stressed tv bunny sings the blues

Can I even blog now, while everything explodes inside?
Loneliness of the oft-unoccupied associate producer. While we run four hours overtime or the monitor ceases to function or we’re faced with a subject who simply cannot answer an interview question in a complete sentence (and past tense, if you please) I’m castrated in the antechamber, surrounded by, in short order: three curling irons, two and a half untasted ice teas, some seventeen shades of foundation and mattifying powder, two grips, one PA, and an uncharged cell phone, on the other end of which likely exists the answers to all of our catastrophies.

My experience in production can be assembled and easily digested through a series of clichés (notably: hurry up and wait, don’t count your chickens, Murphy’s law, too good to be true… & c.) So far, MD season 8 has followed the latter- relatively engaging, well informed subjects, hospital PR the likes of which – ready for another cliché—dreams are made of, relatively exciting locations, relatively accommodating and livable hotel rooms. Keep the explosions to a minimum (dave, don’t pull the monitor off the bed by the cable!) and we’ll present thirteen to seventeen tapes at the end of each ordeal, which chronicle the gorgeous moments everything went right (no matter how many takes it took.)

Our last full shoot this season has been a perfect opposite perfect storm. Of course it’s in New Orleans, where everything runs opposite anyway. Before we left, Dave asked if we were up for the challenge. The morning of, my anxiety alarm clock essentially electrocuted me. But at that point, everything seemed marginally under control. Sure, two of our subjects were unintelligible, and the others were threatening legal action or changing flights the day of departure. But we had locations and had a hospital and more or less had a show, so it seemed.

And we do have a show, more or less. After a $135 lunch (why is my credit card being declined?) and a major monitor malfunction (of course you wanted to spend $500 more on equipment rental!) we’re more or less only an hour behind schedule- producer Dave seems almost satisfied (we’ll see, as the night progresses) and everyone had lunch! On time, no less! Less is more? The hotel is sad and old, the car’s too small, the location might be cramped, the hospital harried… but we’re making headway, making television, powering through, keeping our chins up, noses to the grindstone (cliché cliché cliché)

Today I did my first producerial thing (an interview, with a subject I preinterviewed and was entirely responsible for!) and didn’t fuck up too badly- Dave did have to chime in a few times, but considering it’s my second ever Legitimate Contribution To An Episode, I am glad to have had the opportunity and (cliché) am keeping my fingers crossed that some of my subject will make it onto the show.

I have to keep reminding myself of another cliché- it’s not brain surgery. We’re not saving lives, just making tv about people who do. But when you’re locked outside the action with a dead cell phone, trying to keep silent and watching the clock click towards overtime, it’s hard not to feel professionally impotent. It’s these moments that I am glad cigarettes cost $5 a pack anywhere outside of New York, that diet cokes are part of production costs, and, mostly- that I care enough about this show (MY JOB) to get so worked up over it. Get ready for the monster cliché- I’M TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED- but modified for the situation- I do what I love and it’s making me grey prematurely and I don’t think I could have it any other way.