Our (almost) movie

After 2 1/2 years of waiting and wondering, we finally got to see "The Great Buck Howard" ("The Craziest Story", July 2006). It's due to be released in theatres on March 20, but you can watch it on VOD right now.

We knew it was a long shot - we didn't pay for the product placement in the movie, so we knew that the gifts could be cut; we knew that it was a struggle to find a distributer for the movie and get it released, and we knew that our contact at Walden Media wasn't involved in the final editing.

As it turns out, a couple of our baskets are in the movie - but they are not identified in any way. The part with the delivery person wearing our apron did not make the final cut. The gifts are in the background of a couple scenes, but nobody but us would know they came from our company.

We're not really as disappointed as we thought we would be....there was such a lag between when we did this project and seeing the end results, that it's just not a big deal anymore - kind of anticlimactic. We were chatting about it after we watched it, and we realized that a lot of really positive things came out the experience:

1. We developed a much better way to ship our gifts - they arrive in better condition than they used to, and we eliminated the use of styrofoam packing peanuts (which we hated - and I'm sure everyone else did too)

2. We started rethinking our gift designs, and it sparked new ideas for our standard website gifts
3. We streamlined our operations and worked on becoming more efficient. It started us on a path of continuous improvement.

4. It got us through some dark times. We went through a phase a couple of years ago where we both got really burned out and lost a lot of the passion we have for this business. Knowing that we had a possible "big break" coming up kept us going.

5. It prompted us to start this blog

6. When I flew out to California so that I could hand deliver the gifts to Premier Entertainment in L.A., I stayed with my uncle' and his family, who I don't get to see very often, and I spent some really good one on one time with my aunt Leslie. Within a year of my visit Leslie was diagnosed with cancer and passed away. If not for this unusual opportunity, it would have been years since I had seen her; I'm incredibly grateful for that time.

Was it a mistake? I don't think so...it was a really interesting experience. If you don't take a risk once in while, you don't get a chance to reap the rewards. No regrets!

And now? Well, we have some really good things cooking with the business.

Last year I hired 2 employees to help out with the day to day operations of the store, in preparation for me beginning another career. I just wasn't interested in doing this anymore. But a funny thing happened....

In training my new employees how to do everything I do, I began creating an operations manual, something I've been putting off for years. It was really important to me that customers who were used to dealing with me got the same consistant experience when talking to one of the girls. I came up with training exercises and quizes. I was forced to think about exactly how I wanted every task performed and to document it - which is a very good thing.

Once Jenny and Laura became a little more self sufficient, I was able to tackle some nagging projects that I just hadn't had the time to deal with before, and it felt good. One thing led to another, and pretty soon I realized that I was really enjoying my business again. Freeing myself up from performing every single task myself allowed me to focus on big picture planning, which is what, as the owner, I SHOULD be doing. I read "E-Myth" years ago (work ON your business not IN it), but it took preparing to leave my business for me to really do it.

That other career I was planning? On hold indefinitely. The enthusiasm I had for this in the beginning is back, plus some.

We have some big changes coming up in the next few months - stay tuned, we'll be announcing the details very soon!

New trailer for The Great Buck Howard

We just found a new, longer trailer for the "The Great Buck Howard" (see "The Craziest Story", July 2006) - take a look:

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-great-buck-howard/trailer-b

About that movie...

Obviously, with the release date of "The Great Buck Howard" coming up in less that 2 months, we're beyond anxious to find out about our basket placement in the film. While googling for information, I've come across several reviews...mostly good, some bad, some on the fence. One of the reviews I read (a good one) was written by a Las Vegas reviewer. I noticed at the bottom of her page that she "answers all e-mails". My curiousity got the best of me, and I e-mailed her, explaining our connection with the film. I was pleasantly surprised when she actually sent a reply. She said she wished I had contacted her sooner, since some time had passed since she saw the "The Great Buck Howard". Unfortunately she didn't remember that detail of the movie, but said it made sense since "Buck always liked his celebrity gifts". She wished us the best of luck, and wanted me to let her know how it all turned out. She also said she would try to find the director's e-mail, and shortly after that she did send it to me.

