The year was 2006. The city was New Orleans. The mission...was not exactly impossible.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August of 2005, the production company I worked for was offered a crossover event to film a home renovation for an elderly woman who had been swindled out of insurance repairs on her shotgun home in the heart of the city. We used the show I worked on for over 100 episodes, DIY To The Rescue, and a team that was assembled with the help of the producers for Dr. Phil, to document the process of demolishing the old house and rebuilding an entirely new home – over the course of just a few weeks. We shot it in three parts. First the demolition – just a skeleton crew and our hosts over the course of a few days. A few weeks later, I would move into a downtown hotel for about six weeks while we prepared for the build. Once we were camera ready, we brought our skeleton crew back to film the building of the house’s bones with a few host cameos throughout. Finally, when the home was almost finished, we brought in the full crew in to work our magic. Over the course of these weeks, I got to basically design and direct the entire project. Start to finish, the house was completed in less than three weeks. (Not gonna lie, I still think it was a miracle to get it done that quick!)To say I felt like a kid on field day, would be an understatement.
The really cool thing about my job was that I knew what had to be done and because I'm super detail oriented, I was always over prepared. For some, I'm sure my perfectionist tendencies drove them nuts, but for me, if I could arrive in a new city fully prepared, I was happy and I could take a day or two to really enjoy my new surroundings without worrying that I was neglecting my responsibilities. We were fond of coastal towns on TTR, so that often meant I got paid to spend the day at the beach relaxing the day before we would start a six day shoot. If you've ever worked in TV, you know what a treat a day of relaxation, before going all out for six days straight, can be. With the New Orleans project things were a bit different. There were four of us from Knoxville who basically camped out in NOLA for the duration of the project. It was myself, Stephanie (my right hand for all things DTTR), Brud (the most amazing camera guy EVER), and Chris (our Audio tech). For the first two weeks, it was just Stephanie and I. And every day was an adventure. I'll never forget the first day Brud and Chris arrived, we were scheduled to shoot some foundation and framing, but it was late August in New Orleans, and the weather was treacherous. Steph and I went to meet with the contractors and just as we pulled up to the site, the hardest rain I have ever seen began to fall. We were stuck in our rental car for what felt like hours. I was a smoker then, and I don't know how Stephanie put up with me -- I am such a planner that when unexpected and uncontrollable things like the weather derail my plans, I kind of spin out. I bet I chain smoked half a pack of cigarettes while we waited that storm out and tried to readjust our shooting schedule. Things didn't always go according to plan, but we always made the best of it.
We spent weeks preparing for this project in Knoxville. We spent days at Home Depot and Lowes picking out everything from door knobs and drawer pulls, to paint, and bathtubs. If it went in the house, it had to go through us. In the end, I had the final say on design, and that was probably the most fullfilling part of this project for me. I took a few big swings -- particularly with the colors I chose to paint the walls -- but in NOLA there's a tradition of painting the walls of a home bright and inviting colors. I wanted to stay true to that, even if I wouldn't have chosen it for myself. The preparation we did during pre-production freed me up to focus on the day to day progress during the build. And once it was finished, a truck arrived with all the furniture we picked out! It was amazing. Almost all of the interior decor and furniture was donated -- another thing the team pulled off to make this extra special for Ms. Marion. The one thing we forgot, was the thing all new homeowners seem to forget... the little stuff. The pots, pans, utensils, toilet paper, dishes, towels... you know -- EVERYTHING you use every single day. So, during the last few days of filming, Stephanie and I took our small SUV rental car to the nearest Target (about 20 minutes away), pulled out our company credit cards, and filled seven shopping carts with every single thing we could think of that Ms. Marion might need. It should come as no surprise that we could not fit seven carts worth of stuff in our rental. Three trips back and forth later, we managed to get it all home!
Sidebar: Spending thousands of dollars, of someone else's money, at Target, is a rush like you wouldn't believe. If you ever get the chance -- DO IT!
We worked hard and we played harder! After that first day of rain, we consoled ourselves by taking in the best blues Burbon Street could offer. Eventually, we found our way to the Kat's Meow -- a karaoke dive bar that would become our home away from home. We were close enough to the French quarter that we could walk anywhere we went. Which meant we didn't really spend much time in our hotel rooms. We worked with the National Guard to access some of the more dangerous parts of the city, and even earned a commemorative coin only given out by high ranking officers with the NG. I chartered a helicopter to get b-roll, rode in a tank, scheduled interviews with the Governor, and spoke with local press. I wish I had kept a journal during this time because I'm sure there's so much more that I'm forgetting. It was the first time I took on the role of field producer, and it all happened so fast I never had time to overthink and ruin it! It just all came so easy. Not because of anything I did, but because the entire crew was so in synch, we could anticipate and react without even talking about it. I may never have another work experience like this one, and I'm fully aware that at times, we caught lightening in a bottle.
I've worked on some really neat projects, but this one will always hold a special place in my heart.
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