Amen, L.A. by Cherie Bennett

Author:Cherie Bennett [Bennett, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89808-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

“Sound … and … action!”

My sister and I watched quietly from one side of the set of Working Stiff, my father and brother observing from the other side, as the assistant director—not the director, the way it always goes in the movies—called for the cameras to roll and the scene to begin.

The set was a mock-up of a basement massage studio far more Spartan than the one I had recently experienced with Alex at the Mondrian. The Mondrian massage room was upscale. This was definitely downscale, with only a massage table; an array of rough wooden shelves that held the tools of the trade, like oils and powders; and a folding chair, on which had been placed a small stack of Holiday Inn–grade white towels and white sheets. Except for a boom box and a single Zen-themed poster taped to the far wall, that was it.

It was the day after the concert. My family, with the exception of my mother, who was working at the church, had accepted Kent Stevens’s invitation to visit the Studio City production facility of his hit hour-long drama, Working Stiff.

Working Stiff had been on the air for two years, though I’d never watched it. It was about a middle-class Los Angeles woman named Shauna, who had a legitimate home massage-therapy office but moonlighted as a private investigator with an uncanny knack for cracking cases the police had deemed hopeless. I had watched a few YouTube clips to prep for this visit. To be honest, it wasn’t my kind of show. I’m more old Gilmore Girls, Secret Life, and—sue me—classic 7th Heaven.

Everything associated with the writing, shooting, and production of Working Stiff took place in a single nondescript five-story building on busy Riverside Drive in Studio City, in the 818 (Mia would be proud!), not far from the Fashion Mall. The show had taken over the building for the duration of its run. The aboveground part of the building held the show’s interior sets, including the massage room, the messy home PI office, the apartment that belonged to the heroine and her teenage son, police headquarters, et cetera. Down in the basement, you could find the production offices, editing bays, and even the room where the writers would gather to map out new episodes.

Kent himself gave us a quick tour before he took us to watch the filming. I thought the writers’ room was one of the most depressing places I’d ever seen. No windows, walls covered with whiteboards, and two conference tables that held the fallout of pizzas long forgotten. The room smelled of old perspiration, stale coffee and dead yeast, too little sleep, and too much anxiety. It was enough to make me decide never to pursue a career as a television writer. Who in their right mind would do that?

The shooting sets, though, were incredibly cool. Kent showed us how a particular room could be transformed by the crew in a couple of hours from one use to another, and there were other areas filled with props, false walls, and the like.

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