Roll Credits: My Week on Film

It's best, while waiting for working papers to come through, to keep busy. Toward that end, I have just completed one of the stranger weeks in my life.

It all began when Chryde of (newly redesigned) Blogothèque fame sent me an IM. "Hey Meg, do you want a good and funky job?"

And so began my week as the guide and driver to a Hollywood film crew.

















For 12-14 hours every day, I recommended locations, plowed a nine-passenger van through Paris traffic, and negotiated release forms with unsuspecting bystanders.

I drove in circles around the Arc de Triomphe with a camera man Director of Photography hanging out of the open door. I relayed the precise timing of the Eiffel Tower twinklage and explained how to use the city's public toilets. I found restaurants that would let us eat at 7 (that's early), and learned (eventually) how to stay out of the shot.

I even had a few lines, hastily written and poorly delivered. And while I know that these scenes may be destined for the scissors, it was a total trip to watch myself when we were reviewing the footage. It looked, for lack of any better term, just like a movie.

I got lucky with a funny-as-hell crew of people who were good to be around. After keeping their pace for only a few days I'm amazed (after these softening years in France) that they manage to do this full-time and remain jovial. It must have something to do with the fact that they're almost all under 25.

I spent the small number of off-hours writing grant proposals and filling in as the waitress at Spring. Daniel Rose, chef/proprietor, spent most of that time looking at me like this...

















... and saying things that can't be repeated on this blog.

And thanks to a pair of new webcams at the restaurant, that crack performance was also filmed.

I don't think you'll be seeing me on the small screen at Spring again, but you can look for me in the small print as "the driver" in an as yet unnamed feature film to be released next year by director Nicholas Jasenovec (Paperheart Productions) and starring Charlyne Yi, Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad), and Jake Johnson.