58: Heeeeeeere's Elaine!

We were scheduled to fly home Saturday. It was nice of the school to give us the extra day to sightsee around LA. Of course, that wasn't happening.

"The University has consented to leave the plane here until Tuesday morning, but we have to cover our own expenses while we are here, just like we did for the awards," Lonnie said.

I called home and talked to Louise.

"Hearthstone Entertainment will cover four rooms and a meal allowance for ten people," I said when I hung up.

"It's not necessary for you to pay for the professors and spouses," Lonnie said. "We can cover our own expenses."

"How about if we cover the rooms and you cover your own meals?" I asked. Lonnie nodded.

Rhonda called Fred de Cordova as soon as we thought it was safe. Lonnie stood next to us as we all strained to hear the conversation. We could have used a speaker phone. It sounded like that was what they had. Mr. de Cordova must have been close to eighty, but he confirmed that we were invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson Monday evening. Elaine would be asked to perform one of her monologues and Johnny would interview Elaine, Rhonda, and Nicki. Our total involvement would be about ten minutes, but the rest of us would have seats for the show.

"What time can we be on set to rehearse?" Rhonda said. "I'll need to get my cameramen oriented to your equipment."

"Your what?"

"Part of our success is the camera movement during Elaine's monologues. We'll want to make sure my cameramen can follow my direction as Elaine performs in your space," Rhonda said. After she'd shaken her awe of the man, Rhonda was right back to being a producer and negotiator. I don't think Mr. Cordova expected that.

"I'll have to clear that with our producer," he said at last. "We tape with a live audience at five o'clock. What time can you get here?"

"Six."

"I said we tape..."

"A.M. The better prepared we are, the better the show will be." There was a long silence on the phone. Rhonda was listening intently. "They're running our tape," she whispered.

"Jeff and Debbie say they'll meet you here at six," Cordova said. "A.M. We'd like the monologue about the look. Johnny loves that one." He handed the call off to Debbie, the talent coordinator, who gave us instructions on how to get to the correct studio parking lot and where to enter with our team. Then she asked for Lonnie and put him back on the line with de Cordova or his director or someone.

"Yes— Well, you have to know when to stay in the role of instructor and let the producer do the job of a producer.— Certainly.— I'll get right on that one.— I've worked with them for nearly two years now. They are professionals.— Thank you. Goodbye." Lonnie turned to the rest of us. "I don't think they were expecting you," he laughed. "I need to go make some more phone calls."

"Erin? Could you go over a new monologue with us?" Nicki asked. "You always have such good advice."

April, Jason, and I stood looking at each other and burst out laughing. Elaine, Nicki, Rhonda, and Erin looked up at us. Ellen Phillips and Jim Richards had joined the tour bus that the rest of us missed.

"Can we get any of you coffee?" I asked. "I think we'll go out for a stroll."

"You are not just here to get us coffee," Rhonda snapped at me. I was afraid she was going to chew me a new one. Then her voice sweetened. "But if you could bring back some sandwiches about noon, I'd probably give you a blow job. Or convince April to."

"I'm taking April with me. I think Jason is covered." We laughed and headed out. Jason, indeed, went back to his room and it was obvious that he never intended to join the tour today. A giggle when he opened his room door next to ours confirmed my suspicion.

"We could just go back and use the bedroom," April sighed. "When are you going to take me, Brian?"

"Take you where, April?"

"You know what I mean. I've been available often enough. I've sucked you. I've ridden your face. A girl has needs, you know?"

"Are your needs not being met by sucking and licking?" I asked. She slugged me in the arm.

"I'm not going to say that whole explicit permission thing. I'm going to ask, straight out. Brian, will you please make love to me sometime soon? I know you use a condom and I'm on the pill. I'm not a virgin and saving anything for anyone. I might not love you, but I want you. It's not like Debbie just wanting a cock. If it was, it would have been me giggling in Jason's room instead of that girl from Claremont. I want you to make love to me. Is that too much to ask?" she said.

"Well, since you put it that way, why don't we assume that's what we are moving toward?" I answered. She turned when we boarded the elevator and kissed me. We kissed all the way to the lobby.

April and I spent the rest of the morning exploring on our own and even took a cab to Rodeo Drive. We didn't buy anything. Who can actually afford to shop there? We stopped at a deli and ordered a bunch of pastrami on rye sandwiches and one vegetarian special before taking a cab back to the hotel. When we passed around the sandwiches and Diet Pepsis, Nicki looked at her pile of bean sprouts and put her sandwich down. She grabbed half of my pastrami.

"Nicki? I thought you were a vegetarian."

"Oh, shut up. I'm a blonde now."

