life of andyman

Well, I haven’t posted in about a month which is when I’m supposed to force myself to do it. I can’t say that I feel I have much to report?

I suppose I can tell a few tales, however.

First of all, last week I got to go on an Armed and Famous shoot, marking triumphantly my first notable experience with anyone whom you could consider “celebrity”. My judgment of my first celebrities is as follows: mixed reviews!

The show began airing last week, Wednesday, and the day before, they were doing what they called a “satellite media tour.” We set up our cameras and a whole bunch of lighting and stuff in a Muncie police garage. In the background of the shot was an out-of-comission police cruiser. I was disappointed to learn that it had no laptop or any notable coolness inside–I investigated. There was also a “Mobile Command Unit” RV. I thought, surely this will have cool gizmos inside!–but alas, I could see no discernible difference between the inside of the RV and any other RV–it had a kitchenette, mini-fridge, and bathroom–except a ordinary, possibly broken office phone.

Once our cameras were set up, we ran a video feed all across the garage, outisde, and accross half the parking lot to a WISH-TV satellite van. This was far more impressive than the “Mobile Kitchenette Unit”. The van had a producer inside (not my company) who had set up an elaborate media tour. The satellite van sent the video signal to New York, and other people in New York, I’m told, would forward the signal to different news shows accross the country. They would play during the, like, “entertainment” portion of the news, and every five minutes we would put up a different piece of paper that said, “WKZS Boston – AMY and TOM” or “KTPB Portland – MIKE DAWSON” or “KLST Dallas – ASHLEY and ANNE”. These papers were for the celebrities so that they would know who to say “hi” to when they were answering the questions.

We were supposed to begin filming at 10:30. Our “talent” was Eric Estrada of Chips and Jack Osbourne of the Osbournes. Jack showed up around ten, went into the Mobile Kitchenette Unit and made popcorn. This fit in nicely with my opinion of the large, expensive-looking vehicle. I had a few words with Jack and he was friendly and very normal.

In fact, throughout the day, Jack would seem very friendly and normal. Eric Estrada seemed exactly like he always is–on or off camera, he was the same: a little melodramatic, and seemed a bit shallow when he talked about how serious things were. Jack, on the other hand, I could have easily imagined hanging out with. At one point when Eric was complaining about the long hours they were asking them to work recently, Jack tried to calm him saying, “We’re almost done with the shooting, so they must have found some things they were missing. I’m sure they wouldn’t ask us to work if they didn’t need it, so we should just do it.” More or less. He was 21 years old. During one interview he said that when the Osbournes was filmed, he was 15-16, and that no one is normal or competent at that age.

So the actors had little earpieces in their ears from which they could hear Amy or Tom or Mike or Ashley from wherever they were doing the news. Every five minutes or so, it would be a different station. The implications of the precise timing required to go live to a different station across the country every five minutes was very impressive to me.

During the actual shooting, my job was to change the pieces of paper that had the station’s name and anchors on it.

* * *

Morgan left for Ireland last week. She’s been gone a week today, and I miss her terribly. I plan to visit her in March, but I’m disappointed that she will have to attend classes while I visit.

I’ve been enjoying very much my time with Caseykeith in Noblesville. We both got memberships to Climb Time, and in the 10 days I’ve been a member, I’ve climbed 4 times. My hands are beginning to develop blisters, but, finally having become comfortable with talking to strangers, I’ve climbed with 4 new people who I hope to see again: Jesse, Alicia, Robbie, and Chris. I want Caseykeith to meet Alicia–I bet he has a crush on her; I think she’s his type.

Today I signed a paper for my video internship to become an official job. I get $12/hour, $18 for any overtime, 7 paid holidays, 2 weeks paid vacation, $75/month for health insurance. There is clauses for recieving $1.50 raise once I learn a few skills, and honestly, I think I could learn those skills in 2 months or less. Today I designed storyboards for a DVD’s intro video. I was quite proud of it. Additionally, I successfully used Adobe After Effects for the first time today–it was really cool; the things you could potentially do with program are both exciting and daunting. Because it has so many options, it’s easy to make so many mistakes.

I decided sometime in the near future to have a spaghetti dinner and board games party. Date TBA.

And THAT’S the end of the post! Seee yooou.