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I stop by the front desk and pour myself a cup of coffee before making my way into the conference room. Even though I’ve spent the last several years in L.A. and have become jaded by the movie industry, I still feel a thrill when I walk into the room and see camera lights.
Trina Rockwell, the show’s host and one of the producers, catches my eye. Raising her hand in the air, she calls out, “Tim! Thank you for coming.”
Trina is a stunning-looking woman, but there’s something about her that’s too polished. Like she’s too pretty to be trusted. That’s when I realize she reminds me of my ex-wife.Shudder.
“Trina, what can I do for you?” I ask while walking toward her.
By the time we reach each other, we’re standing by the table. I pull out her chair before taking a seat next to her.
“I just wanted to fill you in on our shooting schedule.” She hands me a printout of a calendar. “We’ll be filming Monday through Saturday. Mondays through Thursdays will be concentrated on individual dates. Fridays and Saturdays will be group activities. We’re planning to create a dining room in Conference Room A, so we’ll have a completely quiet background, and we won’t interfere with your members.”
“Will you bring your own servers, or will you want to use ours?” I hope they use ours so I can get my team some extra hours. Tips aren’t quite as abundant post-holidays.
“We’d like to use yours if that’s okay. They’d have to sign a waiver and we’ll pay them a fee of three hundred dollars per shift.”
That’s probably twice what they normally make, so I’m sure they’d be pleased. But I don’t tell Trina that. Instead, I ask, “Do they have to join the Screen Actors Guild?”
She shifts in her seat. “Um, no. The waiver states they’ll make a flat fee that will allow us to film them and show their likeness on television.”
I didn’t spend years in La La Land without learning a thing or two about the business, so I ask, “Unlimited usage?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And you think three hundred is enough?” I’m guessing my staff would do it for free for the chance to be on television, but there’s no harm in trying to score better pay for them.
Trina flips through some papers in front of her before saying, “I can go as high as five hundred, but if you want more than that, we’ll have to find our own people.”
"I think that’s fair,” I tell her while valiantly trying to hide my smile. “I’ll put it out there and make a list of interested parties.”
“Good.” She looks relieved. “Our crew will spend this weekbuilding various sets in the ballroom. We’ll keep half of it as-is for our mixers, but on the other half we’ll create different settings for one-on-one dates and conversations.”
“We don’t have any bookings for the ballroom until Valentine’s weekend,” I tell her.
She nods her head. “We’ll be out before then, and we’ll leave everything as we found it.”
I look at Trina closely. Even though I’m not interested in her on a personal level, I wonder what her marital status is. “Have you ever thought about being on the show yourself?”
Alarm is written all over her face. “Not for a second. Could you imagine the whole world watching as you tried to find love? That’s not for me.”
“Maybe, but the whole world doesn’t watch your show.”
“Fine, but could you imagine your parents watching while you try to find love?” Her body convulses like an electric shock just ran through it.
Meanwhile, a chill of dread runs up my spine. “Thatwouldbe horrible.” I eye her closely before asking, “But if you don’t support what your show is doing, why are you working on it?”
She shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t want to be a politician, but I vote. I don’t want to be a pilot, but I fly in airplanes.”
The corners of my mouth turn up into a grin. “You don’t want to date on air, but you’re happy to exploit singles who will do it for you.”
Offering a mischievous wink, she explains, “It’s not exploitation if they sign up for it. And believe me, we turn away a thousand people for every one we take. So nice try, but no one is being taken advantage of.”
“What do you pay the contestants who come on your show?”
“I’m not legally allowed to tell you that,” she says cagily. “We don’t even tell our singles how much it is until they’ve gone through enough interviews that we’re seriously considering casting them. We truly do want people who are looking for love and not just a paycheck.”
I pull out my phone and type a question into a search engine. “It says here that contestants onBlind Lovemake up to fifteen hundred dollars per episode.” Her face is deadpan, so I ask, “Does that sound accurate?”
“I’m not going to tell you, Tim. But I believe in our show and want to help people find love just as much as I hope to find it for myself someday.”
