Thirty-Two.

I feared that this would happen.  Rather than immediately blog about day 2 of the Taylor Swift shoot, I put it off to give myself time to recover, and as a result the two days of shooting have started to mush together in my brain making it difficult for me to recall events that occurred.  But I needed a day to recover; Monday was literally an 18 hour work day.  Yep, I was working from 7:30am and remained on set until 1:30am that night.  Woe is me, right?  Wrong!

Despite the fact that in a two-day span, I worked 32 out of a total 48 hours, it was overall one of the coolest experiences of my life to date (can I re-emphasize THIRTY TWO?).  And I think I can try and yank those memories from their deathbeds.   So here's a little bit of day two to satisfy your salivating star-crazed palate.

We arrived on set around 8, and I was hungry.  I mean, really hungry.  So I looked around and saw this awesome breakfast buffet.  And mind you, the buffet from the day before didn't have scrambled eggs or croissants.  So I filled up a plate with these delicious scrambled eggs, a croissant, some grapefruit slices, and a cup of whole milk.  I sat there and I ate it.  Obviously I started with the eggs.  This is very exciting for you, isn't it?  It was for me.  What?  You don't want to hear about my breakfast?  How dare you.  I put my heart and soul into this blog, you ignorant bastion of literary and culinary snobbery.  Eggs are at the top of the food pyramid, and it is high time everyone start respecting the natural hierarchy.  Respect.  The egg.  Are you fed up with this paragraph yet?  Have you moved on?  Or are you still waiting for me to talk about she who must not be named?  Fine.  Taylor  Swift.  Are we happy now?

Most of the day was spent shooting a very difficult scene inside the house.  It was difficult because there were lots of angles.  It probably took longer than it should have, but I'm not allowed to have thoughts like that, because I'm a PA.  I'm not allowed to look at a set and think it would look awesome if there were more lighting on the label of the product.  I'm allowed to look at a set and think it would look awesome if that empty water bottle were removed from the floor and placed in the garbage.  Yeah, that'd look sweet.


It was actually kind of frustrating having this particular series of shots take so long, but something cool did happen.  Here's a story: a Taylor story: the kind of story that you come to my blog to read about.  DO YOU EVEN KNOW MY NAME???

I was standing at the bottom of a marble staircase.  In the takes, Taylor had to walk halfway down this staircase.  I was seriously just standing around then, and one of the producers came up to me and gave me a tall Starbucks iced coffee.  At first I thought it might be for me, but then I remembered my serfhood.  Then I looked at the straw, which had the little piece of paper still at the top, the Starbucks version of "the cherry on top" (... cheap bastards.)  But then I knew.  I knew that I had just been handed Taylor's drink.

I knew this because the producer told me "This is Taylor's drink.  I'm going to tell her assistant that you have it."  NOoooooooo don't tell the freaking assistant!  I want to give her the coffee!  The thing is, nobody is supposed to give Taylor food or drink except Taylor's assistant.  So my strategy was to just stand their like a statue and not talk to anybody, because as soon as I did, they would find me and take the drink away.  What do you think happened next?

One of the crew guys approached me and asked whose coffee that was.  I whispered, "It's Taylor's coffee."  And then I made a pathetic little hand motion that explained to him I'm holding it right here (pointing down), and you don't need to panic (thumbs up), everything is going to be okay (connect pointer finger with thumb).  But I was panicking inside, because he was going to take the drink.

"Oh really?" he said, "Well I'm going to find Taylor's assistant because she should really be the one holding that."  My hand-miming hadn't convinced him of shit.  I thought on my feet, "Well Brooke told me to stay here with the drink."  Which she had actually said.  "Oh alright, well then just hang tight there."

Everything was cool, but he was still looking for the assistant - he found her.  And he came back to me and said "Okay Mike, so Taylor's assistant is at the top of the staircase and can't come down, so at the end of this take, we're going to cut and you just bring the coffee to Taylor."  And that's what happened.  When they yelled cut, Taylor just kept coming down the stairs and I met her halfway up.

Let me describe it to you this way - because it is the only way of describing the moment that actually makes any sense.  Do you remember at the end of Titanic when they do that awesome zoom into the sunken ship, and it comes to life, and Rose meets Jack at the top of the staircase for one final time?  That is exactly what this was like, except Taylor was DiCaprio and I was Kate Winslet.  As I approached the stairwell, everyone on set was looking at me, nodding their heads and smiling, but deep down thinking I hope the PA doesn't mess this up.  And then I retorted back to shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, "Yeah Andrews, hope you don't mess up either!"  Ouch!

And then I almost tripped.  Thank God I didn't, but I nearly did.  Okay we're gonna sink this Titanic metaphor.  Back to Glen Cove.

"I'll never let go of your drink."

I approached her and said cheerfully "Here is your coffee".  And she said "Oh thank you so much!"  I could tell that she was parched.  So that makes me like the hero... right?  Anyway, she took the paper top off the straw, and I stood there and waited for her to finish drinking.  I said "I can take your garbage for you if you'd like."  She said "That'd be great thanks!"  For anybody who still isn't convinced, or perhaps is jealous of her, Taylor is a very friendly, kind-hearted person.  That was one of the coolest things to happen that day.

Now I will tell you about an equally cool thing that happened, but very briefly.  Before the male actor showed up on set, I got to act as a stand-in for him.  Obviously Taylor had a stand-in as well, but I befriended Taylor's stand-in that day and we chatted for a long time while we were standing around waiting for the cameras to get ready.  I also was pal'ing it up with the actual male actor, whose name was also Mike.

We had dinner at 9:30 that night.  We weren't even supposed to, but the shoot was just taking that long.  It's just one of those things that happened, and it was the reason why we didn't leave Woo....th Mansion until 1:30 in the morning.  Those last 4 hours were grueling.  You know that feeling in class, where the last 5 minutes just seem to drag and drag and drag?  Picture that, but apply it to the last FOUR HOURS. I'm not mad or anything, I mean I was on set and getting paid for it.  But I am still feeling the effects of an 18-hour work day, two days later.

My experience with the Taylor shoot was really great.  There's a lot of production drama that went on behind the scenes that I can't talk about, and I didn't even know about a lot of it until after we had finished the shoot.  But overall it was awesome being around that.  For a first celebrity shoot (and I don't think it will be the last... keep your eyes peeled this next week for another potentially awesome shoot), Taylor Swift was a cool one to do.  Because she is just so down to earth, and I think that's the way a lot of celebrities are.  Honestly, I think many of them are just surrounded by idiots and jerks, and we forget they are human too.  I swore that I wouldn't write a "moral of the story," damnit...

Shutting up now.