I first met my friend John on my first trip to California in 1989. He used to live in Oceanside so we've spent lots of time together including many fun snowboarding trips. John moved up to Los Angeles about six or seven years ago to work for Fuel TV, which is one of Fox Sport's channels and is dedicated to lifestyle (extreme) sports. I was up in his office last year but I jumped at the chance to go see his show being taped last week over at the nearby Fox Studios in west Los Angeles:
The studio is sort of a Mecca for me because a couple of things were made here over the years that you might have heard about. A little movie called Star Wars was made here in the 70s:
...and something called The Simpsons came from here too:
I'm sure John's show, The Daily Habit, will be up there on the side of one of those buildings one day. For now, they share studio space with Fox's Sunday football program. There's a whole bunch of photos on the walls of former (American) football stars with the various employees. John told me that you'll occasionally see them wandering the halls. I, unfortunately, didn't see any of them during my visit but I did get a photo next to this banner...
The layout of the studio is pretty much like that of all my TV-show experiences. :-) There's a Green Room where people who will be on the show can relax, eat some snacks, and wait for their turn. This particular room is used on Sundays for the football show and John told me that each of the TVs will have a different game showing on them. While there, I may have enjoyed a free bottle of water and an apple but I can't confirm it.
They record four episodes of the Daily Habit along with four different band's performances each week. The day that I was there they were filming a band called Dance Gavin Dance, which seemed to me like a combo of metal, hardcore, and screaming. I'm sure that they have lots of fans but I probably won't be loading them onto my iPod anytime soon.
Between band sets we went into the control room to watch what happens there. Basically, the director sits in front of all the monitors and tells the other folks to change what will ultimately show on your TV to another camera or angle. It was cool to see the "processed/produced" version of the program since it looks and sounds so much better than what you see in the studio.
Thank you John for letting me stay at your cool new place next to the beach and for taking me to see what you do! It was fun to go "all Hollywood" during my trip up to LA.
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