I hesitated for a few days, thinking that I really didn't have enough nerve to bother the director of the movie about our silly baskets. But in the end, I fired off an e-mail asking him our big question. Curiosity got the best of me, and after all, what do we have to lose? The worst that could happen is that he will ignore me.

I haven't received a response as yet, and really don't expect to, but at least I can say I tried. You know, it just shouldn't be this hard!!!

Good News! (maybe....)

As I mentioned in a recent post, the movie that MIGHT include our gift baskets is due to be released soon (read "The Craziest Story" from July 2006). We've been trying to track down some still shots of our gifts in the movie for a while now, and I finally found Jeff Gross (formerly of Walden Media) online.

I asked him if our gifts actually made it into the film, and according to him they definitely made it onto the set, and were used in the original filming. BUT - the distributor of the movie requested that some scenes be re-shot, and Jeff never saw the final version. Sounds promising, but who knows?

A release date - FINALLY!

After 2 1/2 years, "our" movie finally has a release date - March 20, 2009! Yay!

Will it actually get released this time? Did our baskets make the cut? More importantly, will the delivery person be wearing one of the aprons with our name on it? Only time will tell.

Truth be told, most of the excitement has completely worn off....it's more curiousity at this point. We did find a trailer for the movie on YouTube, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7LQi6GMhJk

Making Lemonade...

Anyone who's followed our blog probably wonders WHERE ON EARTH we've been for the past few months. In a nutshell, Julie and I made a joint decision in the spring to get out of the business. We weren't sure how we'd do it...we just knew we were crispy and READY! Julie has some other business opportunities brewing, and I just want to "retire" to my nursing career.
So...we began formulating an exit plan, and wondered what we would do with all of this "stuff". Very unexpectedly, a pair of potential buyers asked if we would consider selling the business to them. They recognized the value of our name in this area, and the value of our corporate client base. We were excited! They were excited! We hired a business broker, fast-forwarded through a complete inventory, put all of our records in order, and made sure the store was in great shape. We all met over the summer, and spoke on the phone intermittently about what progress was being made. The buyers were doing what they had to do to get their financing in order. They had asked if we would give them first opportunity at taking over the business and we honored that request. (We did not make the business available to the general public.)
The summer months were passing, and we were anxious to move on. We kept busy, tried to be patient, and kept everything running as normally as possible while we waited. The irony of it all was that we were having our busiest summer ever. We acquired some valuable new clients, and had several substantial orders booked into the fall. With shortened summer hours, we were barely keeping up. Still we were confident that the sale would go through, and we were happy to pass on a thriving business to our buyers.
Then one day a couple of weeks ago, we got our unexpected surprise. Julie was on the phone as I was flying out the door to make my evening shift at the hospital. She put her hand over the mouthpiece, and let me know that the sale was not going to happen.
To say we were disappointed is an understatement. With such positive feedback all summer from our potential buyers, we were pretty sure we would be out of the business by fall. Julie is already into some other projects, and I had been mentally filling my upcoming free time with family, travel, and assorted fun projects.
So...I'm fond of saying that what we're doing now is taking our lemons and "making lemonade". With sales on the increase, we're on course to have a fabulous holiday season, and all in all a banner year. We've always prided ourselves on being "gritty girls", so we put our disppointment behind us and dug our heels in for yet another holiday season. Being about a month behind (we usually begin mid-August) will be challenging. Fortunately, we've been through seven Christmas seasons, and have learned volumes along the way.
Last week we began streamlining our inventory and reconfiguring our facility to accommodate our current and holiday business. The store is upside down at the moment, but will be a fully functioning thing of beauty by the end of the week. And then we jump head first into the nitty gritty of holiday prep.
I have to say that twenty hour work days with hair-on-fire stress is not something we thought we'd be doing again this holiday season. But with increased sales, and half of our annual revenue coming in November and December, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to go for it and finish out the year.
And then there's "The Great Buck Howard". While it's still in "post production", you just never know.....we'll just have to wait and see where we are in January!

Emily Blunt

One of the baskets we sent to Los Angeles has found it's way to young up and coming actress Emily Blunt, most recently seen in "The Devil Wears Prada".

