Hollywood hordes

Okay, I'm exaggerating, they aren't from Hollywood, they are from TV land, but anyway I'm experiencing quite a sureal evening. Its 11:20pm and I'm writing my blog having just pulled a double espresso for a production person who is part of the 100+ TV crew poised just outside my door. Yes literally I have an entire TV production crew working in the hallyway and outside on the streets now. They are producing a new TV detective series for CBS featuring (and apparently co-written by) Danny Glover who is currently esconced in the loft down the hallway that belongs to one of my neighbours.

Intel from the crew has revealed that the entire shennanigans is all for five minutes of the show. This has required an entire block of parking on the street in either direction, lights on the roof, about a half dozen "star wagons", two generators, trucks and trucks of gear, two days of loading equipment into the aforementioned lofts and of course, about a hundred or so miscellaneous people crawing all over the building and neighbourhood. Not to mention the cart loads of equipment in the hallway and the dozen people going "shhhhhh!" everytime we open the door.

Now as you may have guessed from my previous writing I am convinced that the American TV and Hollywood are for the most part just another facet of the evil axis of media, corporations and that bunch of stupid (but rich) white men we like to think of as government. But of course being my first real contact with Hollywood I have naturally been sucked into the spectacle of its "shock and awe" invasion of the neighbourhood. Yes, Danny Glover is wandering outside my doorway at 11:30pm and I'm in awe.

What I'm most in awe of is the sheer magnitude of people and effort to produce just five minutes of a TV show. Really, isn't it incredible that five minutes of show takes 100 or so people, two days of load in, six hours of shooting and then a day of load out? Are these really the kind of values that we are currently devoting 300,000 American troops and countless BILLIONS of dollars to take over Iraq, just so that they can experience the freedom to enjoy the American dream and a TV show on each night that takes this massive amount of effort per five minutes. Aren't there better things in life to fight for, die for and live for?