When I was a teenager, I used to pretend that there was a movie crew following me around. I had it all storyboarded in my head.

Close up: elevator doors, closed. Sound of the elevator ding, car arriving. Cue music (Joan Jett’s “Crimson and Clover“). As song begins, elevator doors slide open and Lee walks out.

Song continues under the following:

Cut to: Lee walks through lobby doors of apartment, past the doorman, who waves good morning to her. She shrugs her teenage angsty shrug and continues to walk down the sidewalk. When she gets to the corner, she looks behind her, then, certain that she is “in the clear”, pulls out a pack of Marlboros from her Army/Navy jacket, shakes one out, and lights it with her antique find Zippo lighter.

(Hey, it was the 80’s ok?)

Lee crosses the street, and continues to walk/smoke to the bus stop, where she stands, alone, watching the traffic and people rushing to work, a smile on her face. A yellow school bus arrives, and she flicks her lit cigarette into the street, pops an unlit cigarette strategically behind her ear, takes a big breath, turns her face into a scowl, and climbs onto the bus.

Cut to: School bus on Major Deegan (song by now is in full swing). Montage of bus driving on highways, tunnels, etc.

Cut to: exterior of bus, closeup on window with Lee’s face pressed against the glass, looking glum. Behind her, in the bus, pan left to right on usual teenage antics: Couple of preppy boys in Izod polos wearing pooka shell necklaces looking at a Playboy magazine, girls with high pony tails and multiple day glo bracelets ogling at the cute boys in front of them, giggling; stoners behind them, taking hits off a RUSH bottle, and finally, in the back seat, one kid stretched out, snoring and farting.

Cut to: school bus pulls into high school, and circles the off -road driveway, song fading. Kids disembark, with Lee exiting next to last, who looks around, recognizes someone, pulls the previously placed cigarette from her ear, lights it, makes a “s’up” head gesture, and saunters off camera. There is a pause, then we hear the bus driver yelling, and a befuddled and disheveled previously sleeping kid darts off the bus.

I replayed this opening scene every morning of my sophomore year of high school, honing and refining the images until I was satisfied. Joan Jett’s song was always a constant, as was the opening with the ding of the elevator. But the rest evolved over time.

Each time I replayed it, I would imaging a crew of people following me, walking backwards in front of me, laden with equipment. We never did a “second take” in the same day. We had to wait until the next morning to try again. And, astonishingly enough, no one ever saw the crew around me. Only me.

Sometimes the crew followed me down the halls of the school; sometimes into Central Park on the weekends with my friends, where we would have “shenanigans” that involved some mildly illegal substances, and the statue of Alice in Wonderland.

But this fantasy, if you want to call it that, was my constant companion that second year in high school. I never shared it with anyone, ever, until this post today.

I’ve been thinking about that year, and that rather indulgent fantasy life I was living that year. I was extremely lonely and depressed – I had yet to find my posse of people in school, and I was a mass of hormones and doubts, and needed an outlet where I could be someone other than myself.

I think it was in that year that I was mentally grooming myself to be an actor. I had no previous acting experience, never had much interest in much of anything. And it wasn’t the idea of “becoming someone else” that kept that fantasy alive that year. It was the serenity of that group of people constantly walking with me through every shoot: the gaffer, the boom operator, the camera guy… that made me feel less alone. I never fantasized conversation with these people, but knowing they were always there, always ready to “get my back”, that gave me enormous comfort.

Looking back, I think that’s the thing I like most about film and theater – the community of people that it takes to make a project happen. The endless hands and eyes and brains and feet of people who are all focused on a common goal; which no one person can single-handedly accomplish.

Today, I could never say that any one team or company that I have worked for has given me the same feeling as any theater production or film project has done. Work teams do work together, but they seem very disjointed and unemotional, and I don’t get the sense of community pride in the completion of something. Because nothing is ever really complete at work. It’s just another day or something else, that culminates in nothing tangible, save a paycheck.

I miss my teenage film crew. But I believe I have been rewarded over and over again by the many teams I have been part of so far in film and live theater. And hey, maybe someone will take my teenage fantasy and make it into a real movie some day.

Yeah (smiles at the camera, and tucks a cigarette behind her ear, as she heads upstairs for another cup of tea).

Post note: that lovely kid to the right of me in the photo above was one of “The Scoundrels” – the posse I hitched my wagon up to in high school. His name was John Gargan. Sadly, he passed away in early January 2020. RIP, my friend.