We spent the weekend in various degrees of excitement and panic. What the fuck did a bunch of twenty year old college students know that put them on the Johnny Carson Show? But it was still exciting. Lonnie got us all tickets to a movie that just released on Friday night and we went to the Saturday evening show. We felt a lot better after that. If they could get millions of dollars to produce crap like that, we weren't such a bad choice after all. I never did figure out if there was a bad guy or if all the characters were Sheriffs, FBI agents, and CIA agents trying to fool each other. The suitcase full of sand was a nice touch, though.

Monday morning the bus picked us up at five o'clock and we were in Burbank by five-thirty. While we were waiting, we went through forms. Lonnie had seen our clan do forms before, but Erin was very interested.

"It's part of waking up in the morning and staying fit. Jason isn't usually with us for forms because he isn't part of the clan. We're usually finished by the time he shows up," I explained.

"But Nicolette is part of your clan?" Erin asked.

"Very much so. Even without us, she does her forms every morning and is becoming very good at them."

It was an abbreviated version since we were in jeans and not gis. Or naked.

"Good morning. I'm Debbie," the woman who met us said. I guessed she was around forty and was all business. She was the type that might sleep at the studio in order to beat her bosses into the office. She was perfectly put together. "We need to start with releases and then Jeff will be over to take you into the studio. I'll need you each to fill in this form with your legal name and address. It is a standard release form that indicates that we have the right to use and broadcast your image and participation in tonight's performance. While we have exclusive rights to this performance, we do not have exclusive rights to the content. You can well imagine what kind of problems we would have if a comedienne like yourself, Ms. Frost, thought that we would own the material she performed. We only own the performance."

"What does that mean in terms of rebroadcast?" Rhonda asked. "Anything other than reruns of the show?"

"We're already compiling a 'best of' series of tapes to sell to the public. You'd be lucky to make it into that collection. Actors, politicians, comedians, and assorted others come on the show for the benefit of being seen by a huge audience, not to make residuals," Debbie said.

"Of course, any use would include proper attribution to the actress on camera, even if not the writer and producer, n'est ce pas?" Rhonda continued. She was still reading the release and the rest of us were simply waiting for her to finish. Debbie smiled at her.

"I see that you are, indeed, a force to be reckoned with," she said. "Even your professors are standing back. Fred warned me. Anyone who appears on-camera will be credited in any release of the content. We simply cannot always guarantee the same for those behind the scenes."

"Yet your husband always gets a writing credit, doesn't he?" Rhonda said as she signed the paper. Debbie raised an eyebrow. "Just an observation," Rhonda said as she handed the release to Debbie. We all completed our releases and signed them. Debbie smiled.

"That's the difference between union employees and guests. We don't usually have people on such short notice," Debbie continued as she collected the papers. "Fred and Johnny got their heads together on this. Now I'm going to take you to Jeff in Studio A. He's going to love you."

Nicki and I just sat with Lonnie and Erin to watch. The other four got tours of the staging, equipment, and general instruction on the operation of the studio command center from Jeff, the producer. He was the front line man who directed the camera movement as well.

"We start taping as soon as the audience is settled down at five-thirty," Jeff said. "We tape all the way through, including during the commercial breaks, so never assume you are off-camera. Typically, a show will take about two and a half hours to tape. We send the raw performance to New York via microwave transmission. My co-producer, Jim, is in New York and he manages the editing team. When the show comes on at eleven Eastern, ten Central time, the two and a half hours has been edited down to an hour. Don't be surprised if you get cut entirely."

"That would be a waste," Nicki sighed.

"Don't worry. Mr. de Cordova likes you guys. And Johnny himself told us we were to let you handle the cameras." He went on with the positions, where the band sat, where Elaine was to stand during her monologue, which seat she would sit on when she was being interviewed. When she was to move to make room for another guest.

"Do you see what I see?" Nicki asked.

"I think so, sweetheart. With every spot mapped out, the cameras really don't have to do anything but zoom in or out. That's why they're all static. The action is always in the exact same place, so there is no reason to ever move them," I said.

"It will drive Rhonda crazy," Nicki laughed. "Crazier."

"Watch how she handles this," Lonnie said, leaning forward across the back of our seats. "It will be amazing." Lonnie was nothing if not enthused. He leaned back to explain to Erin what was about to happen. Jeff gave each of them headsets and then balked when Rhonda requested a handheld camera for Jason.

"We only use static cameras on this show," Jeff explained. "All the positions are marked and that way we ensure the audience always has a clear view and forgets about the camera."

"For us, the camera is an integral part of the action," Rhonda explained, patiently. "The audience sees Elaine interacting with the camera and they see the result on the monitors. Let's try it my way first. I think Mr. de Cordova wanted us to make Elaine look as much like she does on our show as possible."

