Have you ever gone on a trip and when it was over asked yourself, what just happened ? That is how I would describe my recent 48 – hour experience to LA to do a profile on Ellen. The day started with a 6:00 am cab ride from Channel 5 to the airport followed by a five and a half hour flight out to LA. Shayna and I were picked up by our limo, thank you very much, and taken to Warner Brother studios, which is where the Ellen show is based out of.
I have to say, even after working in television for all these years, it’s still interesting to drive through those big Hollywood gates and walk around sound stages where the icons in the movie industry once worked. Today, it’s the Ellen Show that we are featuring which is really a multi-million dollar company tucked inside the grounds of Warner Brother studios. 
To keep the Ellen Show up and running, they have approximately 150 people working from the time they start production in September, straight through until June, which is when the show takes a break. If you happen to be on this crew, you now have a choice of hanging out and relaxing for two months in the summer or find work somewhere else to fill the gap. The production crew works four days a week, Monday through Thursday, one of which they shoot two shows. So a three day weekend, two months of vacation in the summer and they live in a climate where it’s warm year round. Not a bad deal.
From what I witnessed in the short time I was there, the Ellen show runs like a well-oiled machine. There are many levels/layers of staff involved throughout the day to make sure that this production is performed as flawlessly as possible. Every detail of that day’s show is considered and executed carefully right down to the personal requests of the guests on the show. No stone is left unturned because perfection is the goal.
The audience starts gathering at about 5:00 am for prime seating. Over the course of the next
few hours these Ellen fans are slowly whipped into a frenzy by watching video clips of Ellen on the surrounding monitors and if that doesn’t do it, there is music pumping out of PA speakers with someone running around with a microphone getting people to dance. At approximately 3:00 pm, the crowd is slowly let into the studio and once again cranked up to an even higher level of anticipation. Music is the theme which has now taken over the studio as the audience dances in the isles. It has turned into one big party and Ellen is the host of it all. By 4:30, the show is underway and an hour later, it’s over. The audience leaves and Ellen drives out of the lot to prepare to do it all over again the next day.
For Shayna and I, this has been a long 17-hour day. With only a few hours of sleep, it’s back downstairs to the lobby at 6:00 am to meet our driver and head to the airport. We landed at Logan at 5:30 pm and back to Channel 5 by 7:00 pm. One thing I could always count on throughout the years shooting for Chronicle and that is, it is never boring.
