edjucated burrito
yesterday i shot a promo for the learning channel. they are doing a special on magic, i think. it was all improvised (they're tag is life unscripted), so i never saw a script. me and this guy jody sat on a couch and did magic for each other. i showed him the rubber pencil trick.
"oh look, what's this? a normal #2 pencil? or a paranormal #2 pencil? look it's rubber. it's a rubber pencil. check it out. made of rubber."
suddenly, jody knocked it from my hand.
"yo, why you gotta illusion hate?"
later, jody did the magic thumb. repeatedly, he disconnected then reconnected his thumb from his hand. just when i thought it was gone for good, he pulled the thumb from my nose. i was astounded.
much later, these two characters were still at it. only now, we had a girl named tristan. and a big box. we tried to get her into the box. i promised her i could make her disappear. she wouldn't do it. as an incentive, jody clumsily pulled a bouquet of flowers from his armpit. tristan still wouldn't bite. in fact, she left the room. voir la! "i told you i could make her disappear."
this was late in the day. they wanted to wrap by 7:30, which by this time it was. and they needed reaction shots from tristan. there was 30 feet of film left. that's about 15 seconds worth. somehow we got 30 seconds of reactions from 15 seconds of film...magic.
spoiler: the box was a real disappearing act box, too. i'll tell you what i learned on this learning channel shoot. there's a false bottom to the box. only it isn't on the bottom. there really isn't a bottom. it's a fixed flap on the side. so when decepto turns it over for you to see, the girl is behind that same flap.
"oh look, what's this? a normal #2 pencil? or a paranormal #2 pencil? look it's rubber. it's a rubber pencil. check it out. made of rubber."
suddenly, jody knocked it from my hand.
"yo, why you gotta illusion hate?"
later, jody did the magic thumb. repeatedly, he disconnected then reconnected his thumb from his hand. just when i thought it was gone for good, he pulled the thumb from my nose. i was astounded.
much later, these two characters were still at it. only now, we had a girl named tristan. and a big box. we tried to get her into the box. i promised her i could make her disappear. she wouldn't do it. as an incentive, jody clumsily pulled a bouquet of flowers from his armpit. tristan still wouldn't bite. in fact, she left the room. voir la! "i told you i could make her disappear."
this was late in the day. they wanted to wrap by 7:30, which by this time it was. and they needed reaction shots from tristan. there was 30 feet of film left. that's about 15 seconds worth. somehow we got 30 seconds of reactions from 15 seconds of film...magic.
spoiler: the box was a real disappearing act box, too. i'll tell you what i learned on this learning channel shoot. there's a false bottom to the box. only it isn't on the bottom. there really isn't a bottom. it's a fixed flap on the side. so when decepto turns it over for you to see, the girl is behind that same flap.
posted by ablebody at 10:56 AM
3 Comments:
I always wondered what a shoot like that was like. Are the cameramen and people in the room as receptive as frozen lizards, do they stifle a laugh, do they look at you wondering how much they could get for your individual body parts on the black market, do they create a support-vaccuum?
-Kobyrama
on this particular shoot, we made the DP laugh, which is hard cause they've seen it all, and is bad cause when they laugh it shakes the camera. the director and 1st AD (asst. director) were a dynamic creative team, plucking out the unnecessary words, and keeping the laugh lines. this is unusual. most of the time the ad agency and the client do all the talking and the director echoes their requests. after all, they're paying for it, not him. on the worst set everyone would laugh at everything and pat each other on the back all day.
i just found out about your website from christian's website. what the fuck, dude. what the fuck.
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