It took about fifteen minutes to get a handheld camera into the room and hooked up to the control board. Rhonda sent April to the farthest camera and had her focus on Elaine in her single spot. That camera went live and we saw the standard full body shot on the monitors. April got behind the center camera and I knew that was Elaine's main audience.

"Is this on tracks or do I have to do everything with zoom?" April asked Jeff.

"We don't usually release the brakes, but if you have someone to move it, you have forward and backward motion."

"Brian!" Oh, boy. I wasn't going to get to sit idle. I took my instruction and received a headset. I would push the platform forward and drag it back. Jeff marked everything with tape before he released the brakes so we would be sure to get it back in exactly the same spot. We did a test and I could see the view change as we moved forward and back.

"We need to move her over," April told Rhonda. "The idea is to get a new angle, not just a closer look."

"But that's where the monologues are done. It's where everything is focused," Jeff said. They were really set in their ways. Elaine moved over. We ran the camera down the same track. April swung the camera to her left as we moved and the whole view of Elaine changed. I pulled back and Jason's camera came on line. He was able to come in really close, staying low until Elaine turned toward him with the look. Then she'd be right back with April's camera.

"Okay, let's try it," Rhonda said.

"I'll run the mixing board," Jeff said. "Just give me the cue for the camera. Are you coming to the booth?"

"Not right now," Rhonda said. "Until we get everything figured out, I'll run it from floor level."

"Hi. I'm Elaine Frost. Welcome to Chick Chat."

"You can't use that intro, honey," Rhonda said. "We aren't doing Chick Chat."

"What do I say, Nicki?" Elaine called. Nicki looked up from her notepad.

"Start right in with the clueless line. Instead of saying guys, say men. Do it with a huff and no other intro. Wide eyes, honey," Nicki said. She held her notepad up so Erin could see it over her shoulder. Elaine went to her mark, watched Rhonda count down and stared straight into April's camera.

"Men! You're clueless. You actually think you are listening to us, but you just aren't getting the message." I noticed subtle differences from when we did this piece the first time and the second time. Obviously Nicki had worked on it some more.

"Blue seventeen. Mark." I heard over my headset and started moving the platform forward slowly. "Reset!" Rhonda called. "Brian, you're coming in too fast. Slow it up a bit." I pulled the dolly back to the starting point and listened for my cue again. "Pick it up from turning to give Jason the look," she directed. "Red four. Mark."

We finished a run-through and then ran it again. Jeff came running in from the booth. "I see what you're doing," he said excitedly. "You need a camera operator on one. In fact, let me call in two operators. I realize that when you did this originally, you used four cameras. It will take me five minutes. Can you write down your cue codes? We should be able to master them." Jeff's demeanor was changed.

"Let's have some fun while we're waiting," Rhonda said. "Elaine, do 'Somebody shoot me.' I'll go to the control booth. Cue off the red light plus one."

"Somebody just shoot me, please! I am in so much pain. It's that time of the month and I've got cramps. I thought when I went on the pill it was supposed to make me regular and ease the pain. Oh, I'm regular, all right. I'm regularly in pain every twenty-eight days," Elaine said. I had no idea where this was going to, but I followed the cues and moved the platform while I tried to listen to the new material. I was pulling the platform back while Elaine was advancing toward us. It was like she was chasing us down. Then she snapped toward Jason and as he orbited around her she turned with him and said, "Sometimes, life just isn't funny. That doesn't make the funny times less laughable."

Jeff walked in with two other cameramen. "Do you have your cues?" he asked. "This is Davy and Eric. They need to know what you want done."

"Can we get a couple copies of this?" April asked, pulling out a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. Jeff ran to get the photocopies and was back in a second. Davy checked his equipment and noted that Elaine was not starting on her spot.

"We moved the spot," Rhonda told him. "Just pivot. She'll be coming back to it by the end. You are on full body shot, no matter where she is. Tighten enough so she doesn't lose height, too much, but let her move."

"We actually get to move the camera?" Davy laughed. "No wonder Jeff came for us. We're usually field people. But you've already got a handheld."

"Why do you want Ed's camera?" Eric asked from the far side of the studio.

"I'd like a shot that shows Elaine lecturing the camera," Rhonda said. "And from that angle, you can get a reaction shot of the musicians in the background. Davy? Can you frame Johnny across Elaine from there?"

"She has to be in the line, but it can be done." He hopped down from the camera platform and showed Elaine where the spot would be in order to frame the host's desk behind her. I heard Elaine start to run the lines as she paced rapidly around the floor. Jeff handed the crib sheets to Eric and Davy and gave April her copy back. They had a quick conference and Jeff headed for the control booth. I knew Rhonda preferred to be down nearer the action than behind glass. Elaine took her spot. Rhonda counted down and Elaine started 'The Look' again.