Manimal Crackers

The Filming Process

Dear Jessica Rothenberg,

Thank you for your interest in working on this Manimal movie. We're deeply appreciative of your efforts and are delighted that you are willing to help. During this process, we'll be sending you various documents and information regarding the film at hand. If you do not respond within a week, your efforts will become moot. Please respond to this email immediately so that we understand that you are interested in working on this and have our full attention.

Sincerely,

Aaron Hernandez Productions

Okay, so this was going to be much, much harder than I expected. While I've always wanted to do this, staying on top of my emails was going to be much easier said than done.

Whenever I was online, even if it was for homework, I would compulsively check my email. I just couldn't help myself. I was just too excited! And lo and behold, my first email was already in my inbox:

Dear Jessica,

You're helping us overlook the project and that's great, but we could really use some extra help. If you could refer to anyone else interested in overlooking this project, please refer them to us. Thank you!
Sincerely,

Aaron Hernandez Productions

Okay, that sounds a bit odd, I thought. But hey, maybe they did need every bit of help they could get, so why not do this? Then I remembered that I was meeting again with the Manimal fan club that evening. Maybe they'd be interested in helping out. Because I tend to easily forget all my great ideas, I made a mental note to remind myself to tell them about the project. Okay, I admit it, I actually put it on paper.

That night, we were watching this scifi show called V. Basically, aliens come to Earth and try to take over the planet for whatever reason. Don't ask, nothing in this stupid program makes sense. It was weird, especially from someone whose generation grew up watching District 9.

Which is exactly why we decided to view it that night. We were at the episode when one of the aliens, um, boldly comes onto Robin, who has this grossout alien pregnancy. I was getting really anxious to tell all my friends about the project, but remembered to stay on topic while watching the show, even if it was idiotic.

At 11:30, just as everyone was just about to sign off, I turned on my camera and said "Wait!" Suddenly, everyone stopped. "I have an announcement to make. I've been commissioned to help make a Manimal movie!"

"Really?" asked Brad. "Isn't that licensed property?"
"Well, I have this older cousin who works as an entertainment lawyer in California, and I sent him the script that I had written. He thought that it was really cool, and sent it to a company that just so happened to be working on, you guessed it, a Manimal movie." Brad didn't respond. I could tell that he was honestly pretty shocked at what I had told them.

"But wait, there's more!" I said, really sounding like Billy Mays here. "They're asking me to refer my friends to this project if they're interested. You won't actually be writing like I am, you'll just be filling out a bunch of focus group surveys."
"Oh, cool," said James, a middle-aged guy with long hair. "I guess I could look into that."
"Just send me your emails on Facebook, and I'll send them over!" I said.
"To whom?" asked Terry, a slightly older-looking guy in glasses.

"Oh, some film company. Don't worry, they won't screw it up that much."
"We didn't think he would," said Terry. "We actually kind of like his work. In a guilty pleasure way of course, but still."
That Sunday, I was able to contact the film company with all my friends' contact information. They had barely known me for a week, and already they were quite impressed by me! (No, I'm not giving out their email addresses, that's their private business. Plus, they're not too interested in stalkers.) Soon I received this lovely response: