LA diary 50: First-time producer

I'm all for having a portfolio career but am I really going to be able to cut it as a film producer?

The words "can" and "worms" spring to mind this week as I dive headfirst into pre-production for my next film. It's very exciting but I'll come clean, I've never produced a film in my life and the thought of adding those tasks to writer and director is somewhat overwhelming.

The as yet Untitled Abi Roberts Project will be shown as part of Abi's Edinburgh festival show this coming August (her one-woman show last year was a sell-out and she's been given a really great time slot and venue this year). We're also slating a mocku-documentary charting our adventures in Las Vegas; Abi's been described as the "British Bette Midler" and the idea is to film her comedy exploits as she goes on the hunt for the diva of the moment. Think Borat meets Dave Gorman (you'll probably go far wrong but it's the best I can come up with until we get the script finalised).

So right now, as well as the day job, I'm attempting to crew up, find us accommodation, transport, work out a filming schedule and deal with all the other pesky things that need seeing to. For example, we'd like to film at Caesar's Palace, which is where Bette launches her new show later this month (she's taking over from Celine Dion for a two-year run). I'm told that they're generally happy to oblige the legitimate movie-maker but we will need permission to film. You get permits from the local authority but to do that you also need to have liability insurance. So now I'm finding out about liability insurance, which is a liability in itself, as I'm clueless on anything that doesn't involve just sitting at a laptop and re-arranging the alphabet (or should that be alpha-bette?).

And all this needs to be done on a budget tighter than Javier Bardem's trousers in No Country For Old Men.

The shoot will probably take about four days and then there's editing to consider. Quite frankly I feel faint thinking about it all.

Fortunately, there's been some welcome respite from work, what with all things super, i.e. bowl and Tuesday. I know nothing about American football but even I got excited when the New York Giants snatched victory from the jaws of defeat last weekend. To be honest, the best bits were the adverts (which were then rated in the papers the next day), and Tom Petty's show was pretty cool too. I'd love to see an FA cup final where they clear the pitch at half time, erect a massive sound stage complete with light show and get the Stones up there to crank out some old favourites in front of an over-excited audience.

Super Tuesday, the day of the presidential primaries, was another eye-opener. I wandered down to my local polling station (which incidentally was on a street called Union Jack) to compare the experience to that of voting in the UK.

I'm used to being greeted by the Derby & Joan club at our local junior school and ushered into a dingy sports hall to make a cross in the box. Here in the Marina, the polling station was on the ocean front in someone's garage, the sun was shining, the locals had provided a table of home-made goodies (craft services?), and I met a woman called Virginia who persuaded me to join the Marina Del Rey library. She told me it was an excellent local resource, and with the month that lies ahead, I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.

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