LA Film Festival Recap – Day 2
Day 2 – Kodak Speed Dating in the Target Red Room
That day was started off on an early note. I had to arise at 4 AM to get ready to leave around 5:27 AM with my mother. My shift for the festival starts at 9 AM and to even make it there on time I would have to leave a few hours before hand. I would end up arriving to my destination two hours early.
Great you say? No. Horrible I say! Have you been in Westwood at 7 AM? There is absolutely nothing to do that early! But, luckily for me I discovered The Corner Bakery Café. It was a delightful little escape to sit down and wait for my shift to start. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry that day. So, I just ordered some orange juice and an orange cranberry scone. I was served fairly quick and I decided to sit at a table outside. It was much cooler this particular morning and the cool air was refreshing. I opened my little baggy and to my surprise my scone was actually warm.
This was a great start of a day for me. Now why is a warm scone a great start? Well, it’s those little things that just warm you up. Hence, the warm scone, I have become accustomed to stale or just cold scones that I forgot what joy a warm bakery good could bring. Needless to say it was delicious and I had planned on returning for lunch before I went home.
I went in 15 minutes early like I was instructed to. Only, there really wasn’t anything for me to do. There was only one other volunteer there as well. She was already busy straightening things up and I was pretty much obsolete at that point. So, I found some post cards to straighten up that took up a total of 5 seconds. The other volunteer’s name was Roxanne and she was a delightful lady. We spoke about our experience at the festival so far and such. I learned that she is a resident of Westwood and she seemed pretty proud of her city. It was nice to see someone take the time to do what he or she can for his or her city. She told me about this art exhibit that was across the street. You’ll hear more about that in a later post.
Soon our shift manager, Molly, arrives. I get assigned parking duty. I took a stand, sign and an envelope full of parking passes to parking lot 36. My job required me to stand by the sign and wait for ten film executives to arrive so I could give them their parking passes and to answer any questions that they would have about the festival. Note that the time I started that job was 9:40 AM.
9:45AM – The sign fell due to the breeze and I pick it up.
9:48AM – Two executives arrive and I give them their passes.
9:52AM – The sign falls again.
10:00AM – Staring off into the distance and UCLA students flash me their parking permits.
10:02AM – Sign falls again. I move sign from original spot to another spot without a breeze.
10:10AM – More UCLA Students and one person asking about the police department parking lot.
10:15AM – Another film executive shows up.
10:17AM – I stop the sign from falling again
10:20AM – I get a call from Seth from the Volunteer booth informing me of the next day’s shift.
10:22AM – Again, I stop the sign from falling and I move it once more.
10:35AM – Another film executive arrives.
10:40AM – The last film executive arrives.
10:41 – 11AM – I fight with the sign and I get a call from Jane to come back to the Target Red Room. FREEDOM!
I walk back to the Red Room expecting there to be a lot of stuff happening. I imagined they would have me doing a lot of little activities and such. No, I arrive and my next job required me to stand around until Jane gave out the two-minute warning. Which, I would then hold two fingers up and walk to all the ten tables and inform the people they have two minutes to finish their conversations. Can you say it any clearer? B-O-R-I-N-G!
So, to all of you in the dark, The Kodak Speed Dating event was 10 film executives talking to 10 filmmakers about their films and such. Basically they were all pitching their films. Which was sort of interesting if it weren’t for the fact that if one of them got the slightest hint that you were listening they would start to get paranoid. One thing that I learned was whenever the day should come for me to pitch a script I need to be confident. I loved how they were all pretty relaxed and looked as if they were just having a normal conversation with the executives. The day I worked on was Documentary day. So. It was all documentary filmmakers in the room.
Once that was all finished I got my second movie voucher and I was allowed to leave. As I promised myself I went back to the Corner Bakery Café and got my lunch and then headed home.
End of day 2!
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