All Hands on Deck

Hello, readers! Hope you enjoyed this week's super-sized episode!

What to say about the opening of the expanded version of Lisa and Ken's West Hollywood restaurant Sur? All that last minute effort Lisa's workers were putting in? All too real. Between Hawaii and Pandora's upcoming wedding, Lisa and Ken were stretched thin. I'm quite in awe of Lisa's decorating talent. I'm a really good storyteller, but I've never been the type of person who can see a building as is and totally imagine it reinvented. Lisa absolutely has that kind of eye. If she wanted to, she'd make an awesome interior designer.

As for the party itself, these big end-of-the-season parties are all-hands-on-deck for our crews. We had seven camera people at the event, so logistically this is a very different shoot for us. Normally, we shoot with a very "small footprint," meaning a five person crew shoots average days. Most people are shocked by how small our crew is. The big party is totally the opposite. This was a huge shoot with about sixty crew members, multiple trailers were dropped to create production offices and a we created a "video village," which is where the director calls the shots and the story team takes notes on the action. We also had a jib camera, which is a camera on a long arm, which allows for sweeping high to low shots, which is what you see on all the entrances.

However, as always, you can have as many bells and whistles on a shoot as you want, but if there's no action, there's no point. And man, did we wind up with a lot of action at this event. The run-in between Brandi and one of her ex-husband's girlfriends, who also happened to be a waitress at Lisa's restaurant, was completely unexpected. If we'd known she would be there, we would've put a microphone on the waitress, and would've gotten much better coverage.

No matter how you think a night will pan out, interesting things always seem to happen. For example, at this party, we got to see the Lisa-Brandi friendship grow. First, Lisa asked the waitress who had been involved with Brandi's ex to leave for the night. Then, later, Brandi returned the favor by asking Cedric to leave. And because of it, Lisa and Brandi grew closer. All completely unexpected.

As for comments to last week's blog, many commented on how much they liked Lisa and Kyle climbing over the wall to get to Kim's room. I'm glad that sparked such a positive reaction. I remember thinking that was a highlight of the Hawaii trip -- that Kyle and Lisa's friendship seemed rekindled and the climb over the wall was something you'd expect Lucy and Ethel to do on I Love Lucy.

Until next week, when we get to share in Pandora's spectacular wedding!