Peace, Love, Maxwellton: Words and Thoughts from the Min: Life in the Min

For those of you who are not blessed enough to have graced the Maxwellton house of the esteemed director Elizabeth Allen, let me explain to you the origin of our name. Liz's house is on Maxwellton Road--thus it is the Max. We interns, however, work from the converted garage behind the house (its not as bad as it sounds, its pretty much a lounge with a kitchen, bathroom, even a bed and A/C that we can't figure out how to use). This workspace is aptly named the Min as can be notated by the stencils on the wall.

Max..Min..it's witty.

Generally we spend our days making a to-do list of all the different things Liz needs done for her various projects and goals and then doing those things like writing cast lists or finding imagery for upcoming pitches and practicing those pitches. But, Liz, unlike many other bosses tends to find us the best of opportunities all over LA to make our days more exciting and hectic (in a good way). So far in just one week we have explored the Disney Backlot (complete with scavenger hunt and secret entry onto all the sound stages), meeting Shiri Appleby and Michael Barton (IMDB them and be impressed), and going on set of the upcoming season of "Dating Rules From My Future Self" (watch the first season on Hulu) where we met cast members and took advantage of Craft Services.
In addition to all of this, every Wednesday night we have a condensed version of a USC film directing course that Liz teaches us along with former interns where we will be creating, casting, shooting, and directing our own short films. As if we weren't getting a hands-on experience already, this is pretty much the best way to put everything we get out of each day into action.
All in all it's pretty amazing what we get to do and every day is like a crash course in the film industry. We're also required to leave an hour for exercise each day. So basically by the end of the summer we're all gonna be jacked, really smart, and expert directors. Sounds good to me.

Follow us for more posts to come and cool tips we pick up from our workshop every week and from people we meet in the industry.