My niece, Lillian Elizabeth, was born yesterday morning 2/17/2004 at 8:09a est. She weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz., and was 19". You can call her Lily. I'll post pictures as soon as I get 'em.

My mom just called me. My brother and his wife are at the hospital right now, having their first baby. My third niece. I'll let you know what happens. Well...other than the obvious.

Hollywood Hillbilly

It’s been so dang busy and hectic at work that I haven’t bothered to update you guys. But I’m definitely going to try harder. So here goes…

My shoot in LA went great! My cast was perfect - the kids were awesome and the lady playing “The Aunt” was amazing. I still can’t get over how well they all worked together. Basically, the spot followed a little guy all dressed up going to visit his aunt. When he gets to her house, bouquet of daisies in hand, she goes crazy over him, and man-handles him with a big bear hug. Then he goes up to his see his cousin, who places the little guy in a headlock and gives him a noogie. The spot promotes a show about a trio of kids who go to Mexican wrestling school called “Mucha Lucha.” At the end of the spot, our little hero reappears outside the house again, this time wearing a luchador mask and costume. That’s about as exciting as it gets, folks.

At casting, “The Aunt” just adored the little boy who was playing her nephew. As soon as she saw him, she wanted to pinch his cheeks and squeeze him – just what I needed. The kid playing “The Cousin” was hilarious; he had this crazy look in his eyes whenever he read his big line. What was so cool about him was that he wasn’t one of the original callbacks to casting from our first batch of tapes we watched in Atlanta. He was one of the few we told the casting agent to get as options to look at when we got to LA, just in case. And he nailed it! They all nailed it! It turned out to be a really good spot, and I’m very excited. It starts airing sometime this week, so look for it.

More than anything, it was an amazing learning experience. You wouldn’t believe what goes into making these things; the film, the cameras, the lights – it was quite a bit more than an ole boy from Athens, GA was ready to take, I tell you what. We pulled up in front of the house, there were trucks full of equipment lining the street, the yard spilling over with lights, grips with all kinds of tools dangling off their belts, and folks walking around with production books in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other. My boss pats me on the back and says, “They’re all here for you, brother.” I replied that if it was all the same to him I’d rather stay in the car and just let him handle it. When I finally got out, a girl came over, directed me to my chair, and asked me if I needed anything to drink. I told her some water would be nice, she picked up her walkie-talkie, and told a person on the other end - someone who, I imagine, has absolutely nothing better to do - that Mr. McElhannon needed a bottle of water. And before I could ask her to just point me in the right direction and I’ll get it my own self, the bottle was in my hand. Well, that was it. The rest of the day was just as surreal as you might imagine. Pretty amazing.

The shoot was a little nerve-racking. The director and I butted heads a little bit in the morning. There were certain shots I was picturing, and while the director was getting the shots he wanted, I would mention to him that I wanted to do it a certain way. He would try to assure me that we got it, so I started second-guessing myself. My boss noticed that I was having a hard time and pulled me outside for some “fresh air.” He told me that what the director was doing was typical - that he was going to get pushier because of our shooting schedule, that I really needed to make sure I’ve got the shots I want, no matter what he thinks, and to speak up, because my boss couldn’t defend me if I was on the fence about something. So it was half a pep talk and half a “you better not screw this up” talk, which was all I needed, because after lunch things went much smoother. Magically, the director and I started seeing eye-to-eye, and I was really happy with the way things were turning out.

The two things that blew me away the most happened when the shoot was over. When we wrapped, people from the crew were shaking my hand and telling me what a good time they had working with me, and how funny they thought my spot was going to turn out. Then to top it off, when we got in the car, my boss told me how proud he was and that I did a great job on my first live-action shoot. Wanna see?

But that’s not the end of the story. The group I was with – my boss the creative director, my project producer, her boss the production director – we all had some fun in LA while we weren’t on the clock, and I’ll tell you all about that later.