My Dinner with Steven

Steven Soderbergh, Michael Apted, Taylor Hackford, Cameron Crowe, Haskell Wexler, Paris Barclay; these are just some of the people I had dinner with last night.

As a director, new to Hollywood, I found myself in pretty good company. Okay, I’m not that new, I have been here almost a week.

Okay, I didn’t sit at the same table as all those distinguished directors, but I was in the same room. Last night was the monthly Western Directors Council Meeting of the Directors Guild of America. I am a proud member of that distinguished guild, and so I may attend council meetings and observe, but not participate. I am invited to join the council for dinner before hand and listen to the proceedings of the night, until the privacy, council members only portion of the evening.

Michael Apted, Chairman of the council, ran the meeting. I can’t go into detail on the agenda, but most were not dealing with highly creative issues, but technical issues such as waivers to guild rules by individuals and studios. There was one interesting section about reality television and the lack of opportunity for guild members in that field.

I found it fascinating and exciting to be there. I hope to attend these monthly meetings in the future, not just for the free dinner, but also for the opportunity to meet and work with the council in the future.

Oh, yeah, I had just come from apartment hunting with Circus, who got into town earlier in the day, and we found an apartment. Today we put in the application. Hopefully we get accepted and move in early next week.