When I was in college I had read that before he became a famous director, the young Steven Spielberg used to sneak onto the Universal Studios lot. He’d wear a nice suit, walk past the guard at the front gate, wave, smile and he’d be in (in high school, I’d sneak onto studio lots by placing a big brown paper bag in the passenger seat of my car and telling the guard I was there to deliver Chinese food). Ah, the innocent pre-9/11 days. Anyways, the young Spielberg would walk around the lot watching movies/TV shows being filmed and even squatted in an unused office. I was inspired by his story and decided, upon my graduation from college, that I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
My friend Ross was an assistant for a successful TV director at the time and his boss had just been hired to direct a feature. They would be on location for about four months and their office in the main TV building on the Warner Bros. lot would sit empty that whole time. I saw my opportunity to pull a Spielberg. I asked Ross if I could “use” their office while they were shooting. To my surprise, he said yes. He gave me a key, even the password for the copy machines and said I had full reign while they were gone.
