Celebrity sightings....

I got stuck in a middle seat....

in the middle section.......

on the plane out here....

and in the second row of coach! The woman in front of me also reclined her seat a little. Can you say skwooshed!?!

But because I was all the way towards the front and could see in the curtain for first class, when we were getting off the plane, I saw a familiar face getting out of her seat up there.

It was Eve

and the woman skwooshing me happened to be her assistant. (How does one get one of these jobs??) She looked good, just like on TV, with reddish-brown hair and all the makeup and she waited at the carousel for her bags with the rest of us, although she didnt have to pick them up.

Then, later that night, at dinner we saw the Hiphopapotomus, Jemaine Clemant from Flight of the Conchords, although since I had to look up his name to write this blog post, I am not sure if he classifies as a true celebrity.....

And then..... nothing...... (of there was that Nobel Laureate at the Caltech Athenaeum Club... um, okay.... I am pretty sure that doesn't count for anyone except perhaps scientists...)

Although, this wasnt really a paint the town red, clubbing type of trip (I did not go to one club! Oh, I am getting old!) where were all the celebrities out getting their smoothies and shopping on Melrose and eating Cuban food???

I did manage to get one more celebrity sighting in thanks to some old family friends. Some of my parents best friends from St. Louis live in LA, Sophie and Harry, and we got to meet up with them for dinner. The next day I met up with Sophie again and went with her to her office. She is a VP at a major TV production company and I got to go over to the studio and hang out for a little bit.


I got to watch a couple TV pilots for new TV shows this season (Journeyman seems like it could be an interesting new one, although a few points were just a little too corny or contrived) and got a tour of a few of the sets for their premiere show in production. I got to see the courtroom set and sit in the judge's chair and also see the office set. There also happened to be a marking rehearsal going on with 3 of the major stars from the show, one of whom just won an Emmy for his role, so I got to see them run through their lines for this particular scene before heading over to the makeup trailer. My major impressions were this:

1. The actors are shorter than I thought
2. We get the best of it when we see the final product. The actual filming of the scenes is extremely tedious and boring. There is a lot of hurry up and wait. It did not seem very glamourous at at! For example, this was maybe a 1-2 minute scene.

• First, they talked through the scene with the actors,
• then practiced dialogue,
• then walked through the scene and marked their marks on the floor where they stopped during the scene,
• then they talked about the camera angles and placement with the director while the actors were still there.
• then, the actors went away and the crew started moving around the walls and stuff needed to support the scene and started to place all the lights
• Apparently, at this same time, the actors went to the makeup trailer for 40 or so minutes of makeup and hair
• then they come back and film the scene 40 bazillion times so they can get all the camera angles....

All this might take about 2-3 hours..... for a 2 minutes scene! Can you imagine?!?!? I think I would tear my hair out! And they do this for 12 hours each day (on a short day). So, as I said, we get the best of it when we watch the show. Although, I guess we don't get paid.... Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the actors. Cameras are not allowed on the set, of course.

I wonder if anyone will be on my flight back!?!?