Pippa Wraps Up Her Internship!

My last week on internship with Smiley Guy Studios is just flying by. I’ve had the chance to help Karen with an expenses tracking document for one of the previous productions, The Nations, which I worked on throughout the week. I also got to lead the Vampire Steve / Beethoven’s Wig meeting this week - it was my first time actually getting to use the meeting notes I’ve prepared.

Vampire Steve is on hold until the end of June, because we’ve got a short deadline to meet for Beethoven’s Wig. I also got to work on some invoice approvals for a few projects.

I also spent a lot of time this week organizing hard drives with Joel G, and filing them in a google spreadsheet. I love google drive. It’s the best organizational tool I’ve ever tried. I’ve made so many spreadsheet checklists. They’re amazing.

I spent a portion of my day on the phone to hotel companies to chase up receipts that weren’t in the file for the expenses report, as well as the city of Toronto regarding parking permits for moving trucks and trailers. I also started going over the DOOD to confirm the dates on the DOOD match those on actors’ contracts.

Yesterday, I got a Toronto Public Library card. Today was my last day as a Smiley Guy intern. Tomorrow is Graduation. And next week, I’ll be back at Smiley Guy as an actual production coordinator and staying until at least the end of June.

I’ve learned so much in my time here; I’m pretty sure Smiley Guy Studios is the best possible place to intern.

And as the college chapter of my life draws to a close (accidental pun, I assure you) - I can’t wait to find out what’s next for me!

                                                             *Real Pippa is on the left, cartoon Pippa is on the right ;)

You're a Wizard Pippa...

And that’s a wrap on Epic Studios! Or at least it will be. On my part of it. As far as I know.

Monday, I worked on the deal memos for both Todd and Vampire Steve some more, as well as caught up on my long overdue blog posts. I also worked on the Vampire Steve meeting notes, but the meeting ended up being postponed to another day. I ended up spending Monday afternoon sorting and organizing the boxes of cables outside of the lunch room for Karen. It took me a few hours, and my hands were filthy from all the dust on the cords by the end of it, but I managed to get everything organized before the day was done.

Tuesday took me back to the set, where we were at our final location for Epic Studios. I was on lock-up most of the time. I learned a lot on set, and I think I can safely say I’m a great deal more partial to the animation pipeline. I like to be busy, to be moving and working, and there’s a little too much hurry up and wait on set. It was a positive experience though, and the lessons I learned on the set will carry over into other aspects of my career.

Maybe the next time I’m on the set can be for something I wrote or developed. That’s one of my goals for the future, anyway.

Today, I revised and updated the notes for Vampire Steve, but the meeting was postponed once again. Hopefully we’ll be able to have that on Monday. I also got to work on some contract stuff for Karen, dealing with both ACTRA contracts and bank agreements. It’s amazing to see how much legal paperwork is actually needed for something even as short as a web series.

I’m really excited for next week, because I’ll actually be around for the weekly development meeting. And sometime during the week, I’m finally going to get a library card. Also my internship is done on Thursday and I have no idea where life is going to take me next.

Hopefully the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. At some point in the future, anyway.

Pippa Prepares to Graduate

May 23*

Monday was Victoria Day, so it was a long weekend! And I did not spend a minute of it resting. It was gorgeous weather and I was happy to be outside. My boyfriend came to visit the city, and we spent it on the waterfront, with me trying to convince him that big cities are not actually hell on earth.

Back on set Tuesday, I’ve started helping the art department more. Well I kind of did last week too, towards the end of the week when we did a ‘cocaine’ scene that involved icing sugar absolutely everywhere. That was a lot of clean-up. Plus, it was the day that there was the fire at the Runnymeade subway station - which is my stop on my way to set!

I also got to help one of the art hands on set with her tiny houses for one of the scenes in the series. The amount of work and detail she put into them - they were so fancy! I learned about different types of paint and glue used to decorate the set and props. And all that hard work on her miniatures just to be dramatically crushed in a matter of minutes!

This week, everything was changing. We had our last days at Trench Studios this week. We started working nights. I did some canvassing this week too, which means I was knocking on the neighbours’ doors to get them to sign off on us using loud special effects late at night. The special effects team used lights and smoke machines to ‘set fire’ to the studio! It looked pretty cool, but was also a super late night.

My sleep schedule is super messed up right now. We were doing early mornings - like 6:30-7:30 am starts, and in the span of a day, now we’re on nights, starting between 3:00-5:00 am and not finishing the night until 3:00-5:00 am. Caffeine is definitely my best friend right now!

I started to feel like I wasn’t really needed on set the latter half of the week because the majority of my time was being spent firewatching. It wasn’t until Saturday night when I got to talking to the Grips and the Gaffers while firewatching their truck that I realized how much it helps out them if they have someone to firewatch. Plus, they’re a big fan of the fact that I usually deliver the candy to the set, and that I made a point of memorizing as many of the crew’s coffee orders as possible.

Next week we wrap up shooting! It’s been a learning curve for me for sure, and it’s been a valuable experience, but I’m really excited to come back to Smiley Guy Studios on Friday!

Except it’ll be my last Friday on internship, because I graduate from college the Friday after that! I’m excited to be graduating college, but I’m really going to miss Smiley Guy Studios after my internship is over! :’(

Free Candy from Pippa

May 16*

This week, I did some work on the deal memos for Todd and the Book of Pure Evil and Vampire Steve. Turns out there are different deal memo templates for employees and contractors.

I’ve also been updating the Vampire Steve database now that the scripts for episodes 4 and 5 have been finalized. I updated the breakdowns for those episodes, and assigned them in the database. I’ve also been working on keeping the weekly meeting notes for Vampire Steve up to date.

