B roll - my first commercial

Yesterday I was up on my roof winterizing my swamp cooler when I got a text from a fellow Denver Writer's group member Kevin. He was filming a commercial in Cherry Creek and wanted me to meet him so he could return some movies I lent him. Then he told me to dress in a certain outfit so I could be in the commercial. I thought he was joking.

But he was serious. My character was supposed to be a struggling business owner, and the commercial was for a lawyer. I had to wear a suit.

I got to the lawyer's office on time but Kevin wasn't there. Instead I met Cheryl Hiltzik who is a producer from LA. When I walked up to the office door, where she and the camera man were already waiting with their camera equipment, she turned to me and said "I hope you are here for the commercial because you're perfect!" I was surprised. I felt kind of stupid in my suit and weird makeup application.

She said she normally touches people up but she liked my "natural" look (I was wearing mascara and lipstick and felt like my face was caked with makeup but I guess that's a "natural" look). Then she asked what I do for a living, and I tried to explain it in general terms but she wanted more details. She thinks software is interesting. Then she said "How can you be so geeky and so damn cute?"

Around that time Kevin showed up and I made a little comment "most of us were here on time" which Cheryl laughed at. Then the lawyer called Kevin and said he was tied up in a meeting and couldn't shoot the commercial until Wednesday. Kevin was like "okay, we wasted everyone's time, but thanks for coming" and Cheryl said "let's get some footage of her walking down the hallway at least". Kevin looked at me and said "it's going to be b roll because we needed to you actually walk into the office and meet Steve" and Cheryl said "but she's so cute I'd like to get some footage anyway."

So I went to the end of the hallway and was supposed to open the elevator doors, walk down the hall, and act like I was opening the lawyer's office door. The first time I walked so fast the camera man couldn't keep up with me. The second time I almost walked into the door and started laughing because I could see Kevin down the hallway. The third time I looked at the camera, which you aren't supposed to do. The fourth time my heel got caught in the gap between the elevator floor and the regular floor and I almost fell backwards. Finally I did it right. They also took footage following me from the back as I walked to the office door.

It was pretty fun except it was hard to not look at the camera, to slow down my walk without looking weird, and I think I was making weird faces because as soon as they would start filming me I wanted to laugh.

Anyway, I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor but maybe I'll get to be in another commercial. Also, Cheryl knows John Scott (he's a director) and I told her about my book and she said he might be interested in the story line at least. John loves rock climbing and diving (his kids started rock climbing at the age of 4). Special thanks go out to Kevin who is much better at promoting me than I am (he kept saying "tell her about the part where you were in the water with the great whites" and "tell her how you fell 70 feet").

The best part of the whole experience was that Cheryl does a ton of work for charities (battered women, ALS, down syndrome) and I told her about no barriers and paradox sports. I've always thought the paradox athletes would make at least a good documentary if not a tv series. They are all so funny and such amazing athletes. Anyway, we'll see if anything happens with that. And I hope I get to meet up with Cheryl again because she has a lot of ideas for helping non profits and I rarely meet people who are as engaged as Cheryl. I think I could learn a lot from her.