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A little over two years ago, I took stock of my life's periphery in a downturn.

My, what a difference 27 months can make.

It all began with the conclusion of the years-long quest to get my screenplays in fighting shape; following the failure of Life After: The Void , I dedicated myself to obsessively re-working all five scripts with the goal of meeting an ever-changing standard of quality. "Finishing" did not mean I felt any of them was perfect, merely ready, and the final keystroke meant that I could finally copyright the two originals, which I did on May 21st, 2018. The following weekend encompassed Memorial Day, during which I vacationed.

Two weeks later, both of my best friends experienced life-altering cataclysms: one ended a romantic relationship lasting nearly a decade, and the other was fired from a job he'd held for over five years. While my contemporaneous reality was tame by comparison, the return from my vacation heralded one of the strangest and most astonishing developments of my life.

As for my recently liberated friends, the first has since reconnected with an old flame, and the second is once more gainfully employed.

Now, the development at issue requires a bit of context: back in May of 2015, James Doolittle, a Viva Video customer and professional videographer, proposed a web series featuring me and my coworkers recommending movies based on the newly released beers of an acclaimed local brewery. We jumped at the chance to dream up film suggestions predicated on the styles and eclectic names of this brewery's latest libations, but despite our best efforts, the brewery showed little interest, and thus any future plans were scrapped.

Unbeknownst to us, James pitched his ideas (sans beer-pairings) to a friend working at a significant subscription television channel; essentially, James felt we were a concept worth exploring. When he didn't receive any return correspondence, James assumed his passions went unshared.

Fast forward to the first afternoon of my Memorial Day vacation three years later; James meets with this friend, who had since been promoted to a major cable television network (herein known as "The Network") and previously discussed James' nascent proposal with his superiors. To James' understanding, the concept of a show revolving around an independent video store owned and operated by passionate cinema junkies appealed to them. I learned of these machinations the Tuesday I returned to work. I cannot now recall my immediate reaction, but I would say it was somewhere between confusion and disbelief; though I always shelter a vestige of hope when I hear news so good it borders on preposterous, experience has afforded me a thick shield of skeptical cynicism.

The next step, I was informed, was to wait until The Network had a chance to consider how best to tackle their late-night schedule. James remained optimistic that Viva Video would be present in these plans, but there were lingering uncertainties as to whether we'd be filler in a larger programming block or headliners in our own.

Three weeks later, on June 21st, I was informed that James' initial pitch stuck the landing; The Network professed themselves delighted and requested a detailed proposal. What followed was weeks of impassioned insanity: each member of the Viva staff and James' production company took turns kicking around nebulous ideas until they began to coalesce. What was at first culled in haste was then re-worked, fine-tuned, revised, and proofread until we cemented a pitch deck. In it, we outlined a program in which we, the Viva staff, would host, hype, and get reactions to a film screening at our store with some of our passionate customers, only to use that footage as a prologue for showing the same movie on The Network. Like MST3K without the snark and Elvira without the camp.

On July 9th, we officially sent the deck to The Network. They acknowledged receipt the following day and indicated they liked our pitch, but needed to dedicate more time and thought to it. The waiting game commenced. Soon after, while imagining a boardroom of executives mulling our efforts at The Network offices, I was struck by the notion that this was fucking impossible.

In the ten years I have been a video store clerk, the rate at which I've been reminded that video stores are obsolete has increased exponentially; nowadays, at least three people per week stop in to remark how surprised they are that "places like this still exist", marvel at our inventory, thank us for still being here, indicate their notional support, and leave without renting or buying anything, never to return again, their visitations echoed in the short-lived dismay following the death of any Gen X institution: "Oh, it's a shame that thing I like but never use is going away…" Beneath the grand scope of what it means when modernization takes another victim, this is my job. I have been vaguely teased over still being a video store clerk, having had it suggested that there was no future in it, and that's not an argument I could refute. My clearly defined but specious goal was to remain at my job until I finished both my books and my screenplays, a notion that vaguely insinuated my desire to embrace a more profitable, less enjoyable career only after my artistic dreams had been crushed.

On numerous occasions, I'd had these conversations with loved ones who would subtly indicate they detected a reluctance to leave Viva. I'd offer my fanciful argument for staying, knowing full well that it was pie in the sky reasoning. In truth, I sought to avoid a mid-life crisis. I want to look back on my late 20s and early 30s confident that I fought for my creative endeavours, even if they didn't pan out. While that notion dominated the logic of staying at Viva, I will admit there was always something else keeping me there. I suspect it was a simple fear of a new and unknown life without it. If I believed in fate or destiny, I'd have said that, on some level, the providence of my path as a video store clerk was too great to be ignored, but that'd be total horseshit.

