I have been super duper extremely busy visiting with family from California, so the blog…will have to wait! Until then, I thought I would share with you two of my favorite commercials!

Yes, I am one of those that watches the super bowl for it’s fantastic commercials…

ENJOY!

After last week I have a whole new appreciation for anyone that works behind the camera. 

I was chosen to make a promotional video for United Way.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into *at all*.  My friend just told me I should go in for the interview…so I did.  They asked me a bunch of questions about who I was, what I believed in, and how I felt about the community.  I ended up telling her“My Story”and she recorded it to compare to all the other people that interviewed.  

I didn’t think in a million years I would be the one they picked…but I was.  

To say it was one of the hardest things I have ever done would be an understatement!  It wasn’t hard in the way of life…hard life challenges, but it was VERY hard sitting in a room (our office) with cameras set up all around me and huge lights blaring in my face.  There was also many people watching as I made a total and complete fool of myself.  THAT is how it felt anyway. Afterward, the camera crew came to my house to shoot some pictures of me with my kids.  They loved watching the professionals at work and learn how T.V. was made and so did I!  At one point Bug ran into the rolling footage and yelled,

“I want to be a STARRRRRRR!”

I about died and of course everyone was laughing.

SHE IS THREE!

I don’t consider myself a shy person, but I definitely was taken back when I couldn’t form a complete sentence that made sense over and over again. 

The struggle was that they wanted me to answer the questions I had answered before in the same kind of way, but they wanted me to jump right into that focused area of my story.  In the interview, I had and hour to develop my thought process and felt emotion where it made sense but when I was supposed to say what I thought, with emotion, and in a way that made sense…it was HARD.  Either I let myself feel it…and started to cry, or I stayed strong and it would come across scripted. 

I was SO frustrated and kept started over and over again.  

Finally after a VERY long 30 minutes or so, the producer had me stand up and walk around.  Jon offered to hug me, but I knew I would burst out in tears from my frustration, so I asked him to leave…sad I know but I had a hair and makeup person there that was trying to keep me put together and I knew it would be all over.  Pulling myself together after that would be difficult at best.

My mouth was dry, my words stuttered, and my eyes….oh…my..eyes….

They always blink a lot when I am nervous.  I told the camera crew to tell me when they were, so they did…and that made it worse.  I held a water bottle to drink so I didn’t look like I was in the desert parched, and without knowing it I twisted it and made it pop over and over.  This was magnified 10 fold with the microphone going up my shirt…Ahhh there are no words to express how hard it was.  Part of me wants to ask for a copy of the raw footage to watch it, and the other part to watch it and then light it on fire in the back of my house!

After about an hour and a half…we were hoping that we had about 2 minutes of video coverage…I would hope so!!! Luckily I just received an email saying that they have 17 great minutes of me talking and can’t decide what to use.  Whewww! What a relief..but I am so scared to see my big noggin on the screen.  I am sure I will share it with you when it is done if I can get up the nerve after I see it….

Until then, enjoy Mr. Old Spice!

He makes me laugh every time!