We received a phone call last week from Wendy Finerman Productions in LA. They had one of our gifts in their office, but the message card had gotten separated from the gift. They loved the basket, but weren't sure if it was meant for Ms. Finerman's birthday the previous week or if it was intended for someone else.

I did some detective work and discovered that we hadn't shipped anything directly to her, so it was probably one of the 20 gifts we sent out for "The Great Buck Howard" a few weeks ago. Wendy Finerman is a producer, with movies such as "Forrest Gump", "Sugar & Spice", "Drumline", "StepMom" and "The Devil Wears Prada" to her credit. I explained the situation with the gifts, and Wendy's assistant deduced that since Emily had just signed on to star in the movie that the gift was probably intended for her. Mystery solved!

I should say that I'm not really one to be star-struck. Thanks to one friend who works for a major record label and another who was a photographer for Modern Drummer, I spent some time back stage at more than a few big rock concerts when I was younger. After watching the members of a very famous hair band (well, it WAS the 80's) playing with remote control cars backstage, I concluded at a pretty young age that famous actors and musicians aren't much different from us....except for the fact that they're famous.

But - THIS whole story amazes me. I haven't completely accepted that our gifts and someone wearing our uniform will be appearing in a Tom Hanks movie. We also just shipped out 2 gift baskets that went directly to the set of one of the most popular shows on TV. I know it to be true, but it feels totally unreal.

My friend Laura made the comment that nothing is harder to digest than a big, fat slice of good luck - and I think she's right. We've been working so hard to make this business successful, and it's been an uphill battle. Having an opportunity this big seems pretty improbable. What's next - is Ashton Kutcher going to jump out and tell me that I've been Punk'd?

The Craziest Story....

Welcome to our blog!

A potentially life-changing opportunity has presented itself here in Basketland (aka the Syracuse Gift Basket Company). Now that my whirlwind trip to LA is out of the way, I thought I would share the odyssey of the last couple of weeks.

It began like any other day. I got to the store early to open up, and went through my usual routine - straightening up the showroom, turning the music on, and checking for online orders and phone messages. We had one message, which I played while I idly opened some mail. It was a woman with a charming southern accent, and it went something like this - "Hi, I'm looking for Julie Briggs. This is Tricia, and I do product placement for television shows and movies. We're working on a Tom Hanks movie that will start filming in a few weeks and we'd really like to put your gift baskets in it. Give me a call as soon as you can at....."

I cracked up, and then I replayed it. I thought for sure someone was playing a joke on us, but I didn't recognize the voice, so I took the numbers down and called her back. I left a message on her voicemail, and then pretty much forgot about it. I mean, really -- we're in Syracuse, NY. Not New York City.....Syracuse. This kind of thing isn't exactly normal here.

Later that day, Tricia called back. She gave us more details. The movie is called "The Great Buck Howard". Tom Hanks is producing and his son Colin Hanks is starring in it along with John Malkovich. Malkovich plays an aging illusionist/magician whose fame is declining. Hanks Jr. plays a boy who leaves law school against his father's (Hanks Sr) wishes to become his assistant. In the course of the movie they travel around the country as he tries to recapture his former glory..... and there is a gift basket in each hotel.

Tricia was given the task of finding a company willing to supply the gift baskets. She explained that product placement is big business these days. With TiVo becoming more popular, people aren't watching commercials anymore. Companies have to find other ways to show their products. She rattled off an impressive list of clients - Coke, General Mills, Krispy Kreme, and Harley Davidson, and an equally impressive list of tv shows and movies - Will & Grace, The 40 Year Old Virgin and ER, to name a few. Big companies pay big bucks for a good placement, but often it's just an exchange - the product traded for the placement. Sometimes a placement ends up on the cutting room floor, but in this case the gift baskets were actually in the script, so that wasn't likely. And the best part - they needed 2 of our "uniforms" because the delivery person will be handing Malkovich the gift. I laughed at the idea of uniforms (we're a little looser than that around here) but she said we could print up some t-shirts or aprons with our name and logo on them. She mentioned that while gift baskets are certainly used to thank people involved in a movie, it's pretty unusual that they are actually required in a script.