In essence, I finished the last of my unfinished creative goals in the same week it appeared that my unprofitable and professionally infertile job might suddenly become the most enriching and lucrative opportunity of my life. An astonishing turn of events, to say the least, and I was beginning to think my life couldn't possibly get any better.

Then it got better.

Within the relatively short span of these insane proceedings, I'd been enduring some problems with my living situation, an ordeal that presented its own set of headaches compounded by a lack of capital for a transition. Though I swore to myself that I wouldn't boomerang back to my parent's house after moving out, lodging with them quickly became the most viable option to save money for a smooth transition. I was apprehensive about having this conversation, but also completely unsurprised by their openness and generosity in welcoming me back, if need be. On July 12th, my father shared the details of my living situation with one of my relatives, who proceeded to astonish us all with an act of generosity that allayed my concerns for the immediate future. It would be apt to call it life-changing, as I now struggle to recall my state of mind before this deed compounded the astronomical developments with The Network. If nothing else, it made the waiting game a lot less tense.

Then, on August 23rd, The Network approved our pitch and asked James to start drawing up a budget. By this point, I was at Viva more often than my cohorts, so I had greater access to James in person, and he'd been a paragon of confidence. As a result, I would frequently assuage the reasonable doubts of my fellow employees, who still had yet to fully embrace our fortunes. James set a meeting for August 28th so we could discuss our next steps, namely selecting a film to screen and solidifying a budget. Since the meeting was at Viva, and I was working, I was 7½ hours early. James followed about seven hours later, having just gotten off the phone with The Network brass, who indicated they were "thinking 13-26 episodes". The visions of avarice inspired by these words were still nascent, as this latest batch of news, while transcendent, fell short of a full green light.

That would come on October 25th, when James texted me the words "We got it": we were to pilot two episodes, pending budget approval. All that was left was the planning, and that was James' department. There was little for the Viva staff to do, other than provide him with the occasional nugget of information or inspiration and continue being video store clerks. The necessity for two runs at this, rather than the usual one, arose when we considered that the initial film against which we would pilot might be too eccentric; there would be no doubting the staff's enthusiasm, but concerns were raised over its non-traditional narrative, obscurity, and peculiar brand of zaniness. The metaphor I favored compares taste in cinema to a community pool: most folks stick to the shallow end, and it was my belief that we best served them as shepherds to the deep. Our first film struck me as a jump off the high dive, and I was disinclined to play sink or swim with our collective destiny. My concerns were taken under advisement, but enthusiasm carried the day. Until it didn't, and we then sought to fortify our position by selecting something with cult credibility that fell a bit closer to the mainstream.

The process initially seemed to be on a fast track: shoot dates were being discussed as soon as the week following Thanksgiving, leaving the Viva staff scrambling to get the store in shape. Nothing firm materialized, however, and it was supposed that we'd try to schedule something by February. The possibility of the staff receiving some of The Network brass prior to shooting was broached at several points, but never came to fruition. The waiting game recommenced, and though despair never set in, we did court some lingering uncertainties. As stated from the beginning, this entire scenario felt like a dream, too astonishingly good to be true. Absent any bulletproof covenant or totemic evidence, we felt beholden to a fantasy. James allayed some of these concerns through sheer professionalism and an understanding of peculiarities that were above our pay grade: having had his services previously retained by The Network with fruitful results, their confidence in James' abilities and the pitched material solidified their confidence the project.

Then, slowly but surely, the picture started coming into focus: we began meeting gaffers, directors, and production designers, some of whom we'd been renting to for years. James' production company received an endowment from The Network. We scheduled shooting dates. We began planning beyond the first pilot, then the second. Design concepts began to take shape. An audience was culled from Viva's customers. Catering was chosen. Two weeks out, lingering doubts gave way to cautious excitement: could this really be happening? One week out, we were participating in camera tests, discussing in-store logistics, and attempting to clear potential wardrobe choices with The Network's legal department. It struck me as fundamentally awesome that I might cultivate a selection of t-shirts for someone with a background in entertainment law to research for permissibility.

Finally, the week of shooting arrived. The previously discussed design elements came to fruition. The theoretical logistics became tangible adjustments. Crew members began to materialize. In short, the fantasy was becoming a reality.

And it is here, on the precipice of my greatest adventure, that I must abandon this missive. After months of waiting, I can no longer dedicate myself to recording the next steps for the sake of posterity. Instead, I must try to remain in the moment, infinitely aware that I am one of the luckiest sons of bitches alive, having been gifted an opportunity to get paid to be myself on TV. For once, I'll save my analysis on the subject for the endgame. For now, I will enjoy the moment.

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