BY DANIEL BAIG | The email I got from the Warner Brothers publicist said we were all to meet at 10:30, although I realized when I got to the Los Angeles Center Studios in downtown L.A. (really Downtown; I felt pretty ignorant when I saw the place, because I had had no idea that there was this huge studio complex right in the heart of the city. I had thought all the working facility studios ((i.e. not just offices, but soundstages, etc.)) were in perimeter areas like Burbank, Glendale, Universal City, Century City, Culver City, and Hollywood) last Saturday morning that these instructions hadnt said exactly where we were supposed to do that.

They had, however, added this injunction and word of caution: Please [do] not arrive early and try to go to the set without the group - - it won't happen this time. (Apparently, I was guessing, on a previous visit to the set, which I had not been a part of, some of the invited reporters had tried to do some snooping around on their own.)

That part of the email seemed pretty clear.

But.

I got there  there meaning the very large, white, empty, and quite grubby-looking lobby of what could have been an office building that had seen better days (i.e. in the 70s, or maybe event the 60s) I found myself in when I stepped out of the elevator from the parking garage  at 10:35. And, other than the security guard behind the counter in front of me, there was no one there. So I waited for a while.

But then I began to get worried. I was five minutes late, after all, and maybe the others had all been on time and the group had already headed on over to the set! I asked the friendly but not terribly knowledgeable security guard if a bunch of people had perhaps already asked him which way the Terminator 3 set was, etc. He said, Yeah, lots of people.

Eek!

The guard told me which direction to head for the T3 shoot, and off I went (reflecting that I hadnt actually signed in like I was probably supposed to; oh well; I guess the security guard could tell I wasnt a terrorist). Passing a catering truck and then trailer after trailer after trailer after trailer after trailer . . . (one, I saw, was a wardrobe trailer; the rest were closed mysteries), I soon realized I had no idea where I was going. I asked somebody if they could tell me where Sheryl Main, the unit publicist (the person who was going to be taking us around) was. They told me she should be on the set, which they directed me towards.

I walked in a doorway, and sure enough, I was on the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines set. Perhaps I shouldnt say the set; a movie like this is of course filmed in a number of locations, and even probably on a lot of different soundstages. But, this morning, this large soundstage I had just entered was indeed for all intents and purposes the T3 set. Especially because this was the second-to-last day of shooting. They werent going to be building any more sets. Off in the distance I could see the actual part of  or at least the wooden back walls of  the set where the filming was, or would be, taking place. Right now a bunch of people seemed to be working on one of the fake walls which had a big jagged hole in it, as if made by an explosion, or a cannonball going through it. There were so many folks milling around all over the place that, though I got a lot of uncurious glances, nobody really questioned my presence. I tried looking for somebody who looked like a publicist, but everybody just looked like a technician/carpenter/etc. I also tried to make it clear by my manner that I was looking for someone  I was there for a legitimate reason , and wasnt some spy trying to check out the production.

It struck me that the situation was a little ironic: we had been told not to try and sneak on the set by ourselves (and that it wouldnt happen anyway!). And I was totally fine with that. I didnt want to break any rules. I felt quite privileged to have been offered this opportunity, and was grateful to see whatever they felt like showing us; I didnt need to do any illicit independent exploring. And yet here I was, doing exactly that! But only out of the best intentions  I was looking for the official tour guide! But once it occurred to me that I now was in the position where I was doing what we had been specifically warned not to do, I felt guilty, and so left the set. There didnt seem to be anyone like a publicist there, anyway, and certainly not a small group of reporters being led around, at least that I could see. And it was actually pretty dull in there at the moment anyway!

Back outside in the glaring hot sun (Los Angeles had/has been having some really unpleasantly warm weather recently), I asked someone else where I might be able to find Sheryl Main. This new person told me that she had just seen her in the production offices, which she gave me fairly complicated directions for how to get to, which started by finding a door hidden behind a trailer, and also involved escalators that have apparently never worked, at least not since weve been here.

After I found the hidden door, which I did indeed only find after I had squeezed between the back of a trailer and the wall of the building it was located next to  Can this be right? I was thinking. This must be the back entrance.  I stepped into what from the outside looked like an ordinary five-floor office building.

