She’s a kickass filmmaker. He’s an ace sound mixer. Singularly, they’re vets in the industry. Together, they’re the best power duo I know, and I’m the lucky producer who landed them on my team for We Are Calloway.
“Thank God I didn’t have my camera out,” I say with a hiking smile, and I walk to the small closet at the end of the boardroom. I keep clothes here when I pull 18-hour workdays. “Broken equipment isn’t on the budget.”
“Neither is a round of extra coffees,” Ali teases.
“Who said you’re getting an extra latte?” Ambrose banters with his sister. “You’re over there scrolling through Pinterest for a honeymoon you’ve rescheduled ten times. At this point, you should wait for tickets to pop up to fly to the moon.”
Ali and I laugh.
“Shut it down, I’m so close to scheduling this trip to Barbados,” she tells him.
I take a charcoal-gray button-down shirt off a hanger and smile back at Ali. “What happened to Maui?”
“Troy changed his mind.”
“And by Troy, she means Ali changed her mind,” Ambrose cuts in. “You should’ve done what I did and went right after the reception. Flight to Malta. No one but me and Cody and paradise.”
Talk about honeymoons is a reminder that I’m very single and surrounded by newlyweds. I attended Ali’s wedding, Ambrose’s wedding, Maximoff Hale’s wedding all within the same year, and it’s only July.
It didn’t bother me before. I’ll date when I can, I’d usually say, but now, a hot feeling flares up…a feeling like the one I felt with Everly in the Louvre.
I try to take a breath.
My personal life shouldn’t be affecting my work. So I tell Ambrose, “I’d drink to that declaration. But my drink is currently soaked in my shirt.” I shrug on the fresh button-down and return to the table, buttoning it closed quickly.
They stare at me a little more keenly.
I take a seat, about to start the pitch but they share a furtive look.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your fly is down, sis,” Ambrose tells me.
Fuck.
I zip up my pants. Heat swathing my neck. I let out a weak laugh, not even able to recover as smoothly as I know I can.
“You alright, Jack?” Ali asks.
“Yeah.” I run a hand through my hair. “Just lack of sleep.” Oscar.
Really, it’s Oscar.
For the briefest second, I almost consider telling them. Asking for advice. Ambrose is a gay man and in a great relationship with his husband. Maybe he’d understand. But it feels pretty unprofessional. We typically talk about our families and weekend plans. Office small talk. No one in production is spilling heartaches and lamenting their struggles to me, and I hesitate to be the first.
Really, at the end of it all, I think I don’t mention questioning my sexuality because there’s only one person I really want to talk to about it.
And he’s not here.
“What’s the pitch?” Ali asks, back to business.
“A spin-off of We Are Calloway, starring Charlie.”
Ambrose’s eyes widen. “You’re serious?”
“We are talking about Charlie Cobalt?” Ali questions, just as skeptical as her brother.
“Yeah,” I smile, actually proud that this project is so close to happening. “It was his idea.” I explain the concept and before they ask, I add, “I already went to the network and pitched the spin-off.” I’m referring to the premium network that’s home to the docuseries.
Ali shuts her laptop, engaged. “And?”
“And they were very interested and want first look. But they requested a pilot before picking up a series order.”
Can’t fault their reasoning. Charlie is a giant question mark. Ordering this spin-off without footage could be like calling Domino’s expecting a pizza, only to be served a cactus. No network wants egg on their face or to waste money.
But there is no crystal ball predicting a hit from a flop. We all have to take chances, and I’ve never struck out before.
“What about a backdoor pilot?” Ali asks.
I shake my head. “They said no. The network doesn’t want to mess with the integrity of We Are Calloway by hyper-focusing just on Charlie.” With a backdoor pilot, essentially one of the episodes of We Are Calloway becomes Charlie’s pilot, and the network can see how the audience reacts and whether they want to move forward.
I leave out how the network asked, “What about Maximoff and Farrow?” They were willing to commit to a series order of a “Marrow” spin-off without any content filmed or even a backdoor pilot.
A straight shot to TV.
I was selfishly happy I could tell the network that Maximoff and Farrow weren’t interested in a spin-off, because if they had been…I don’t know what I would’ve done.
Ditching Charlie (who came to me first) just to favor Maximoff for my own gain—that’s not the kind of person I ever set out to be. But the industry is cutthroat and ruthless, and to most people, that deal would be a no-brainer.
“So no backdoor pilot,” Ali considers, “which means whoever works on the spin-off has to work on their own time with no guarantee of pick-up.”
I nod. “It’s essentially a side project.” I go into crew details. “Now, we could film the pilot with two people, but if Charlie’s docuseries is picked up for a series order, I’ll need a team. Naturally, you’re the top two on my list.”
Ali rolls forward in her chair. “How big of a team are you thinking?”
We Are Calloway is split into 3 production units. Each one follows a set of famous ones, categorized by age. Which is why I’m attached to the “older kids” who are actually all in their early twenties now.
Each team has 6 people:
Producer.
Camera Operator.
Production Manager.
Sound Mixer.
Gaffer.
Writer/Story Supervisor.
And even then, depending on the shoot, we’ll add in more camera operators, grips, and boom operators.
But on filming days, each team tries to keep the number of crew to a minimum. The style of documentary filmmaking we do is cinéma verité. Meaning we’re a part of the footage, the narrative. The viewer understands that the famous ones are being filmed in their everyday lives
