Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Go West Young(ish) Man!!!

Going to LA for the Black Film Awards next week. The awards are on Sunday, and I’ve been invited to attend by the people who run the BFAs. Hopefully, My Brother will be in contention next year. Maybe we’ll even take home some Lucite. Or metal. Hell, I don’t know what the awards are made of.

Makes me think though. In a very strange way, the most unappreciated job, come awards time, is the Producer. Except for the granddaddy of awards, the Oscar (although the Nat’l Board is actually older than the Oscars), the Producer often gets left out in the cold. The Oscar gives the Best Picture Award to the Producer, but almost all other awards events give that award to the Director (Like, what did he have to do with the movie being good).

And then there are awards for actors, supporting actors, music, editing, visual effects, sound design, catering, whatever. And the producer, the guy (or gal) with all the grey hair, the one who just got done with eating shit for a year, with dealing with all the egos on the Picture, with the agents, the lawyers, the managers, the distributors, the marketing people, the young, nubile actresses in short skirts who just stop by the office in the early evening after everyone left just to drop off a script and say “Hi” – oh, wait, I am not quite at that point of being a producer yet.

Aside- I heard from a moderately reputable source that a certain producer in LA, with the initials JB, yeah, him, has legions of young men approaching the most comely (did I use that word on purpose?), attractive young women in LA’s clubs, and giving out cards with his phone number on them. For personal reasons even. Guy has it down to a science. Just a rumor though.

The LA meeting thing though is a very interesting process. Linse, lather, reschedule repeat. Which means that getting the meeting in LA is very easy. People meet out there, that’s what they do. But keeping the meeting, well, that’s the key. Sounds like a Seinfeld episode.

Hopefully, I’ll leave early to mid-next week. I’d like to find a place to stay, and may stay with a friend of a friend in West Hollywood, but that hasn’t been worked out yet. If Im paying for hotel, I am definitely staying for less time than otherwise, just cause I can’t run up the bills right now. I’ll def. be renting a car, making the rounds, finding out what else is going on, because Im only working about 75 hours per week right now, so I should definitely look to take on some new projects.

GRUMPS

7 comments:

Jill said...

It's a good thing you included the "ish". Otherwise, I would have been thoroughly confused. ;)

Anonymous said...

Ha! Have fun in LA-LA land! In my experiences out there, producers are pretty close to God in the eyes of starlettes, so you won't feel under-appreciated there in the least. Did I ever tell you about the guy who volunteired to work the door of "Pieces" for free and told all of the girls who came to see the show that would drop their headshots off that he was a producer? He had at least one girl in the back of his car per night. LA girls do NOT equal NY girls... Gross.

Rachel Heather said...

Ick LA

ICK


Well - you will have fun though. My advice is to head south for a bit - the oc or san diego.

And don't worry about the producer thing. Producers, Execs and business suit guys that are in the entertainment industry get the most respect around here.

Grumpy O. Selznick said...

Jill - thanks good looking out.

Heidi - Whats gross - that they give guys like me a little respect, or that they have sex in cars? I think you did tell me about that guy - he's my idol.

Rachel - Yeah, well, I am not a suit guy. I cant tell you the last time I put one on. So maybe I wont get any respect.

Jill said...

He's your idol? Interesting...

Grumpy O. Selznick said...

well, duh, its a joke

Amy L said...

as a gal in the biz, and one of the more eligible bachelorettes of the THINKING WOMAN variety I can say that any woman worth anything in this town say EWWWW nasty to producers with that habit.

Or as my friends and I say-- Oink Oink, my friend, Oink Oink.

:)