Power Up is the name of a women's film company in LA that I have followed from afar for years. I'm on their mailing list so I got a posting for volunteer crew work for a series of PSA's they were producing about gay marriage. I signed up for the weekend shoot and told them what I was capable of doing. Me and 7 other girls (were they all 10 years younger than me? At least!) were assigned as Production Assistants, which means the minion who do whatever they are asked to do. My first day I was in charge of the Craft Services table - keeping it clean, coffee brewed, passing out waters, setting up lunch with the caterer, etc. Boring stuff, but I was able to spend a lot of time hanging out with the Founder and Executive Producer, Stacy. I got some good networking in and even felt comfortable handing her a copy of Sondra to watch...how's that for bold? The 2nd day we were at a very nice home of a lesbian couple in the Valley. I was assigned as a 2nd AD and was still a gofer, but this time much closer to the set and doing things that were a tiny bit more pivotal to the shoot...one of which was baby wrangling for one of three triplets that were part of the gay parenting shoot. I fell in love with this little one named Xia (Shea) and didn't want to give her back. I met some amazing queer women and some great tech dudes and hopefully folks will remember me if they ever need someone on their project. Or, better, yet, I hope to have a project that enables me to hire all of these great folks! That's one thing I've always loved about directing...giving people cool opportunities!