I told her we were interested, but I still didn't really believe it. She promised to email me the details. Tricia sounded legitimate but the whole story seemed completely improbable. She mentioned that she found us online and loved our site - but the last time I checked, our site wasn't showing up anywhere other than in local searches. I typed in a few key words and was SHOCKED to discover that we are number 1 on page 1 for "gift basket companies" (!!!), page 2 for "gift basket" and page 6 for "gift baskets". We redesigned our website a few months ago and while it certainly looks better, I didn't think we were doing anything differently to improve our ranking with the search engines. I do know how important SEO is, but I really haven't had time to focus on it. It dawned on me that with our new ranking, someone could easily find us that way.


Friday, July 14 - Call me Nancy Drew

I began doing online research like my life depended on it. I found plenty of sites mentioning the movie, and it all matched the information she had given me. I Googled Tricia and the company she was working with. Both were listed in various industry directories and they didn't look like a fly by night operation. I felt a little silly, but I called the LA office to verify that they knew Tricia, and they confirmed that they did a lot of work with her. I also called Walden Media,the company making the film. They connected me to the voice mail for Jeff Gross, the production coordinator for the movie. I left him a detailed message, but I didn't really expect to hear back from him.

By this time, we're monitoring the email like hawks. It all seemed a little too good to be true, so we're waiting for the other shoe to drop - she probably wants big bucks for this, right? The email arrived with the details - the outline of the plot, the stars, and shooting schedule. They would like 20 gift baskets delivered to their LA office by July 28 at the very latest. But no financial details. I anxiously fired an email back asking about it, and to our relief she responded that this was just trade for the placement, mainly because the script actually required it. Whooo-hooo-hoooooo!!!!!

Saturday and Sunday

I came in on Saturday to a message from Jeff Gross. He said that everything sounded right, but he would be happy to talk to us more and he left his direct phone number. He sounded a little mystified as to why we were asking.

We are now in major freak-out mode.....but there is no time to dwell because we have to wrap and prepare a 100 piece corporate order for delivery on Monday. Buck Howard will just have to wait.


Monday, July 17 - You think this is easy?

It's the hottest day of the summer, and we're sending out 100 gift baskets filled with chocolate. Once they are all out the door, we turn our attention back to "the project".

At first glance, it appears to be easy. 20 different gift baskets aren't really a big deal, but they have be gifts that a man would typically get while visiting a hotel - which means ready to eat food. Since we're shipping these across the country and we're experiencing a record heat wave we can't include anything perishable. That eliminates chocolate, fruit, or cheese. We're down to cookies, crackers, sausage, pretzels, mustard and other spreads, chips, smoked salmon, hard candy and beverages. New York state does not allow gift basket companies to buy and resell alcohol, so that's out too. While we're not actually selling these, it's a gray area and I didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression. Tricia wanted the gifts to be "medium to large, but not overwhelming". It was much more challanging than you'd think.

We started by going through our inventory and pulling containers that we thought would work, and any products that fit the criteria. The containers ended up dictating the style and contents of the basket - the rustic grapevine basket was filled rugged "guy snacks", the wicker suitcase became an elegant picnic basket design, the red metal tub was filled with chips and salsa, etc. We did have to go out and buy some containers and product locally to get the variety we needed within the strict parameters we were working with.

Monday, July 17 - The Suckalator and the Shrink-Wrap

The other issue we're struggling with is how to ensure that these gifts not only survive the trip across the country, but look perfect and are able to withstand being handled for the 8-12 weeks of shooting. We ship gift baskets all over the world, but we've always vacuum packed them. We cover the bow with a styrofoam bowl, slide a clear plastic bag around the gift and suck the air out with a small shop-vac (affectionately known as the Suckalator). It's not really intended to look nice, just to make sure that the recipient gets the gift in good condition. I've never been a big fan of shrink wrap, because I think it usually looks like one of those embarrassing pre-fab gifts from a warehouse store, complete with stick on bow. I purchased a heat gun and some film last year to experiment with, but I never really did anything with it. Luckily, I came across an article in Gift Basket Review that showed how to shrink wrap gift baskets and then top them with cellophane and other enhancements. You get the security of the shrink wrap with the custom look of a cellophane wrap. Time to learn a new skill!

