Our first “class” is at the Latvian Centre in Toronto.  People come in dribs and drabs.  Additional seats need to be found as 33 of us assemble, waiting for Karen O’Donnell and Kelli Kieley to get here.  Usually, the course only has 25 participants.  Karen has been running this course for years and this year Kelli (a former student) is helping her run it.

Karen and Kelli arrive.  They’ve been delayed because of a last minute crisis.  One of the students got work and wanted to know if they could still do the program.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) it is a full time gig for the next few weeks, so the answer was no.  I get the feeling there will be other crises as we move forward, but that seems to be the life of the producer.  I’ve gotten emails from Karen at 3:15am!  Gulp.  Does a producer ever sleep?

The program runs for 42 weeks.  The first eight weeks will be devoted to class time.  We will have different experts coming in to talk about subjects like finance, pitches, writing for TV, creating business plan and so on.  After the classes, we will have a few weeks to develop our own business plan and get it accepted.  And then for the rest of the program, we will “work” the plan and try to get our projects off the ground.

When I first heard about the class, I thought it would be filled with dreamy-eyed wannabees and I would be one of the people with the most experience.  Because, “I’m like a playwright…”  Turns out that most of the people have some sort of TV or film related experience and have worked on actual TV shows or worked on a TV network.  I’m one of the people with the LEAST amount of experience.  D-oh!

On the plus side, I’m not the oldest person in the class.  But I’m definitely one of the more senior people age-wise.   Great.  That’s me: old and inexperienced.  But, hey, I’ve WATCHED a lot of television…

I’m getting a little scared. 😦