My TV story
Posted by titus-the-virus on October 22, 2023 at 00:16:22
I don't post here very much but I really like reading all the stories that get posted here. I'm sure there's some mix of fact and fiction but overall its always fun to read. But I usually feel like I've lived a very sheltered life compared to most of you. You're all talking about fully clothed pool parties, pranks with friends, dunk tanks, water slides, and on and on, while for me my wetlook life has always been very private. But I do have one story that I think you might find unique: I was once an actor in a wetlook TV commercial!
OK, I may have oversold that. Was actually happened was, one day at the end of the school day my teacher asked me and three of my friends to stay and talk to her about something. I figured we were in trouble for something, but in reality she said that a friend of hers who works at the local college was teaching a film production class, and their final project was to produce a TV commercial, and they needed 4 boys to be actors for it. Of course we all immediately said we wanted to do it, without even knowing a thing about what we'd have to do - but we'd really be on TV so of course we thought that was cool.
So next us 4 kids and our parents have to go to a meeting at the college where the professor and the students explained everything to us. For starters, the commercial would be to promote a local YMCA camp, and it would only air on the local public access TV channel. OK, that's still cool if you ask me. Next, they explain what the content of the commercial would be. They said the YMCA camp was convinced that people weren't attending the camp because they were worried about camping in bad weather. So the commercial would start by showing footage of the beautiful camp - the woods, the lake, the outdoor activities. Then they'd go to a scene of the four of us sitting around a campfire roasting marshmellows. Then, there would be a voiceover saying something like "BUT WHAT IF IT RAINS?" At that point, they'd dump a bunch of water on us. Then the voiceover would say, "FORTUNATELY, YOU CAN STILL ENJOY YOUR VISIT" - and they'd finish by showing footage of the camp's indoor dining hall, indoor pool, basketball court, cabins and stuff. The girl explaining this pauses and says to us, "oh yeah, so you're gonna get pretty wet, hope that's not a problem for you." I didn't know if it was a problem or not, there really wasn't time to think about it, we just keep going.
Next, they gave us a stack of permission slips to have our parents sign. One of the papers explained that we'd be provided all the clothes that we'd have to wear during the shoot, including replacements for anything that got wet (except for underwear, so they suggested packing extra underwear).
The shoot itself was interesting. I'm kind of a nerd so it was interesting to see how it all worked. Even though this was a student production, they still had a director, a "costume" department, camera and sound techs, the whole works. They also had their instructors there to give advice and kind of mentor them as they worked through it. One of the first things they said to us is that we'd probably be working on this for most of the day, at least several hours - but in the end we'd only actually be on the screen for 20 or 30 seconds. Then they told us to go get changed into our costumes - which were simple, hunter green polo shorts with the camp's logo embroidered in yellow, tan cargo shorts, and white undershirts. They also put some "makeup" on our faces and hairspray in our hair, which I found very awkward, but it was to make sure our skin and hair looked right on film, I guess. They reminded us to take off our watches or any jewelry that we didn't want to get wet. Finally, they started filming, and we started with the part where we were supposed to be roasting marshmellows around the campfire. They tried to get us to talk with each other naturally - which is hard to due when there's a bunch of cameras pointing at you! And you have nothing to talk about! (They wouldn't actually be broadcasting anything we said, so it didn't matter what we were talking about, as long as it looked natural and like we were having fun.) Some of the people off-camera would tell jokes and stuff for us to laugh at, or ask random questions for one of us to answer. We had to be careful to pretend like it was one of us talking, and not look off-camera at whoever actually was talking. It took some practice to get right, and we probably spent at least an hour on just this part until the director decided that she had enough good content to work with. Then, we filmed the very final scene, where we were supposed to hear a voice saying "But at Camp So-and-So we have an indoor dining hall! And pool! And tennis court! And everything else!" We were supposed to look super-excited and sprint off to the right from our seats. They said for this part, we shouldn't try to look "natural," but instead to look very over-enthusiastic and corny with our facial expressions. We did probably 10 or 12 takes of this part (which really only lasted like 3 seconds in the final product). The director was having fun with this, telling us "OK, now do it like you're Scooby Doo running away from danger! Ok reset. Now do it like you're late for class and need to run so you don't get detention..." And on and on. It was fun, but it did tire us out a bit.
