Adventures in Film
Aug. 7th, 2011 07:22 amBut about the time I was looking into Final Cut, I was also starting law school and not taking vacations that were really movie-worthy any more. And around this time, I started watching Buffy. I think I watched every episode about 3 times - once for the story, once to enjoy the themes ans structure, and usually by the third time, I was appreciating camera angles and transitions and staging and so on. The whole experience made me realize that I had about zero interest in being an actor but that I would love the work involved in making a movie.
Does anyone remember Project Greenlight with Ben Affleck? I loved that show. But having kids and relationship stress dramatically shifted my interests and priorities in the last few years. Plus actually being a lawyer usually meant that work was challenging enough that work plus the kids took up any energy I had.
On a separate note, I've been watching SPN a lot lately (I had started S1 in January and then got bogged down in S3, I think.) and, because Buffistas have spicy brains, I've also been reading through the 14,000+ posts in the SPN thread since the beginning on S5. Which means that I have been dipping my toes some into the behind the scenes stuff of TV again - watching con videos and listening to the actors and writers discuss their craft.
All of that is introduction to say that I filmed a commercial for my law firm on Friday. (I should add here that I live in a small down and the commercial will air on Univision so it really was not that expensive.) The commercial is, of course, 30 seconds. Nothing, right? We had one camerman/producer, the account/network person, me and my paralegal. The entire thing was so nerve wracking!
To cut myself a little slack, I know a huge part of my particular problem was that it was in Spanish which is hard for me to memorize in. But still, I realized today that regardless of any behind the camera interest I might have, I DO NOT have the personality of an actor. I just am way too self-conscious. I was supposed to be pretending to talk on the phone and during the first take, I realized that I was making stupid faces because I was pretending. So on the second take, I tried to focus on an actual conversation but I still felt excessively animated. I think maybe I got it on the third take. And then I had to actually say a couple of lines and it was so hard to remember what to say and smile and have my arms int he right place, etc. And at the end, J and I said something together and one would screw up and then the other one would and so on. I think we got it after 2-3 takes, but still, the whole thing was stressful.
After we were all done, I insisted on going and having a nicer than normal lunch because I was just worn out. From a 30 second commercial. So if I ever leave the law business and become a documentary film maker, it will be strictly behind the camera!