Tuesday to Saturday, I was back on set. I did a lot of lock down this week, which means it was my job to make sure nobody walks through the doors and onto set while filming is going on. A lot of crew has to keep working to prep the next scene while the current scene is being shot, so it’s important to make sure they know when they have to hold the work and be quiet so nobody ruins the shots with polluted audio.

I’m no longer in the on-set production office as much. I’ve become more of an on-set PA, which usually gives me the job of distributing substantial snacks ‘subs’ on set in the morning and candy and treats after lunch - so everyone is usually pretty happy to see me!

Pippa on Set!

May 9*

So Epic Studios begins shooting this week, so for the next three weeks, Mondays will be my only day at Smiley Guy Studios. Today was hectic. Script revisions were the highest of high priority, because the assistant directors needed them for finalizing the schedules. I also got to help Karen with setting up ACTRA contracts for the cast of Epic Studios.

Tuesday to Saturday, I was on the set of Epic Studios. It was a huge learning curve for me. I’ve been on the set of student productions before, but in comparison to how things work on an actual set, we were just play-acting. Throughout my time at Loyalist, I always focused on the pre-production side of things: writer, casting director, producer. I haven’t really done as much crew work as most of my classmates - aside from directing, I’ve hardly been on set for anything other than a production manager, so I felt fairly lost.

I do the daily sides on-set, which is kind of a hassle to do without a laptop. A new laptop is pretty close to the top of my list of things to buy that would make my life infinitely easier. I also work on keeping the craft table stocked up, and making sure that people on set are fed and watered. I really like the set food - it’s my favourite part of the day. I also took care of the ACTRA sign-in sheet and contracts for actors.

Pippa and the Casting Call

How is it Friday already?! I swear, it was Monday like yesterday.

This week had a lot of casting call stuff for Epic Studios too - and so it should, since the auditions were Tuesday and Wednesday. Which would also explain how I apparently got lost in the space-time continuum.

So Monday was predominantly spent calling agents of anyone who wasn’t confirmed for Epic Studios. Lots of emails, lots of phone calls, lots of voicemails. I’m getting a lot better at making my emails short and to the point. I’ve always struggled with that sort of thing, what with my writer’s nature to make things sound pretty.

I’m really glad that I’m actually becoming less verbose. It only took me sending between twenty and fifty emails of saying pretty much the same thing, when I could have summed it up in a single sentence and made that process a lot less time consuming.

Tuesday and Wednesday took me to Farmhouse Productions to meet the team there, which was pretty cool. I also got to meet a few actors that I knew as I was manning the sign-in sheets for the auditions, which I emailed to ACTRA afterwards. I was surprised to see how quickly auditions actually go.

I also got to do a bit of production scheduling for Epic Studios, and counted how many days each cast member will be needed on set. I got to try some of that in my program, but I’ve been finding that a lot of aspects of a production are easier to wrap my head around when it’s actually attached to a show rather than a school assignment.

Back at Smiley Guy Studios, I started helping with the Vampire Steve weekly meeting schedule, and Erin said next week, meeting notes will be my responsibility. I also got to sit in on a skype interview with one of our future interns from Denmark, so that was cool.

Aside from Smiley Guy stuff, I also helped with a second breakdown for Epic Studios casting which is going to take place Monday. I’ve also finally started compiling that script notes master list for Lisa that I mentioned last week. Working on things for the second casting call is actually why my blog post for this week is going to be late - lots of scheduling and adding and shifting things around. And then I got to make more sides for those characters that didn’t have sides already. There were a lot more emails and phone calls, but we eventually got that all taken care of.

And that was my week.

Introducing Pippa Marvin!

I'm new to the Smiley Guy Blogisphere, so hello to everyone reading. For those that I haven't had the opportunity to meet yet, my name is Pippa and I'm a Television and New Media Student on internship from Loyalist College in Belleville. You've probably never heard of it. I'm a Production Coordinator Intern here at Smiley Guy, which means I'll be predominantly working with the wonderful Erin English for my internship.

April 4^th was my very first day at Smiley Guy Studios, and I absolutely love it here. This week was pretty intense, but I already don't want to leave. I'm learning so much all the time – production scheduling, how to work the database, and of course, all the different aspects of the animation pipeline that live action productions don't really have – like nat pauses!

A lot of my work so far has been with Lisa Baylin on casting for a new web series, and even though I've done some casting before for school projects, I had hardly even scratched the surface of the casting process. Casting definitely has been the most stressful thing I've worked on so far, but I think I'm one of those people who thrives on stress. And Lisa has been very patient when fielding my many questions as I figure out how Casting Workbook actually works.

Everyone here is absolutely amazing. I'm really excited to be involved in all the projects that Smiley Guy has on their slate – there is so much to learn here.

I had intended to write a more comprehensive overview of my week, but I've got a lot of casting emails I still have to reply to, so I'll save that for next week. And hey, maybe by next Friday, my brain will have actually finished rendering everything I've learned this week. Fingers crossed!

Meet Our New Production Intern, Elizabeth

Hi! My name is Elizabeth Barr, and I’m a student from Humber College. I’m doing a post-grad program in Television Writing and Producing and I’m interning with both iThentic and Smiley Guy Studios.

I’ve been here for about a month now. I think I’ve memorized about half of the names in the office so far! Other than that I’ve been helping out with a few things on the second season of iThentic’s Guidestones, as well as their new series, Space Riders. I’m slowly mastering the art of Google Docs and ACTRA’s independent production agreement!

On the Smiley Guy front, I’ve helped out on a few things for the upcoming co-production, Warren United, as well as the continuing series Teleporting Fat Guy.

I’ve been taking moments from each episode of TFG and turning them into high-resolution stills. I use Flash and then Photoshop in order do it. I’ve never used either of those programs, so it took me a little while to get the hang of it. But I think they’re turning out okay!