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The economy’s tanked, forget it; your 401(k) is worth oh, about S.O.L.(k), and in the time it’ll take you to read this, hundreds if not thousands more American jobs will have evaporated into the ether. The only people who are safe are the dime-a-dozen "experts" on cable TV, bitching and moaning. Even General Motors has been reduced to standing on Wall Street with a tin cup…but turn that frown upside down, sunshine, since this New York! And New Yorkers are resilient! Probably necessarily so since the rest of the country loathes us. Anyway, New York is the capital of bizarre jobs, jobs that are inexplicable, jobs that don’t pay the bills, but are weird and interesting enough to make them irrestible in a train-wreck kind of way. This column is about one of those “jobs.”
What with all the bad news, and the fact that my cats refuse to get a damn j-o-b, when my dear friend Rori invited me to participate in an infomercial that her company was shooting, how could I say no? The product being sold was a new pain relieving spray for joints and muscles, developed by RKP’s TV pitchman/ media sensation overload. How can I describe him without receiving a subpoena from Jacoby & Meyers?[i] Hmm, let’s just say, that like our incoming 44th President, he’s um “evenly-tanned.[ii]” The commercial would be shot in a gym, so I’d have the chance to show off my abs. And make gelt. Primarily however, I’d have the chance to show off my abs. Holla!
Therefore, this past Friday I went to the location, a redonkously snotty private gym on Broadway, near Canal Street; the sort of gym aimed at wealthy people who don’t really want to work out, but do enjoy having a chi-chi spa to visit for those overpriced blueberry & acai smoothies. The shoot was supposed to start at noon, but considering TV time is akin to Jewrican time, I didn’t anticipate that we’d start anytime before 1:00pm even at the earliest. And I was right.
There were about five models—four girls, and two guys—and two camera crews, except the other crew was simultaneously shooting a work-out informercial with another hostess (six-pack abs, faux significant tramp-stamp etc.), so we really just had one producer & one cameraman to shoot six testimonials and the accompany footage (i.e. b-roll). In 3 hours. TV people reading this are rolling their eyes and giggling because the basic rule of TV—well, besides the other basic rule that says your boss in TV is always an idiot who doesn’t know what NPR stands for, or is pretty sure that Alaska isn’t a state, or wonders if it was the Civil War or the Vietnam War which came first, and yet this person makes more money than you do, not that you’re bitter. Nope, not at all. Just that your damn cat could read the Tele-Prompter with more verve and panache.—is that everything always takes far longer than it should.
So for example, by the time, “Sean” the harried producer got around to me—my pain was going to be in my neck and knees—it was almost 3pm. And we had to do numerous takes to include the word “mobility.” Also, the bottle of pain relieving spray was a proto-type, so whenever you touched it, it would leave sticky residue all over your hands. And this did not include the spray itself which went on crinkly (does that make sense?), and then was cold, then burning, and finally smelled overpoweringly of menthol. Yummy! Let me just rub a pack of Kools on my joints after I work out: oooh, alive with pleasure!
Sean had me do repeated takes exploring how putting this mentholated mess on my knees and neck before and after my hard-core work-outs had taken all the zeitgeist out of my life…and then when it time for my b-roll shoot, he had me put it on my…elbow. Say what? The cameraman and I did the canine-approved head tilt: baroo?
I reminded Sean, “But my testimonial was about my knees and neck…” And he replied, “Don’t worry; I’ll make it work in post.” Right. Post-production of course only being as good as WHAT. YOU. HAVE. ALREADY SHOT. YOU TWIT. So will bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, animated chipmunks and fawns and a salt & pepper set with an adorable Cockney accent sing and dance their way through your editing suite and into your heart… and then go out and re-shoot the entire damn informercial for you?
Because, gang, part of being a comptent field producer is seeing the big picture, especially from the POV of the viewer at home. Thus, if you have one person ostensibly doing abdominal crunches, and then someone sitting right behind them, in the shot, on an exercise bike and NOT pedaling…it will be immediately noticeable when you’re editing. And by then, it’s too late. You can effect the s**t out of it, but that only goes so far. Post-production solves nothing.
Rori and I looked at each other and mentally shrugged: we both have ten plus years of experience in “news you can use”, so hell, not our problem. I would get paid no matter where, and even if, this hot mess of an informercial aired.[iii] But it was nice to realize that despite what my former and soon-to-be-bankrupt employer said during one particularly unpleasant fight—Hi, ML, can’t wait to see you at the LA Auto Show!—I wasn’t the world’s worst producer. On the contrary, the competition for that title would remain fierce.
I joking said to Rori, as I went to the pretentious spa’s pretentious locker rooms to change, “Oh, hey, you’re making me a little bit nostalgic for TV.” Rori chortled, “Oh am I? Then I must not be doing my job.”
For more info: Much love, respect and extra potent Mojitos to RKP for being such a good friend & sport! Who loves ya, kid?
[i] I wouldn’t even bother suing me. My law school debt is more than the GDP of some of the smaller African countries. After three years in Hoosier hell, all I really have left is my winning personality…oh, and the cats.
[ii] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on President-Elect Obama.
[iii] I suspect that if this particular informercial does ever see the light of day, it will be in a part of the world that speaks Urdu or Chinese. Or even that language where all they do is click.
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