Finally, it was time for the most fun - and complicated - scene, where they'd dump the water on us. One thing that I forgot to mention was the weather - it was still the middle of Spring and not hot out yet, it was probably in the low 60s and I'd normally be wearing probably long pants and at least a hoodie on a day like this. So I was already kind of chilly being in shorts and a polo, and it just then hit me that the water was probably going to be cold. But, the director just kept moving on to the next thing. She told us to grab some lunch. They had a bunch of other kids, younger than us, recruited to actually be the ones to soak us. They had several buckets of water, hoses, water balloons and maybe even some other stuff I forgot about. They also had to construct a scaffold behind our "set", so people could climb up and dump buckets on us from above our heads. While they were working on this, we were taken inside one of the camp buildings where "wardrobe" was setup, and told to double and triple check that our pockets were empty, that we took off our watches or any other jewelry. They also said they'd only film us from the knees-up, so we should take off our shoes and socks too (Understandable, they didn't want to be on the hook for replacing multiple pairs of shoes, or a phone that we forgotten to take out of our pocket or something.) Once we'd done all that, we headed back outside to the "campfire" set, and got back into our places. The director gave us instructions, something like "OK guys, we only want to do this once, so everyone listen up! I don't want to be mean, but if you can't do your job right now, I'm going to kick you off the set! Alright?! So, here's the plan. I'm going to say Thunder! and you guys are going to look startled like you just heard thunder. You're going to look up at the sky, then I'm going to count down slow from 5. Then, we're going to hit you with the water. Your guys job is to look stoic - you know what that means? It means you just take it in stride. No laughing, no flinching, just sit there calmly. OK? Everyone got it? Let's do a dry run - a literally DRY RUN guys, no water yet!" The director ran shouted out her cues and we went through the motions like she told us to. Then, she asked, "OK, everyone ready? Any questions? Speak now or forever hold your peace - trust me, all of us only want to do this once!"
"Ready? ACTION! THUNDER!"
I tried to look startled, then looked up - at a bunch of kids holding buckets of water, eager to dump them on me. I heard the director count down 5...4...3...2...1... Then ice cold water started coming at me from every direction - from above, from off-camera, from all-sides, everywhere. And, while its one thing to say that you won't flinch or laugh or otherwise react, its another thing to actually manage that when you're being doused with ice-cold water from every direction. I did my best to not show any reaction, but even I knew I didn't do a very good job. Once the water stopped and we could catch our breaths, I could tell the director wasn't too pleased either. "OK everyone, let's review the tape, and we'll see if we need to do another take." I was having fun, but I was also freezing cold, and not too excited about having to repeat that scene. She told us four to go back to "wardrobe," and the rest of the crew to reset the scene.
Inside the building (which was just the concrete basement of a camp building) they gave us towels, but otherwise we just stood their dripping while the director and the crew looked at the tapes and talked about what they thought. It was still quite cold, the concrete floor was wet and even colder on my bare feet, and we were getting impatient waiting on the adults to decide on our fate. I tried to eavesdrop a little on the conversation, especially between the instructor and the director. I had the impression that this was intentionally a difficult scene for them to film, and the instructor was pushing them to work on the challenges and give it another try. Which meant, I figured, that we'd be doing this all over again. Mentally I sighed, and the director came over to give us that exact news. I didn't mind too much, as they gave us an identical set of dry clothes to change into - only thing that was weird - I only brought one set of extra underwear! So I was putting on dry clothes with wet undies! THAT was an odd feeling!
Anyway, we reassembled back outside, and the director gave us some specific advice: "Dustin, you HAVE to keep you feet flat on the ground, no matter what! We can tie your ankles to the chair legs if we have to." (Dustin had reflexively pulled his legs up to his chest, like the fetal position, in the previous take.) "Titus, your face has to stay expressionless, you just have to ignore those guys with the water buckets." (When I had looked up, there were at least a dozen kids ready to drench me, and since they were off-camera, they could make faces and crack jokes and everything, and I must have made eye contact with them.) "Kevin, you have to keep your hands at your side. Sit on them if you have to! And Dan, you just have to let the water hit you right on the head, you can't be squirming out of the way. OK, think about it this way - when you hear THUNDER, you react as if you just read the weather forecast in the newspaper and see that its calling for rain. So you're not surprised, or angry, or anything - you're just... mellow, and disappointed. Got it? Now, picture that in your mind. Now you know what that water's gonna feel like when it hits you, so in your mind, picture what your reaction will be. Ok? Picture that water hitting you, and picture yourself just being mellow, looking dejected, but staying completely calm and emotionless. Any questions?" "Is shivering OK?" Dan asked, sincerely. The director thought about that for a second. "Shivering is OK. I can make that work." I practiced like the director suggested, and then we did another "dry run."
