Very. Cool. Day.

(This is a picture of Angela in "autopsy" - we didn't take cameras but one of the make-up ladies insisted we take a picture so I used my camera phone, not great but fun just the same!)

Tuesday was a first for me, and I'm hoping not a last. It was my first time on a film set. Ever. Yeah. I was pretty freaking excited.

I have friends who think it's no big deal because they've done it before but as a writer, it's something I know might not happen a lot, and as someone who's pretty new to the whole business, I feel I reserve the right to be excited about it. So I am. Still. Seriously excited.

I didn't set out to be a screenwriter. It was never on my radar when I was in high school or even in college. Sure I loved movies and I really loved television. ER inspired me to read books about the MCAT and med school, not film school. The West Wing prompted me to interview for jobs in D.C. not Los Angeles. Alias made me fill out the ridiculously long CIA application, not consider a career in acting.

But then I got this idea for a story. See I'd been writing stories my entire life. My closet is filled with plastic file boxes full of notebooks (no I won't recycle them and no I won't let anyone read them). But these were short stories, seedlings for novels. Novels are what I knew and what I thought, maybe one day, I could write. Screenplays? I really had no idea what they were.

But back to the idea. I got this idea. About an actress who wins an Oscar and all this stuff happens. And I didn't just know and write the story, I saw the story. I saw her hearing her name read during the nominations ceremony. I saw her standing outside of her burning apartment (it's a comedy, really). I SAW HER. I SAW THE STORY.

And that's when I realized it needed to be a movie. So I started writing a script - on my old laptop, without any fancy software, just me, looking at a book from the library about formatting, and my story. And that's when I got the bug.

Fast forward nine years later. (Yes, I know, NINE YEARS.) And as my mom said yesterday, "If I would have told you you'd be hanging out on the set of NCIS six months ago, you would have thought I was crazy." I would have and I still think it's crazy. But that's where I was on Tuesday. On the set of a top five television show. Coolest day ever.

I won't go into a lot of it because 1) it's just too fun to tell in person, so if you wanna know - call me or email me or ask me and 2) I've found out my blog has become quite popular on the NCIS chat/fan boards. When I walked into the production offices Tuesday one of the assistants said, "Are you Sarah, the friend with the blog? The wedding post was great! Thanks for sharing!" And it's not that I am not glad people are reading my blog - it's just that, well, this was a very cool experience and I don't wanna be that person. You understand.

But I'll give you a taste, because, well, coolest day ever and all.

First off, everyone was so unbelievably nice. I mean, remembering our names, taking the time to greet us and explain their jobs to us and make sure we could see and hear and were having fun. (And I don't just mean assistants, who were so nice, but the director who kept asking if we could see the video feeds and if we were enjoying ourselves!). So yeah, such a great, loving environment that it seems pretty amazing to work in everyday. And yeah, I know, maybe they were just on their "company's here so we'd better smile" behavior but I don't think so.

I got to talk with the writer a bit too which was pretty exciting for me. Turns out he went to camp in Kalamazoo so we had a whole big discussion of that. And then we talked about shadow drafts and film programs (he went to SC - I found out it's uncool to call it USC) and how he thought I did not look old enough to be in grad school. Awww:-)

I learned how to enter and exit a makeup trailer - you must say "stepping in (or up, not sure)" or "stepping out" so that the people putting on mascara or eyeliner or giving a haircut can pause because the trailers wiggle.

I learned that the second to the last shot of the day is called the abby shot (named after Abby Singer, a director who still eats regularly at a diner in Studio City) and that the last shot of the day is called the martini shot. What I loved was that the director came over and regaled these tales to me in the middle of shooting!

I learned that the halls of NCIS are short (and very orange) and they sometimes walk back and forth to make them seem longer when they are shooting scenes.

I learned that some of the stand-ins and extras have been with the show it's entire run which I thought was pretty cool. I'm going to watch in the next couple of weeks for the guy who read a magazine the entire time they rehearsed and shot (over 3 hrs). Seriously, what a job!

I learned what "sides" are. They are the day's script pages, shrunk in half, so that the actors and everyone can carry them easily and refer to them when needed. I also learned all about the day's call sheet.

I learned that the craft services table does really look like it does in the movies - tons of food, candy, etc. And the chicken salad was pretty amazing.

I learned how they make the same room appear to be day and night in the same five minutes.

I learned that just as there are "military brats" there are "set rats" - meaning kids who've grown up on a set (but not kid actors). We met a little girl who was too cute and seemed completely unfazed to be there, unlike me.

And finally, I learned that sometimes, the stars of the show are just as excited about their jobs and their shows and your visits as you are. And that made the day just so much cooler.

(Well that and being INSIDE Mark Harmon's trailer.)