A Day at Paramount

Friday was a fantastic day! To celebrate Ian's birthday season and inspire him for his 12 films project, we took a train to Union Square and then took a cab to the front gates of Paramount Pictures. Our friend Jamie (who was also celebrating a birthday season) took us to meet a friend Brent who works as prop master on the set of "Everyone Hates Chris." He was so gracious to let us intrude on his work day and show us around.

We heard that Paramount was smaller than Warner Brothers Studio, where we had a great experience last year. Could anything be better than getting to go on the Gilmore Girls set? We didn't know what to expect. The experience on Friday though, was by far not a disappointment. Everyone we met on the set was so incredibly kind and welcoming. The first thing we did is get to go a set where they were filming an episode. This filming was not on a live audience studio, so we found a corner on the set and watched on the sidelines. The person who was in charge of sound on the set came up to us and gave us each headsets so we could hear all of the dialogue loud and clear.

An incredible moment for me was realizing who the director was of this episode. Before I knew it, I was just a few feet away from Debbie Allen. If you were a "Fame" fan as I was growing up, you will understand my excitement. Her resume also includes many Broadway Shows and numerous other tv shows. Yes, when she was counting off "5,6, 7, 8.." in her choreographing voice, I was star-struck.

Brent then needed to do a run to the prop house and we got to tag along. It was fantastic! First we had to return a prop gun. The gentleman behind the counter asked if we wanted him to show us around. OF COURSE! We went into the first room where it was filled with hand guns of so many different eras. We held the ones used in Pirates of the Caribbean and then he handed me the one that Angelina Jolie used in Laura Croft. This type of tour is not something I would have expected to be excited about, but it was incredible to see the historical knowledge these people had and dedication they put into safety for the people on movie sets. They even designed guns for movies like Transformers and Star Trek. We then wondered around the warehouse of every prop you could imagine. It was so much fun and we were so thankful for that tour!

The end of the day as Brent took us around the back lot to show us a few more things. We ran into one of the stars from the show, Terry Crews, who plays the dad on the show. His resume includes many movies and tv shows as well. I was so impressed by his kindness. After a long day shooting, he stopped to talked to us for a while, posed for a picture, and was willing to sign an autograph for one of my middle schoolers.



At the end of the day we needed to catch a train back to San Diego. This meant racing to our cab hoping to void some La traffic. We made our train with 12 minutes to spare! It really was an amazing day for us!