Lunch with Burky

So, here's the lowdown, so to speak, of what a private tour of the studio and lunch is like.

First off, you wander aimless around the studios, since there are three of them within spitting distance of each other. I had to call his assistant to help me find the right entrance, and it was quite the comedy of errors.
"Can you see the ABC building?"
"yes, I see it and I've just turned away from it"
"No, you need to go that way"
"Oh, I thought the address was on Buena Vista?"
"it is, but the gate is on Riverside, across from ABC on the Disney lot"
"Ok, making a U-turn now"

Then comes the check in at the security station, where my name was not on the list, so he had to call Burky's assistant to confirm I was allowed in. Once it was determined that I was legit, he asked if I knew where I was going. "Not a clue", to which he laughed and told me to turn right, park and the building was the one directly behind him. Once I got up to the proper floor, I was completely lost. Not every office is being used, and there is no main receptionist, even though there is a desk for a receptionist. So, I look down one hall and the rooms are the really low numbers, but I'm looking for a high number. So, I go down the other direction, but the numbers aren't that much higher. I ask someone for the room number, when I probably should have asked for Burky's office instead. She had no clue where the room was, and I didn't know if it was bad form to just wander aimlessly into offices where people were editing or working on the computer, or whatever. Yipes.

I finally found the office way in the back down a hall in the corner. Lynda, who had bid with me for the lunch, had already arrived. Burky was running a bit late from a meeting, so I was able to sit and relax and we all chatted about films, shows, stuff, it was nice.

Burky walks in making the statement "I wouldn't have even big $6 for lunch with me, you guys are crazy". Gee, we already knew that, that's old news. So, he takes us into his office and shows us some of his stuff, including an antique cigar lighter for the cigars he does NOT smoke. So silly. The Saturn award was sitting there, yeah, hopefully it will be joined by a few Emmys real soon. He then showed us some photo albums of his and one taken by Matthew Fox. Cool stuff, mostly behind the scenes images and the like.

We finally took off and began wandering around that floor, meeting various people, sticking our heads into various offices, and then downstairs and out onto the lot. Pirates of the Caribbean is being shot at the sound stage directly across from the entrance to his building, so we got to see a bit of the set being built (Chinese cannons or rocket launchers carved to look like Dragons where the rocket or cannon ball shoots out the mouth). We then got to go inside the Bad Robot area, and got to see JJ's office, he's got a Muppet of himself in there that was a gift from his co-workers. So very goofy. There was some cool conceptual art for the Pilot of Lost and some Alias artwork as well.

Next up was the Lost Writers Lab, and I've got a picture to post later on regarding that. The first picture I took was a long shot of the room with the Fuselage collages hanging on the walls, but Burky was afraid some of the stuff on the white boards would be seen in the image. He actually stood on a chair and covered the text written on the board near the collages, and just as I snapped the pic, Carlton Cuse walked in. He was a bit freaked that that might end up somewhere, so we erased the pic and took a close up instead. I'll post it later tonight. And no, I did not read any of the stuff written on the boards, so don't bother asking. I decided to stay as spoiler free as possible, and mostly succeeded. So, got to say hello to Carlton, Damon and some others who I can't recall at the moment. Javi was not in the office, he was at lunch, bummer.

Or not. Turns out, as we were making our way to the commissary, Javi was on his way back to work, with his wife and nephew in tow. Huggles, exchange of candy bars (Javi, there were three, so I hope you shared) and some chatting in the hot sun, then Javi and his party were on their way back to work, and we entered the commissary.

They stop serving food around 2:30pm, which is when we walked in, oops. We got the last stuff they were willing to cook, and Burky paid, how sweet. We then spent the whole meal chatting about families, living in So Cal, living in Hawaii, jobs, movies, TV shows, etc. Nice chat. I don't watch Alias, so I can't really speak to whether anything he said reveals anything or not. He talked a bit about "What about Brian", the new show they have coming out in the Fall. Oh, and how JJ is swamped in MI3 land, poor man. Then it was dessert time, yummy. We then walked out with our Fist of Drinks (really big cups of cola) and went to the building where all the editing is done. Burky admitted that this is where he spends about 90% of his time, yipes.

We met a few of the editors and nearly walked in on one working on the first episode. Burky hurriedly backed us out until the guy working on the ep could find a safe scene. So, we got to see the first two minutes or so of episode one, and about 5 seconds of the next segment, which was turned off so as not to further spoil us. And nope, I'm not telling, as it would be guesswork on my part. Good guesswork, but I'm keeping it to myself unless ABC shows any of this in scenes for the first eppy, which I doubt. He did confirm that Michelle Rodriguez is a new cast member, but I think we all already knew that. We then got distracted before he could say any more, so nothing else to report on that front. Sorry, informal chats can be like that.

Finally, we got to wander into two soundstages where Alias is filmed. Again, I don't watch the show, so I have no idea how cool these sets might be. Looks like the main offices for the unit she works for, her home, a subway of some sort, bathrooms, stuff like that. No shooting today, so it all looked rather odd. Her Bathroom is gigantic, which I can only atrribute to the fact that cameramen, lighting, etc, all have to fit in there with her when they film. OH, and Alias will have a Fall start time this season.

We also got a funny story about one of the buildings they use for filming in Hawaii. It's the old Xerox werehouse, and I guess there was a mass murder there a number of years ago, so it's been abandoned for years. JJ knew about this story because his local driver had warned him about the place when he was filming the pilot last year. So, when the studio announced they had purchased the building to put the Cave set in, he was rather surprised, since it's supposedly haunted, or whatever. But there are not a lot of big buildings in Hawaii to use for soundstages, so they had to take what they could get.

We finally then returned to Burky's office and he made sure that he had our addresses, as he's going to send us the First Season DVD, woohoo. He's such a sweet man, it was a really pleasant afternoon. So, to Bryan, I thank you for a wonderful day (I figure Javi can always pass that message along).