made the set of a movie. Well, we set the foundation.

When the film started, I was tasked with transporting talent back and forth from set to their hotels. Many of these trips were initially filled with small talk and surface pleasantries but they quickly became, especially with Ernie (which he made sure everyone called him...no Mr. Borgnine for him), they became conversations that I'll remember for the rest of my life. I had meaningful talks with a man who is a living legend, an Academy Award winning actor. A man who is one of the nicest and most sincere people I've ever met. He was genuine and he took an interest in what I had to say. And I would be a fool to not give him the same in return; a man who has had more life experiences than I will ever have. This became the case with Piper Laurie as well. She looked forward to our trips together, our time together, and I felt the same way. Heh, I got to shoot the breeze with fucking Carrie's mother...

There is so much trying to explode out of my brain right now. Come to think of it, I have no idea why I'm writing this. I think it is because I really can't share this with anyone else except the other interns... Like, I could share things with the rest of the crew of the film, but it was the interns that were there the longest. I need to get this down on (electronic)_paper so it can be preserved. I was at a place that was really my new, temporary home. I was there more than I was at my place in lancaster, my bed, my car. It was HOME. Now it's gone. The people I lived at home with are gone (most of them, anyway).

The crew I worked with was amazing. There are some extremely talented people that I had the honor of working with. I worked with people who have become (and will hopefully stay) close friends. I have worked with people whom I thought hated my guts yet (tonight) told me they would hire me for anything/call them if I come to Los Angeles/will call me if they are doing something in the area. I'm walking away from this with something that would destroy most any other resume. I have had to do the work of 5 different people...all for free...I have so much experience in so many different aspects of...well...fucking anything. I'm walking away with at least 3 letters of recommendation (including one from Ernie himself). Not trying to be boastful, I'm just proud of the impact I apparently had on people, people whom I respect.

Ok, it's been about an hour since I started writing this and I feel that it still has no direction and is just a bunch of rambling (true). I guess, if anything, I wanted to let the few friends I have know that I wasn't trying to be a dick and shrug anyone off, or not return calls, or not get in touch with anyone. I literally did nothing but work on this film and sleep for about two months. And it has been worth it.

I'm ending it here. If anyone is really that interested in my stupid life, I will certainly tell you more. Oh yeah, IMDB "Another Harvest Moon" to check out the people I've had the honor of working with.

This has really been something unique and amazing that I won't ever forget.