Crazyness with Bob

Yes. Crazyness with Bob. But what more could I expect when I got a phone call at midnight?

Last Sunday, around 9:00 pm, I responded to another round of (what usually turn out to be hopeless) internet postings for various positions. One of these was for an assistant position to a producer that had been posted about two weeks before. Since it costs me relatively no harm to apply to these (I only die a little in the inside) I decided, what the heck. Well, low and behold, I got a call asking me to come in the next morning. He said that someone had backed out on him and that he was terribly unorganized and needed help with using his computer. Being a young and enterprising (not to mention organized and computer savvy) I said, "Umm, sure."

The next day I got a chance to meet Bob (yes, just Bob, in attempt to be discrete). Turns out he is a producer and has done a thing or two and knows some pretty big people, but I would never had guessed that the first time I met him.

I knocked on his door and came face to face with a man with who looked like he had been through hell. He greeted me with a raspy voice, wearing a purple sweatshirt that was covered in stains, walking with an unsettling limp, and hair that was like a tangle of wires. His apartment was a mess, with papers all about the place (he was right about the unorganized part), carpet with stains that rivaled his sweatshirt and an overall strange atmosphere that hinted something was off. Bob himself is of the skidish sort, with a type A personality and always has something to say. He is a quick talking New Yorker who's brain is all over the place, constantly throwing things at me and giving me way to much responsibility too quickly.

But he is nice enough and sincerely cares about other people. And after spending time together, I think that he took a liking to me. He kept on asking me if I wanted to help him pitch projects (that I know nothing about and apparently "don't need to know all about" according to Bob) to TV execs and do other random, odd things, that I would think I need more experience to do. He just assumed that I could handle everything he throws at me and I try my best to keep up with him. I don't turn down his offers for more to do and plan on proving to him (and myself) that I am worth my snuff. I am looking to get all the experience I can and the way things seem to headed, I will get plenty of that. I just simply go with the flow because that is pretty much the way things have to be done when dealing with Bob.

Right now he is working on some pickup shots for a Reality Show. And guess who he is leaning on for most of the planning... Yours truly. Oh, and guess who is going to be 1st AD (the one who basically runs the show while on set), yours truly. Hopefully things will go somewhat according to plan. We still have one day to finish planning the shoot.

So I am going to be working with Bob for at least a little while. I will definitely stick this weekend out. As crazy it is working with Bob, there is no way that I will come out of this with less than I went in. I am going to get some good experience from this, if not a really good story.

-Things I've learned: That there are some pretty crazy people in this industry, yet they some how manage to have some sort of success. If they can do it, so can I.

-Plans for the future: Try and get this shoot on Saturday off with out a hitch. And keep my head screwed on tight. Yea, we'll see about that.