Today was quite eventful. Since part of my adventure was road trip related, be sure to check the road trip blog for an update.
I brought Julia to work this morning before putting myself on a 10:43 a.m. train to Grand Central Station in New York City. I jumped on the express Q line into Brooklyn, where I planned to take photos of a new viral marketing campaign for the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Vans loaded with free goodies have been dispatched across the country to promote Harvey Dent, a fictitious politician in the upcoming film. I had hoped to grab some photos of the campaign. Unfortunately, I spent an hour patrolling downtown Brooklyn near Albee Square (the vague location given on the website) and never saw anything besides a bunch of knock-off designer handbags and cheap jewelry. Supposedly, there will be another appearance tomorrow afternoon in another part of New York, so I may return.
Discouraged, I headed back into Manhattan for a meeting, the details of which can be found in the road trip blog, as mentioned above.
Julia had been planning a surprise for me for quite a while now, and today was the big day. She was a little late getting to the train, so she gave me the address of the surprise and told me she would have to meet me there. Last week, I had made a guess as to what the surprise might be, but I refused to tell Julia my suspicion because, if I was wrong, my guess would then become my surprise to her. In any case, I hurried to 54th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, where I realized that my guess was correct.
The exterior of the building itself was very boring and almost depressing. Only a battered navy blue awning gave any indication that something exciting would take place inside. Across the awning were the words: “The Colbert Report“. I was early enough to secure a spot near the front of the line, but that also meant that I was early enough to wait for two hours before the doors were set to open. Julia arrived around 4 p.m. and the doors opened at 5:15 p.m. A small group of “V.I.P.s” were issued red tickets and allowed in ahead of time. Those of us who had secured our tickets online in advance were given numbered blue tickets (we were numbers 11 and 12) and slowly allowed to trickle into the building. The handful of people who were on standby were the last to be admitted.
There was a fairly rigorous security check upon entry, at which time I was also informed (again) of the strict no photography policy in the studio. We were lucky enough to grab two of the 20 or so chairs in the small holding-pen-style room into which we were all being stuffed. The room was entirely beige and, though there were bathrooms and a few securely locked doors on either side, there was a feeling of finality to it. A small TV was mounted in a corner and quietly showed a DVD of some of the show’s finest moments. As the audience tricked in, it seemed as though things could quickly become uncomfortable, but people fell remarkably silent once their attention was drawn to the TV. The only sound from the group of 120 or so people in this tiny, barren concrete box was laughter. Some laughs were quite annoying, including one girl with a piercing cackle and another with a stuttering whisper of a giggle, but the crowd seemed ready to have a good time. The “audience manager” comes out to start warming up the crowd a few minutes before we are allowed into the studio.
Every aspect of the studio is much smaller than it appears in the show, which does make sense when you think about it. You are never given a wide shot of the entire environment on TV, so you never have the opportunity to put things into relative perspective. There are four sets of chairs arranged bleachers-style in rows of five or six. Being two of the first people in line, we were lucky enough to sit in the first set, second row, on the aisle. Some people tried (unsuccessfully) to complain their way to a better seat, but ended up just looking stupid. As viewed from our seats, and from left to right, the studio consisted of a false wall containing a number of weird items, one of which is apparently a microwave stolen from Bill O’Reilly, camera one, a fake eagle’s nest sitting on the ground, Colbert’s desk, another wall adorned with various treasures collected since the show’s creation, cameras two and three, a boom-operated camera, the interview area, and the fake fireplace. We had a laugh when, at one point, the DVD player controlling the image of the fire in the fireplace was paused and the screen saver came on.
After listening to some annoyingly loud music over the house speaker system, the stage manager gave us a quick introduction to his hand signals, which indicate when we should be making noise or shutting up, before a comedian came out to warm up the crowd. His jokes were hit and miss, but he did manage to single me out at one point because he thought I was still in high school (apparently I look young when I shave completely). He also became at least the fifth person to remind us to laugh or else the show will be a failure, which made me want to not laugh, in protest.
At long last, Stephen Colbert himself emerged, running around the studio in a frenzy. I’m sure this serves to work him up just as much as it drives the audience bonkers. Upon catching his breath, he spent about five minutes taking questions from the crowd, which was a really nice gesture. As he settled into his chair and the crew took their positions, he flung his WristStrong bracelets into the crowd, but we weren’t lucky enough to catch any.
The recording of the show itself was very straightforward. Monitors above the audience were used to see what the shots would look like upon broadcast with the visual effects included. Most of the segments are done in one long take, making the fact that he only had to reshoot three times quite impressive. Once things got moving, it was clear that the recording process had become a very efficient machine, while still remaining fun for everyone involved. Colbert frequently made funny gestures or statements to the audience between segments, including something along the lines of “I don’t want to read about this on your blogs.” Though neither of the guests were familiar to us, it was great to watch them play off Stephen and vice versa.
We were told that there would be no opportunity to meet Colbert individually or ask for autographs, which was fine since neither of us are crazed fans of any celebrities in the first place. We left the studio around 9 p.m. feeling great about our experience. You can watch the entire episode filmed while we were in the studio here.
By the time we left, we were both starving, so we decided to grab dinner at Becco, one of our favorite restaurants that was directly along our route back to the Times Square Subway station. Though we didn’t have reservations, we were afforded a table immediately. We ordered fried mozzarella and the “Sinfonia di Pasta,” their specialty – unlimited portions of their three daily pasta selections. Today’s pastas were spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce, penne in a broccoli sauce, and polenta. Our pastas arrived before our fried mozzarella, so we told the manager we wouldn’t be needing it. The pastas, especially the spaghetti, were amazing, as always. As we were finishing our pastas, the manager brought us fried mozzarella with the explanation: “on the house, we wouldn’t want you to leave without at least trying it.” We were already quite full, but managed to finish it off. Our waitress asked us if we would like dessert (also on the house), to which we replied that we simply couldn’t find room for anything more. Nevertheless, six scoops of gelato and sorbetto descended upon the table, which, it turns out, we had room for after all.
