The American Film Market is back in town.
My favourite character was seen wandering through the excited, and sometimes perma-tanned, throng at the Loews hotel in Santa Monica, wearing chinos and a rubber Toxic Avenger mask.
The smell of cigar smoke hung heavily in the air (outside only of course) and the giant poster for James Corden's movie, Lesbian Vampire Killers, seemed wildly appropriate.
Whilst lounging around the pool, trying to look as if I was a high-powered film executive (by checking my Blackberry at annoying five second intervals and keeping my shades on even though it was dusk) I met a retired sound editor.
He told me that he'd won an Emmy for his work on Miami Vice but recounted bitterly, "It meant nothing. No-one on the production ever mentioned it or said well done." Crikey.
However, the unique energy of the AFM never ceases to amaze me. And business, let me tell you, is brisk.
I had a word with Charlie Bloye, chief executive of Film Export UK, whose stand was packed to rafters with execs talking numbers (or maybe just taking the weight off their feet).
Was the recession affecting business? He seemed weirdly chipper. Why? Well, the children it seems are our future. One of his theories was that kids will always want a way to escape their parents and the movies offer them a legitimate way to do that for a few hours.
I also met a brilliant new writer/director Mo Perkins, who'd just premiered her first feature, A Quiet Little Marriage, at the AFI fest.
Both screenings were sold out and reviews have been extremely favourable. She was delighted. Her character-driven piece, which to my mind is European in sensibility ("I'll take that as a compliment" she said), tells the story of how a marriage quietly implodes when the decision to have a baby is brought into the equation.
It stars a group of very talented young actors, including Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Mo, a huge John Cassavetes fan, was the one who sat down and physically wrote the script, while the others would thrash out story ideas.
The group rehearsed during the writing process, so that when they got to shoot it in just two short weeks last year, the whole production ran like clockwork.
Most of the filming took place in her apartment building in Echo Park ('We had very understanding neighbours'); her place was the production office, while co-writer Cy Carter's apartment directly upstairs was the primary location.
Then I saw Russell Brand do stand up at the Coronet Theatre in Hollywood, but the less said about that the better, and a couple of nights ago I was lucky enough to get to an early screening of A Quantum of Solace on the Fox lot (they have giant topiary penguins!). I still can't get this tune out of my head though.
Millicent Martin was in the audience. I know, how the hell did I recognise Millicent Martin?
And in between all that, my script is coming along at a fair old clip. That, quite literally, was the week that was.