We started looking into flying to LA, but flights out of Syracuse were fairly expensive, and then I'd have to think about a hotel when I got there, and rent a large vehicle to make the delivery. On 2 weeks notice (and on top of what we were spending on the gifts), it was more than we could afford. My mother emailed her brother Mitch, who lives in San Diego to see if I could stay with his family. Mitch owns a sound and light company, Special Event Audio Services, and he's pretty familiar with LA. He called back immediately - not only could I stay with him, but he had tons of frequent flyer miles and would be happy to send me a ticket, and help me with the delivery. Have I mentioned how much I adore my uncle Mitch?


Wednesay, July 19 - The roller coaster

Our plan began to take shape. We would UPS the gifts 3-Day Select on Friday to Mitch's house, hopefully to arrive on Tuesday. My ticket was with Southwest airlines, which unfortunately doesn't fly out of Syracuse. I would leave Syracuse around noon on Tuesday to fly out of Buffalo. The plan was to arrive in San Diego around 9pm on Tuesday, get some sleep and work on the gifts all day Wednesday. On Thursday we would pack them up and deliver them to the North Hollywood office and then I would leave out of LAX. I would have liked to stay longer and do some sightseeing, but between being a single mom and trying to run a business, I just couldn't be away very long on such short notice. I knew the schedule was going to be brutal, but this was an opportunity of a lifetime.

Or was it? As this was unfolding, we told various friends and family members what was going on. At least half of them were convinced that it was a scam, despite all the corroborating evidence I found (although at this point, it made even less sense as a scam than as a real opportunity). Almost nobody believed that they would pick a company from Syracuse. Part of me agreed - it did sound crazy, and it's not like there aren't gift basket companies in California. We are very good at what we do, but there are lots of other companies who produce beautiful gifts. I finally asked Tricia how she happened to pick us. She said she did a search online and wanted to find someone with a very classy looking website. She found us and a company in Canada, but ultimately she picked us. We do have a totally custom designed site, created by our fabulous graphic artist friend Amy Isca. We're unusual in the gift basket industry, because even many of the large companies have their sites built with templates. Our long time webmaster Marie Williams did the technical work.

Even so, we were alternating between being totally thrilled and excited and being sure that it was a big fat joke. Every single day we had someone telling us that were stupid and naive to believe it could be true. We were scrambling to get the gifts finished and ready to ship, and keep up on our normal business. If this was real, it could potentially change EVERYTHING in our business. I'm pretty good at local PR, but this would give us exposure on a national level. I could submit this to Inc and Entrepreneur, my favorite business magazines! Or, we could be a laughingstock for believing that such an incredible opportunity might come our way. At the end of every day we were emotionally drained and completely exhausted.


Thursday, July 20 - Tick-tock, Tick-tock....

I'm trying to teach myself how to shrink-wrap, which is an exercise is frustration. I'm sure if I had someone to show me it would be easier, but as it stands I'm burning holes through the film, and the end result is not pretty. Time is running out - they have to ship tomorrow!


Friday, July 21 - BLUE aprons???

We completed the last gift basket early this morning, and I spent the entire day packing everything up. 20 gifts plus my supplies, ribbon and cellophane. Everything is out - HURRAY!!!

Our first big glitch - the aprons we ordered have come in, and they're kind of ugly. Aprons come in limited colors, but the color we picked looked pretty close to the sage green we wanted. The colors of our website are shades of green and deep plum, and the apron needed to match that. Unfortunately, when it arrived it was steel blue. I hate blue. It meant that the embroidery couldn't be plum, it had to be burgundy. And there wasn't time to get the exact artwork digitized, so the font wasn't right either. We compromised on everything, and the end result was just bad. It was a nice quality apron and you could easily read our name, but it didn't remotely resemble our corporate identity.

On to Plan B - my mother ran out to Joann Fabrics and found the right color material and sewed 2 new aprons. We were trying to figure out what to do about the logo and lettering, when Amy suggested iron-on transfer paper. Done and done! I would have preferred embroidery, but there just wasn't time.

