Realizing that it makes me sound very shallow, I have always wanted to be somehow in a TV show or movie. And by that I mean simply as an extra, I don’t really need a SAG card. It’s not unique to me, by any means; we get bombarded with so many images of glamour and fantasy in association with film that it’s almost impossible to not have a small childhood dream of being on television. That’s probably why YouTube is so popular, we love seeing ourselves in moving pictures. Almost like Harry Potter and wizard photographs.
But I think I had this image in my head that I was now in New York, where they film SNL, the Today show, and The Daily Show and somehow I was going to snag a ticket to one of those. Or at least end up in the background for Gossip Girl. Maybe even be within eyesight of Ed Westwick, eeeeeeh! No such luck.
In the end though, it was still pretty exciting. Through the Kino connection (he who knows everything going on in the city), we got free tickets to the taping of Comedy Central Presents, and be audience members while they filmed the stage show for two comedians. It was very funny, especially Amy Schumer, who was one of the finalists on Last Comic Standing. She really surprised me. The other guy was meh. Offensive but without delivering inventive punch lines, so he came across as a poor man’s Lewis Black.
The best part was that between comedians, they asked the theater for some audience shots to help with the editing later. So they asked us to laugh, give a standing ovation, clap, clap a lot, and laugh briefly. Seriously? I guess half the excited audience shots are spliced in from this moment. Which I am not fully surprised by, but was still like watching sausage being made. You know it’s got guts and blood in it, but you don’t really want to see it.
I didn’t make it on screen, we were too far back. So I can’t add this to the times I’ve seen my face on TV, which have been very few now that I think about it.
#1 – I was on a Yan-Ken-Po, a Peruvian afterschool kid’s game show. I made it onscreen twice, once because my music class was performing a song, and then later I played a game where I had to repeat a couple of tongue twisters. I recited them correctly and won circus tickets. It was fun and I learned that shows are filmed back to back for one long day. So my appearances ended up being on two different days the same week.
#2 – I was street interviewed by News 8 Austin about a new law penalizing cars littering the highway. We talked for about ten minutes about how wrong it is to trash our roads, and how I don’t like doing it, and sure it might have happened a couple of times, but it’s defintely wrong, and people should know better than litter, and this law is a good thing. The end result was my gigantic face (in full frizzy hair and makeup-less glory) taking over the whole screen saying how I’ve thrown trash out the window. Of all the footage, this is what they used, and I felt duped by the reporter. Worst thing was that it seemed EVERYONE and their mother watched it, at least gauging by how many people mocked me about it the next day. It was mortifying.
#3 – I was interviewed by Fox NYC about my spending habits right after the credit collapse. Having learned from the previous News 8 Austin debacle, I tried to not give any incriminating sound bites. As a result, I didn’t make it onscreen.
I think that’s it. I’ve been in the audience for a couple of football games and NBA games, and I’m pretty sure I saw myself onscreen at ACL, but that’s different, you are part of the masses and recognizable only to yourself.
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