Six Degrees of Stephen Hopkins.

So I'm watching all of the episodes of Driving Force. And I'm looking up all the credits of the people I'm working with so I kind of get where they're coming from background-wise. And as it turns out, Stephen Hopkins, the director of "Blown Away" which I worked on about 14 years ago as the Associate to Producer is the Executive Producer. (They added the "to" in my credit on "Blown Away" after I left the company producing the movie when we got back to LA. This was the movie where I was giving script notes one minute and suddenly expected to bring them lunch the next well, back in LA at least... which is when my notes got discounted. I was a slash again. So it was time to go). Anyway, I haven't seen Stephen since then. Which should be interesting. I have no idea how involved he is in the show. Executive Producers all seem to have different roles on each show or movie. There's no hard and fast rule. So there's a good chance I'll see him tomorrow morning at the production meeting. He should remember me. I would think. But then again, in those days, my hair was black. Yes, black. Bad choice. But what can you do? I was in a stage. Still, I have the same face. Just an older one.

I told Julie about the Stephen Hopkins connection and then she told me that her husband lived in Stephen Hopkins' house for three months when he first moved to LA. Bizarre little coincidence. And Laura (Magick Lady) is friends with him, too. She just hasn't seen him in awhile. He's done quite well for himself since "Blown Away." He won an emmy for the Peter Sellars movie he did and he directed a bunch of episodes of "24." I did see him out one night having dinner with his dp (director of photography), Peter Levy, but I didn't say anything. I had just lost the job on Drew and wasn't prepared to say what I was doing then other than being let go. Tomorrow, if he's there, I will definitely say hello to him. In fact, seeing him would be fun. Sometimes history is fun. And Hollywood is pretty much always a small town.

I finished my book "When Smart People Fail" and it's all about how you view your failures and reinventing yourself and asking for help and relabeling yourself. It tells stories of people who were successful at doing just that and why they were successful and also gives examples of those who weren't and why. It-- like almost everything else I'm reading nowadays-- made me cry. Particularly when this one supervisor told a woman who had been fired from her job in banking that she didn't fail, she was just in the wrong environment for her. That struck a chord with me. Drew was the wrong environment for me. Unfortunately, I did see myself as a failure for far too long. Then again, there was no one saying - do this instead the minute I was fired--and anyone who did offer advice was telling me to be or do things I didn't want to do or care about doing. This job, I want to do. I'm really excited. And nervous. I need to learn more of the editing aspect and so I'm preparing myself as best I can. I asked a few people I knew if they could give me a tutorial today on the avid but no one's called me back. So I may just have to believe that I can and buy yet another book on how to do it and hope that teaches me enough to wing it. Me and my books. The Supervising Story Producer told me to be prepared to hit the ground running. I just hope I run in the right direction.