Inside, though, it was a much more dramatic extension of the theme first introduced by the lobby of the parking garage building  A place where time had stood still!! (since the 60s or 70s). Walls from which the paint had peeled away. Cracked and warped and water damaged floors. A general sense of decay. And only three colors to see  the white of the walls, ceiling, and floor, the black of the dirt on them, and the cold gray metal of the only visible way up, the forever frozen escalators. Again, the thought flitted through my head  This cant be right! Except it did match the directions I had been given. So up I charged the very steep, rather dangerous  since every step was at a different distance from the one before it than the next, and a different length as well  silver stairs.

I turned a corner into a hallway. Here, the dicor was different. Shabby dark brown carpeting and fake wood-paneled walls. I passed an open doorway, through which I could see a dirty, messy office about the size of a dentists waiting room. A piece of paper was taped to the door; handwritten on it was York Square Production Offices (York Square is the code name that was used by the T3 production), and an arrow pointing further down the hall. So I headed further down the hall  only to find nothing else but restrooms and then a dead-end. Huh? I thought. The sign was definitely pointing down the hall. But there had been no more open doors. Was it a trick? I headed back to the tiny office. Now really, really, REALLY, THIS cant be right. This dingy little room? But it was the only possibility  the only open door, and the only place with people. I stepped in. Framed posters lay on the floor, leaning against a wall. Folders were scattered about. Junk covered parts of the floor and a desk. Behind another desk, a young guy looked up at me. From a room in the back  the office wasnt as small as it had seemed from the hallway  someone came out, started to walk down an interior hallway to another room, but then stepped backwards to also look at me.

Uh, is this the production office? I inquired.

Yes.

Is [my contact's name] here?

She was. You just missed her.

Oh, man. First they told me the set, then here  

Are you one of the reporters?

Yeah.

Werent you all supposed to wait together at the entrance for her?

Yeah, but I was late and nobody was there. But I guess Ill head back that way now.

Easier said than done.

Because somehow, in my hurry, I didnt go back exactly the way I came in, and I found myself lost in the eerily empty bowels of the building. I must have either gone down too many flights of the broken escalator, or gone down a different set of broken escalators. (Thats what I get for running on escalators!)

It was almost a little scary down there. Pounding down the metal steps, feeling like I was going to trip at any moment because of their unevenness, it suddenly struck me that right then I was in my own Terminator movie, or at least some post-apocalyptic nightmare flick. Because other than my footfalls, the escalator well I was running up and down (up as well as down because I was trying to find a way out) was utterly silent and empty, only lit by flickering fluorescent lights, and looking like it was still displaying earthquake damage from a decade ago. Was a T-whatever about to turn around the corner below me, stepping off the lower flight of escalator I couldnt see because of the wall between them? Or maybe a zombie? Because I really felt at that moment I could have been trapped in the ruined Los Angeles of The Omega Man, with flesh-eating living dead hunting for me.

But finally I found an exit, and made my way back into the welcoming sunshine. I sprinted back to the parking garage building, heading through the dusty space-age lobby, and found, right in front of the elevator bank and the security counter, the Warner Brothers representative who had arranged this whole expedition, along with five geeky fanboy journalists, some of whom I knew, or at least recognized, from previous occasions. The WB gal, talking on the phone which rested on the security counter, saw me and said to whomever she was speaking to, Oh  never mind. Daniels here now. He came back on his own.

I imagined I felt everyone glaring at me. I apologized, explaining that I had thought I had missed them, so I went looking for them, etc. But it turned out it was okay, because they were still waiting for another reporter, who, if she ever showed, would be the only female among us who wasnt a publicist.

Eventually, though, after quite some time, we gave up on her (she ended up joining us later on in the day) and headed back outside, in the direction I had just come from. The Warners rep said we were supposed to meet the unit publicist by the catering truck, wherever that is. I was very happy to be able to lead the way, putting the knowledge I had acquired during my little misadventure to some use.

NEXT: The mysteries of Crystal Peak, and a visit with the big man himself!