In the meantime, we have 70 gifts that need to be delivered to the Turning Stone Casino on Sunday, and we've been pushing those to the back burner because of this project. We've got one day to finish them up, and then I can focus on my trip.


Tuesday, July 25 - My visit to hell

The big day finally arrives! I left around 1:00 to head out to Buffalo, which is about 2 1/2 hours away and I boarded a plane for my 4 hour flight to Phoenix. I read a couple of great books on the way out - "Buzzmarketing" by Mark Hughes and the new Janet Evanovich novel. Have you ever read Evanovich in public? Her books are hysterically funny and more than once I was in danger of Diet Coke coming out of my nose because I was trying to not to laugh out loud.

The plane taking us to San Diego was late, and when it arrived the crew was trying to hustle us onboard quickly because a thunderstorm was rapidly approaching the airport. It hit just about the time everyone was buckled in, so we had to wait. They kept telling us "5 more minutes", but we ended up sitting there for a couple of hours in the packed sweaty airplane. They took drink orders, but wouldn't serve them... they probably had visions of a plane full of drunk and unruly passengers banding together for a mutiny. Finally, they decided that we couldn't take off after all. Lightening was touching down close to the airport, so we would have to stay in Phoenix.

Everyone trooped back into the terminal to stand in line and try to re-book a flight. Since only 2 employees were working the desk, you can imagine how long this took. Finally, another employee came around to assure us that we would be put up in a hotel for the night - the catch was that we had to wait in the line for the voucher. (It occurs to me that the sexy, high-heeled sandals I'm wearing might not have been the best choice. I didn't really plan on being on my feet, and by now it feels like I'm walking on razer blades) Most of us booked another flight on our cell-phones or laptops while we were waiting and I was able to get the first flight out in the morning at 6:15am.

It was after midnight by the time I picked up the voucher and made it downstairs to find the shuttle to the hotel. There were virtually no employees in the airport at that hour, and I wasn't sure where to wait. I befriended 2 other girls who were also traveling alone, and together we tried to figure where we needed to be. After getting 3 conflicting answers to our question, we happened to see the shuttle just as it loaded up and closed the doors. They sent a mini-van (seats about 10) to pick up the 100+ passengers on the cancelled flight, but the driver assured us that he would be right back. As we sat in the stifling heat, we decided that if we didn't make it on the next shuttle that we would split a cab. At this point, I've been up for 24 hours and I've been traveling for 12. I'm in a strange city. My bags are cutting dents into my shoulders. I'm exhausted and hot and I'm pretty sure I smell bad. I'm in hell and it looks a lot like the Phoenix airport.

At 1:45 am I'm finally checked into the hotel. I have to catch the 4am shuttle back, so I get to sleep for an hour and take a shower. I'm so tired that I'm actually hallucinating, but the shower did me a world of good. Onward and upward.


Wednesday, July 26 - West Coast branch of SGB

Back to the airport, where I'm singled out for the extra-special pat down and bag search. Perfect. Maybe I'm more menacing looking than I thought after my ordeal yesterday.

Luckily, I got to San Diego without incident and my uncle arrived to pick me up minutes after I got to the curb. I've never been so glad to see anyone. We loaded up the car and headed to his house in Oceanside. The mountain of boxes containing the gift baskets had arrived and were piled up outside the door. So far, so good.

I set up shop in their kitchen, opening the gifts one at at time. Everything arrived intact, but for some reason the shrink wrap had loosened up and in some cases ripped. I think I'm missing some of the finer points of this, but at least nothing broke. I re-shrink everything and finished the gifts with cellophane and a fresh bow. I completed the project at about 5:30pm, but it wasn't the gifts that were time consuming - it was dealing with all the packing peanuts and bubble wrap. I didn't think to pack our super-size trash bags, so spent a good part of the day trying to empty large boxes of peanuts into kitchen sized trash bags. We've got to find a better alternative to these stupid things - they are the bane of my existance.

My aunt was a great sport about giving up her house to me, although she did mention that the kitchen is her least favorite place anyway... lucky for me. We grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and I crashed shortly afterwards. I don't normally sleep well in strange places, but I slept like the dead.

