Jeremiah’s take on the Escape… and other L.A. things.
11 August 2007 in Blog | Comments enabled

Josh’s post gave a good overview of what we experienced in Los Angeles. It was a great trip and I enjoyed meeting all the bloggers and the people from Ford and their PR company, Hill and Knowlton. The marketing world is fascinating to me and I definitely would love to work with a marketing company directing commercials if the opportunity ever presented itself.

I enjoyed driving the Ford Escape very much. It was a definite improvement to my ‘97 Honda Civic. For years I drove a Dodge Caravan so it was nice to be up and off the ground again. Driving the winding roads of Hollywood was a lot of fun as was driving up to the Santa Monica mountains to see the Disney Ranch. The car handled well. Ford did a good job of convincing me that they actually do make good vehicles. My only experience with Ford was my parents’ Ford Aerostar that we had when I was a kid. It broke down ALL the time. But at the time, I’m sure it was 6 or 7 years old. Driving the Escape definitely made me feel better about Ford.

Meeting Adrianna Costa was very cool. She was really nice and very encouraging of our dreams. I told her about our film and what we hoped to do and she told us to keep going. I can’t believe I sat beside her for like 2 hours while we ate dinner.

That’s one thing about LA or maybe just fancy restaurants (both places I don’t go to much) is that the meals take FOREVER to eat. We could count on at least 2 hours in a restaurant while out there.

As Josh said, Will and Jason were very nice and we spent a long time talking with them. Zack also was really cool. I don’t think he should have been kicked off last week.

At the Disney Ranch, we met the producer behind the Ford commercials that they show during the American Idol results show. He was a very nice guy and knew his stuff. We told him we really enjoyed those commercials and that we usually TIVO past everything on the result show except those commercials. He seemed genuinely touched. It’s interesting that even though he’s probably one of the most successful commercial producers out there right now, he still appreciated a compliment by two “nobodies.” I guess Praise is Praise. Doesn’t matter who it comes from.

We also met a really nice PA who was working on the commercial. He had a tatoo of Boba Fett’s insignia. I can’t remember his name though. I like PAs. I worked as a PA on a really awful indie film in Florida. It was 3 weeks of pure hell. But I learned a lot. I remember the worst thing was trying to get the hang of yelling “QUIET” and “ROLLING”. It’s harder than you think. I also hated it that PAs weren’t allowed to sit down… ever. Apparently the producers or director would fire you if you did that (maybe it was just this shoot I was working on.) Also, we couldn’t let anyone see us eating, both Craft Services or catering. We had to eat after everyone and really quick. Even today, I still can’t relax on my own film set and just eat because I was so afraid of getting caught eating on that film.

As for LA, I wouldn’t mind living there if I was already working in the industry and making a decent salary. I’m not ready to go out there and starve, live in a tiny apartment in a bad area of town, and work at Starbucks while trying to “make it” in the industry. For now, we’re content with making our films here and writing our scripts and then mailing them out to the West Coast. But who knows what the future holds.