This is my first blog post from Los Angeles. People always assume I live here because I make commercial movies. But I don’t — I live in New York City, where I grew up. I once lived in L.A., when I was starting out; I moved here from the east coast when I was 23. The thing about living in L.A. in those days (pre-Swingers) is that I had a large group of friends here, and we all lived in shared houses and apartments, so it was very social.

Those years were really fun and really stressful. My friends and I were divided into two camps — the ones with the jobs, and the actors/writers/directors (the ones without the jobs). The friends with jobs worked as assistants at CAA or at a movie studio or for a fancy producer. They slowly worked their way up the food chain, while suffering the horrible hours and abuse that only the film business and politics and maybe the law can dole out. One roommate of mine, who was a secretary (here they are called assistants, so we can pay them less and not give health insurance) at a major talent agency was affectionately called a “fucking cunt” by her boss.

Those of us without jobs congregated on weekends at the offices of our friends with jobs to use their laser printers and Xerox machines. And here is the really insane part: Every once in a while a friend would hit the jackpot and sell a spec script for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even a million dollars. You never knew when it was going to happen, or to whom. That person would become the flavor of the month, taking fancy meetings with the bosses of the friends with jobs, and strutting into the parties on weekends knowing all our eyes were on them. I wanted to be one of those guys.

When Swingers sold for a record amount of money to the then-chic Miramax, I became that guy. I couldn’t wait for Friday night and the first chance to strut into a party knowing I had just been accepted into that rarefied club. Then Friday night came, and I think the best way to describe how unsatisfying it was is that I moved back home to New York the following week. And New York has been home ever since.

These days, L.A. is not the social scene it was for me back then. Yesterday started with a 9 a.m. meeting at Paramount on my Moon project, then a drive to Malibu to work the entire day reviewing my cut of Fair Game. (This movie is unique in how many brilliant directors I have working on it as actors, writers, and producers — Sean, Jez Butterworth, and Jerry Zucker — and I will soak up every bit of wisdom I can get out of them.) I finished at 5 p.m., and then it was back to my composer’s house to go over the score, a quick pit stop at my sister’s house, and then to Simon Kinberg’s house by 9 p.m. to start writing on Moon. Eventually I got home, got to sleep, and that’s how life is out here; rinse and repeat. It’s no wonder I prefer New York; this place is exhausting.

Gotta run to start my day. Next time I will talk about working on the score of Fair Game with John Powell.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• Doug Liman Blog: It’s Time To Hammer Home My Next Action Feature
• Doug Liman Blog: John Powell, Virtuoso
• Doug Liman Blog: Making a Connection On The Express After a Long, Cold Day
• Doug Liman Blog: Ahhh … Picture Lock
• Doug Liman Blog: Screening Fair Game for the CIA, and Why Cheney Is like Jaws
• Doug Liman Blog: Running With Jake Gyllenhaal