Thursday, July 27 - It's not a scam!

The moment of truth! We load up the SUV and head out to LA. It's about a 2 hour drive, depending on traffic. It took a bit longer than that, and we arrived around 1. We met Wendy, the office administrator with a delightful English accent, Tony the president, and the rest of the crew. Jeff Gross from Walden Media was there too (thankfully, he didn't bring up my bizarre phone call from the week before). They couldn't have been nicer, and they LOVED the gifts! They helped us unload the truck and gave us a tour of the facility. It was packed to the ceiling with products from companies they represent - Coke everywhere, General Mills products, a Lotus, a new Harley Davidson, and all kinds of interesting stuff.Tony explained more about how product placement works, which was pretty fascinating. There were piles of scripts that they go through to find good spots for their products and a room where they watch the tapes of the finished movie to see how many placements end up in the final version. We chatted for a while, and although they don't get a huge call for gift baskets in movies, he thought we might be able to do more work together. He explained that he tries to make his company a one stop shop for anything a production coordinator might need for a movie or television show.

Jeff told me that they would probably only need 13 or 14 of the gifts for the movie, but would it be alright it they presented the others to the stars and the director? Are you kidding me? No problem! Jeff pulled aside the ones he liked the best, and luckily they were the same ones I would have chosen. He seemed impressed that I went to the trouble to fly out there (or possibly he just thought I was an idiot.... but I'm going with Option A)

We didn't stay long, since I had to get to the airport, but Tony promised that he would send us still shots in the next few weeks. How cool is that? The only glitch was the labels - our gold labels have our business name and our phone number on them, but you're not allowed to put real phone numbers on tv or in a movie. The aprons were bothering me, too. the transfer looked okay from a distance, but if the light hit it correctly there was a little glare. I was worried that it looked cheesy. My uncle pointed out that the apron was arguably the most important component of all this. The delivery person wearing it is supposed to say, "You have a delivery from the Syracuse Gift Basket Company" when he hands the gift to John Malkovich, so it's pretty key. I'm trying to figure out how to correct this by Monday.

I got home without problems, thank God. I ended up sitting next to Dave who is a VP at Rosa's Furniture of Buffalo, and Susan who owns 3 Gloria Jean's coffee shop franchises in California. We had a pretty lively discussion about entrepreurship, marketing, and competing against the Evil Empire (an unnamed upstate NY furniture company and the coffee chain bent on taking over the world ). The flight went by quickly, thanks to my seat mates, but I still had to drive back to Syracuse when we got in to Buffalo at 1:30 am. You know what? It almost didn't matter. I had a huge grin on my face the whole way.


Friday, July 28 - Loose Ends

I rolled into my driveway around 4:30 this morning thanks to a construction detour off the Thruway, and I could have easily slept through the day - except that I had to solve the label and apron problem. Once again, Amy Isca (I might start referring to her as "Wonder Woman") came through in the pinch. She quickly created a design without our phone number or website address to fit on standard 2" x 4" labels. I printed them up on our computer and overnighted them to Jeff.

The aprons were a little trickier. We made some phone calls and found someone willing to do the embroidery QUICKLY. Tim over at EmbroidMe said that if we got the aprons to him by Saturday morning, he could have them done on Monday. So, my mother went back to Joann Fabrics and got more material to make 2 more aprons. Problem solved!

Monday, July 31 - Murphy's Law

Murphys Law -- my mother planned to sew the aprons on Friday after work so she could drop them off bright and early on Saturday morning, but she was mandated to work overnight at the hospital. She raced home after work and stitched up 2 new aprons and ran them the over to EmbroidMe by mid-morning on Saturday.

Tim and his crew saved the day! The aprons were finished by 11:30am and they look fantastic, much more professional than our iron-on transfers. I picked them up and sent them out Overnight to Jeff at Walden Media. Whew!

Well, we've done everything we can do. Filming starts today, and hopefully we'll have some still shots of our baskets in the next few weeks. Our fate is in the hands of the Movie Gods (and Jeff Gross). We know anything can happen....and it usually does.