Shooting Up

Big day yesterday. Avoiding this day for over a year. Not sure why. Well, I am. Not a fan of photos. In the slightest. Taking a camera. Aiming it at my head. Pressing the trigger. Not a fan. Churning out a smile part. Smile… Cheese! Did it work? No, smile again… cheese!  Sorry, flash didn’t work! Again… cheese… camera shuts down. One more… cheese… smile… didn’t get your head in. Last one… smile… cheese! Maybe it’s the person taking photos? Mayeb it’s fake smiles. Catch the moment, no problem. Fake smiles, faces twitches and cracks. All are pitiful excuses really. Then again, I can be quite the pity. It’s all me.

Cheddar

Years ago, I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. Whooping cough, let’s say. Anyways, sitting, waiting, fairly bored. Magazines. Pretend as if I really wanted a soccer magazine to read. All women’s magazines. Tut. Pretend. Sigh. Have to do. Catch on my gossip. Rude not to. Flick on through. As you do. Article about Cindy Crawford. Hot lady. What is your secret? Sleep. Buckets of sleep. Or at least 8 hours. Keeps her young. Keeps her hot. Particularly leading up to a fashion shoot. Tip from the top. Beauty sleep. Must remember that, I probably thought. Store that up. Never know when I may need that again.

Anyways, yesterday I finally set up a date to get head shots. Cheesy head shot type photos. Sold out. Resisted no more. If I want to go to the next step, they seem to be needed. Buddy, photographer, said he would hook me up. Happy days. Lets get them out of the way. First, let me stay up the entire night before. 8 hours, was it Cindy? I’ll get less than 3. Not sure why. I know better? I’m smart? Mighty stuff. Glowing after 3 hours of sleep! Thankfully, it was at least far less painful that I had so dumbly built up. Obviously. First thing out of my buddy’s mouth… ‘You know you don’t have to smile? You don’t even have to look at the camera. Just do whatever.’ Hip hop hooray! Let’s stare blankly at the wall! Let’s just look up. Let’s just look like an ape! Plain pose on. Pale. Bags. Eyes. No doubt they are looking dandy. Ha. Haw. Photo shop me up. All aboot the editing!

Sucker. Nutter.

As it happened, I did get a good lesson in posing the day before. Bizarre few minutes actually. Walking up the street to my abode. A jogger runs past me. That’s what I thought. Stops a few feet past me. Drops his iPod on the ground. Picks it up. Jogs on. Sprints on. Up a hill. Wearing flip-flops. Which did make me think it was a bit odd. And think that actually, he kind of threw his iPod on the ground. Which he did again further up the street. Go on the Weho. Nuts abu! As he was running one way, I noticed a pretty, pretty, pre-tty hot looking girl coming the other way. I would say she might’ve have been ridiculously hot, but I couldn’t see her eyes. All aboot the eyes. Sunglasses on. Couldn’t see them.

I did at least see that she was strutting. Cheek sucking. Posing to the max. Saw all of this, as I turned into my building. Saw that she was pretty busy with her posing. Which is why I don’t think she saw that fire hydrant in front of her. Power walking straight into it. Looked pretty painful. Especially when you’re strutting like a hot peacock. Cheeks fully focused and intense. Kind of buckling forward. Sucked in cheeks blowing out in pain. Bouncing up before I could offer help. Quickly hobbling away down the street. I turned back towards my building again. Stopping first to look up at the odd ball in the flip flops, smashing his iPod one last time at the top of the street. Before he sprinted around the corner. Leaving the iPod there. Random. Innocuous. Pointless. Gibber. At least I learnt how to pose.

Pillage And Plunder

Head. Shot. Mess. Done. Same buddy. Director. Shooting a commercial. Budget. Tight. Scratched my back. I scratched back. Role in the commercial. On-screen debut. Two shoots in one day! Look at me go. Night time shoot. Way more fun than I thought. Warm. Little waiting around. One scene. Done in two minutes. Buckets of fun. Kind of. Opposite. Giddy up them baby steps! Bit rusty with the old acting. A bit. Needed to get into character. I was a guy who just pillaged a town. Murderer. On the run. Nun like. Speeding away from the scene of the crime. Gets pulled over by a cop. Asked to step outside the car. Handcuffed… And cut. Well, maybe I added in the first part. About pillaging. And being a nun. Needed a back-story though. Why was he speeding, mmmkay? Murdering pillager?!! Ehhh. Ok… Action!

Hopefully the editor for that commercial can work some magic as well. Rusty nail. Mixed with a bit of ad-libbing. Might have mentioned a goat at one point. Hopefully that gibber will get chopped. Hopefully. Not. Sweet Lord. Never know. One thing it could come back to haunt me. All start somewhere. I’ll look back at it and laugh. Ha ha. Ha haw. Harking back to my first small acting role. Laughing along as part of a “This Is Your Life” type show. Laughing. As I hold my Oscar. I can see it now. Back-story. Future-story. Same difference. All aboot the editing! Time for some beauty sleep. Song on…

Garden Friends – Kissy Sell Out

Tags: Acting, Blanks, Cheeks, Cindy Crawford, Commercial, Ducks, Garden Friends, Headshots, Kissy Sell Out, Posing, Shoots, Smiling, Sucking, weirdos, West Hollywood