Travel is frequently awesome, especially for work. The thrill of the alarm going off at 3:00 a.m. to catch the 6:15 a.m. to Austin, the trashy magazines and airport muffins, the sweet, sweet sounds of the TSA agent clucking disapprovingly over having to hand-search all the shot tapes. Continue reading: Austin (crew) »
Samantha Brown
June, 2008 Archive
Austin (crew)
San Francisco (crew)
Food, Glorious (Chinese) Food
San Francisco\’s foodie weekend was a tantalizing and calorie-splurging adventure for Sam, but also for many of the crew like myself. Though I swore I would jog every day just to allow myself to indulge a little more than usual, but I was too busy doing my job, and part of that job was clean-up crew. Let me explain. When we\’re shooting a food scene, I\’ve got my headphones on, and I\’m concentrating on the scene at hand, whether it\’s watching Sam eat from a gorgeous lazy Susan filled with dim sum (at Imperial Palace) or participating in a cooking competition in Berkeley at Kitchen on Fire. Now, after shouting, \”CUT,\” my sneaky hands somehow find a neglected dumpling, a freshly baked piece of sourdough (from Boudin Bakery) or a million-dollar cocktail (Harry Denton\’s Starlight Room). I can\’t help it. Sam couldn\’t help notice that I would get distracted whenever a new treat was put before the cameras, and being the generous sport she is, she\’d make sure that I could be the off-screen taster. That sounds better than clean-up crew, but essentially I was directing and eating on the fly. Yes, I can\’t ever complain about my job. Continue reading: San Francisco (crew) »
London
Day 1
This will be my first trip back to Europe after doing \”Passport to Latin America.\” After spending two years traveling throughout Europe, I had gotten very good at shaking off jet lag. My body just acclimated immediately to a five- or six-hour time difference. But after having spent a year in Latin America, where the time difference averages two hours, I am completely out of time-change shape. I\’m so exhausted that at night, I can\’t sleep. Continue reading: London »
Carnival Cruise
Day One
The Carnival Cruise show will be a full hour, but we only have four days to shoot it, which is usually the time we need to shoot a half-hour of … so it\’s a pretty busy schedule. Great thing about being on a cruise is you can fit a lot more into a show, seeing that everything is a 10-minute walk away as opposed to an hour\’s drive. In travel production, stamina and momentum are key, and nothing can kill that more than long drives to destinations or even a long lunch. So, even though the shoot schedule looks challenging on paper, we\’re all able to get into a zone. Of course this is great for everyone except Allan on camera, who might actually enjoy putting the 40-pound camera down for a spell. Another wonderful thing about shooting on a cruise is the plethora of bathrooms. After my last travels in China and Latin America, the thought of being no more than 50 feet away from a clean bathroom is just bliss. So I\’m sure you\’re thinking, \”She gets to go on a cruise with pools, spas, bars, food and partying, and this is what makes her happy?\” Yep, pretty much. Continue reading: Carnival Cruise »
New Hampshire (crew)
Road Trip (to New Hampshire)!
Grab the Twizzlers, some \’80s mix CDs and an atlas! It\’s time to hit the road.
OK, it\’s a little different than the road trips from college, being that a television hostess sat shotgun (Twizzlers still remain, however). Continue reading: New Hampshire (crew) »
Cabo (Crew)
Now that the \”Cabo Fog\” has lifted …
Even before pre-production began, I could have told you that Cabo looks different through a camera lens than it does through the haze of Spring Break. Continue reading: Cabo (Crew) »
Las Vegas (crew)
Turns out 160 miles per hour is fast. Who knew?
I\’m not a NASCAR fan. Nothing against fast cars, but I didn\’t grow up with it — so it never really crept its way into my consciousness. Sure, I could probably pick a driver or two out of a lineup if I had to, thanks to ESPN. I\’m not sure I was prepared for what 160+ mph would look like, sound like or feel like. Continue reading: Las Vegas (crew) »
Orlando (crew)
It\’s Valentine\’s Day, and I\’ve just smashed, face-first, into a pane of Plexiglas.
I don\’t know what it is, but I tend to get hurt on shoots. Nothing major, but it\’s a good bet that when I come home, I\’ll have a few new bruises. I never go anywhere without Band-Aids, and I like to know where the nearest hospital is at all times. Just in case. Continue reading: Orlando (crew) »
Miami (Crew)
We\’re in South Beach in February, which is exactly where you want to be in February, especially when you\’re from New York, which, coincidentally, unfortunately, and only mildly hilariously, is buried under a foot of snow AND in the midst of a flu epidemic. Conversely, I\’m in a tank top, covered in sunscreen, sitting on the beach. No wonder everyone hates me. Continue reading: Miami (Crew) »
Carnival Cruise (crew)
We\’re on board the Carnival Inspiration, bound for Cozumel, Mexico, and four days of fun in the sun. I have this thing about always being prepared for anything (some might call it a compulsion, but I prefer to think of it as a quirk), which means that, even though everything and anything can be had in 12 decks or less, every day, my backpack contains the following: Continue reading: Carnival Cruise (crew) »
