Lights, Camera, Action: A Peek At Studio Life

Randy Emmett embodies exactly what I thought a Hollywood Producer would be like. He is a great character, so much so that a new reality TV show starts shooting this weekend about his life.

He has tons of energy – and never content doing one thing at time; one minute he is on the phone pacing the room, arms flailing with excitement, pitching a new concept for a television show, and the next he is giving his assistant heck with equal amount of volume for forgetting to remind him of an appointment.

It is quite a different reality. Some of the conversations seem to be straight out of a movie – talking about celebrities on a first name basis, organizing top directors and actors for a new feature film, discussing a new production company that he will be starting with rap star 50 Cent. At one point yesterday he was getting quotes for flying Sylvester Stallone around the world for premieres of Rambo premiering next week. With stops in four cities, the final quote for the private jet came out to $500,000. A different reality indeed.

The production company receives about 50 – 70 film scripts every week. I was able to read through some of them as a large part of a producers job is to decide what would make a great movie and something they would like to purchase.

They are also in the process of starting up a television division. Yesterday I sat in on a meeting with another producer who will partner with Randall in a new reality show. It’s interesting to see how much goes into making a television show: fine tuning the concept, selling it to a network, setting up all the paper work, casting, shooting the pilot, then seeing if the network will purchase the series.

Today I am going to the casting agency where they are auditioning roles for a forthcoming reality series. In the afternoon I will visit the editing studios where they are in post production for the feature film The Righteous Kill with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

-Sean