March 24, 2010

This week i only worked one day - because the jerry show was dark for a few days. On tuesday I was there for studio day. I've come to really enjoy everyone that i work with.. and i'm really excited to be in a TV studio in general. I LOVE telling people i work for Jerry Springer/Steve Wilkos show. I think i may intern again over the summer (not for school credit, just because i love it here). People recognize me by name and a lot of people say I do a great job. I very often go on coffee runs for Rachelle Wilkos (with her credit card) who is the executive producer of both shows (and Steve's wife) to starbucks - the same order every time - caramel apple ciders (no whip cream). I also went on a strange errand to go get phone chargers....... but hey, whatever I gotta do, I gotta do. I'm a little sad that I dont think I would want to work here - I dont know if i'd be able to refuse a job offer from THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW, hellO! but i may have to, its a super super super brutal job...

Week one billion

So this week was pretty typical. it sort of tires me out to write the same exact thigns every single week - I pretty much did everything I was told, and went on of course massive amounts of errands and met lots of 'different' people.. including a stripper from alabama with a goiter in her neck the size of a football.. and she showed me all of her stripping outfits.. other than that.. typical sunday and tuesday. I'm looking into possbily seeing one of the shows on a day off, i'd get the VIP treatment and would get to skip the line. My schedule is so busy though, with interning and my job (babysitting) and school work and my senior project .. i'm not sure i'll get a day off any time soon. Spring break is soon though (woohoo!)

week 5

Boring sunday again! i'm wondering if my first day on the job was the best it's going to get - i never get to go out to eat with guests anymore! One of the things they had me to (for about 5 hours) was booking .. which is getting people to do the show. They had a last minute cancellation story and needed someone to fly out to CT THAT NIGHT, so I was acting PA for the day. I basically did what the PA's do all day every day when they don't have guests, and let me say that it sucks! I had a gigantic book of voicemails that random viewers of the show left (if you've ever seen the show, you know that they spit phone numbers at you to call and leave messages). My job was to call all of the highlighted numbers (they were highlighted according to the producer i was with), and find someone to do the show. I had to basically call strangers that called the show one day and left a goofy comment, and try to get them to want to be on the show. I had to DIG into stranger's lives to see if there was an interesting story to be broadcast on national TV. Many people hung up on me, and even more people asked me if it was a prank. Honestly I thought it was hilarious, because I used to call the Jerry Springer show as a kid and leave prank messages on the voicemail. What SUCKED is that i had the voicemail list from A YEAR AGO.. meaning these people had called to leave a random comment a year or more ago, and I had to harass them to be on TV.. damn this business is harsh!

Tuesday was typical. I had to steam some shirts for the first time, and had a good time trying to figure out the steam machine for a while.....not.

I had to go to starbucks to get coffees for the executive producer (who happens to be steve wilkos's wife), and I came back with the coffees on time.. but apparently the coffee that leaked on the lid was unacceptable - no one said anything to me, but they hastily wiped away the excess coffee that had leaked on the lid on the trek back to the studio before they gave it to her.. damn! was she really going to be that mad..?

Sometimes when there's no work to do at the studio (rare), we can sit in the production office and watch the live feed of the show that's being taped.. it's pretty cool to see the clothes i put guests in on television.

Week 4

This week at the zoo jerry springer show was a little slow at first. Every sunday I usually have been working with a certain team.. and i'm finding out that i'll be with a different team each week (a team consisting of one producer, an associative producer, and one or two producer's assistant [usually just one], and then either one or two interns.) Today my team was actually pretty boring - i stuffed envelopes at the office for a few hours.. and then went on some mundane errands (going to mcdonalds, getting t-shirts at the studio, fetching coffee and food, etc...) After the catered dinner at the office, my producer assistant pretty much let me go early - they didn't have any guests flying in any time soon to do the show. Each team is responsible for booking shows, and if they don't book guests then there is less work for me. The entire office (all teams for jerry & steve) is there all day long - and a friend i met there told me that they pretty much work all day, every day (yikes!)

Tuesday I was sent out shopping - and im getting much better at navigating through Stamford. Almost all of the places we need to go are within a 5 blocks radius .. the studio being just down the street from the office. Again, i had to fetch t-shirts at the studio. The place where i get them from is in a dark dark balcony above the set -it's pitch black and i have to search through cardboard boxes for black t-shirts, and I need to be able to distinguish size.. ugh.. I also do the usual billion errand run, as well as the usual putting guests in wardrobe, cleaning the greenrooms and putting the guests's things away. I'm getting used to the teams I've been working with for the steve show - and some of the PA's are pretty cool. I met a lot of people who commute from my hometown in Garden City, long island - an hour from stamford! I saw steve throw a shit-fit backstage also, haha.