"OK guys? Ready? Action! THUNDER!" We went through the scene again, and this time I was more ready for the cold water... and the second take, thankfully, went much much better. Once the onslaught was over, it was clear that both the director and instructors were much happier with this attempt. They again ushered us into the cold basement, where we stood and shivered while the adults reviewed the tapes from the last take. Fortunately, this time they announced that they got "plenty" of good footage. "Can we watch the tapes?" Kevin asked, "I just want to see when the water hit us." I did too, and the camera guys replayed some of the highlights for us - and it was quite funny. They explained how they'd be editing this for several days, slicing and dicing the footage into what they'd ultimately use for the final product. It was funny to see how we looked from their end of the camera. Finally, Dan asked the all-important question: "can we go change now?" "Well," the director said, looking a little uncomfortable, "the camp owner has one more idea they want us to do..." I grimaced, not wanting to get doused with ice water again. "Yeah guys, hi, I'm Dave, the camp director," said a young man who looked exactly like you'd expect a YMCA camp director named Dave to look. "We're letting the other kids go swimming, and we'd just like to grab a shot of you playing in the pool with one of our new pool toys. You up for that?" "Is the pool heated?" I asked. "Sure is!" Camp Director Dave assured me. OK, then I was fine with that plan. "I don't have my swimsuit with me," Dustin said. "Seriously? You really think you need a swimsuit?" I asked him sarcastically. "Oh... yeah," Dustin blushed, "guess we really can't get any wetter."
There was a little bit of hoopla - the director hadn't planned on doing this filming, the camera guys were nervous getting their expensive cameras that close to the pool, and the instructor was worried that the permission slips we signed didn't say anything about us actually being IN water - just having water thrown AT us. Finally, our parents who were all present convinced them that we were perfectly capable of swimming in a pool without drowning, and everyone else convinced themselves that we'd try to film what Camp Director Dave wanted, and worse case scenario, they just wouldn't use any of that footage if it didn't work out. So we walked over to the pool building, a short walk from where we had been working, and found that the other kids were already changed into swimsuits and were splashing around. The head lifeguard greeted us with a scowl, informing us that in "his" pool, proper swimwear was a RULE, and this was most irregular, wanting to get in the water in our street clothes. Camp Director Dave smoothed things over with him, and I was getting more impatient and cold while these negotiations took place. Finally, the lifeguard gave in, under the condition that we thoroughly rinse off our feet before entering the pool (we'd walked over in our bare feet and had the usual grass and dirt stuck to our feet.) Finally, we were in the water, which was actually quite a pleasant temperature. Dave tossed us a huge inflatable ball, maybe three feet across, that was bright yellow and prominently displayed the camp logo in green ink - the inverse scheme of the polos we were wearing. We pushed the ball around, and climbed on top of it "king-of-the-hill" style, for a while, while the camera crew filmed. Finally, Dave just asked if we could pose standing on the pool deck with the big inflatable ball in front of us, and they got a few pictures of us doing that.
Finally, they were done with us. We were offered that we could stay and swim, but honestly I was pretty darn tired by now, and we all opted to finally change and go home. Overall, it was probably a solid four hours of being in wet clothes.
If you're interested, the commercial turned of "OK," and it was odd to think that a full days worth of work got condensed into less than 30 seconds of screen time. It only aired on the local public access channel, but it was still exciting to watch it "live". Each of us also got a CD with the finished product on there. They also let us keep the polos and shorts they used as our "costumes" (four sets of them for each of us, so apparently they were prepared to drench us up to four times, if they had to.) Finally, we were each offered a one-year family pass to the use the camp whenever we wanted, free of charge. My family weren't really campers, but we did go a few times and use the pool (which was quite nice), just to say we use the pass and got something out of it.
Any way, I know this probably isn't the most interesting wetlook, but I thought it might be an interesting story anyway.
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