Doing shows is a great way to meet people who are willing to go shooting with me. I know virtually nothing about them when we finally get together to shoot, but thats when I get to know them. A year ago I met the unassuming Jeff Eastin and got his number, telling him I’d call eventually. A year later is eventually… so the plan was for me to drive to his place where Jeff, his friend Travis and I would leave together. As I’m winding my way up this mountain road toward his house in Woodland Hills, I figure he has money. I get to the top, and to Jeff’s incredible multi-million dollar house-with-a-view. We then go out to sit and talk by the pool-with-a-view for a while. Jeff, it turns out, is a Hollywood player. He has written and produced several TV series, and stories of his parties make steam come out my ears. But his success story is the best and it is hilarious. 

Broke and recently divorced in the late 90’s, Jeff decides to leave his promising clerical job at Kinko’s near Denver, CO to pursue his dream of being a Hollywood director. He buys a crummy van, which quickly becomes his home as he begins the drive to Los Angeles. Having been told by a friend that writing a script is a good start to becoming a director, Jeff quickly hand writes a first draft of a story on his breaks from the drive. By all accounts, this plan looks headed for disaster.

In L.A. he gets a job at the YMCA where he meets another slacker employee, Travis Romero (who is going shooting with us). After being told by almost everyone that his script sucks, one staff member at the Y reads it and likes it. This staff member, it turns out, is also an intern at a big production studio. He takes Jeff’s one and only handwritten rough draft (no photocopies have been made) and drops it off anonymously on a producer’s desk. This is where the story should end. The producer arrives, sees a crumpled mass of handwritten loose-leaf papers on his desk and groans. What a sorry excuse for a script. Without a second glance, the no-nonsense producer throws this only version of Jeff’s script into the circular file, where it is eventually incinerated and the ashes dumped in a landfill. And thats the end of Jeff’s short-lived Hollywood career. But thats not what happens. The producer actually reads it and LIKES it… a lot! He immediately calls Jeff and buys it for $30,000. A career is born.

Today he easily makes $300K for a script, and this one-time slacker is now a busy man.

So Jeff, Travis and I head off for rundown downtown L.A. to shoot. I get in two good shots, and Jeff takes many pictures of me at work.

Jeff’s photos of me

My camera posing

View from Jeff’s home.