Bill Cammack

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My lines are done for “The Lab” Episode 02. It wasn’t as ‘bad’ as doing the lines for Episode 01, but now I know why actors take so many drugs. There’s a positive high that comes with ‘wrapping’. There’s also a negative drain on your system as you release the character you were portraying for the last however-long. In my case, it was ‘only’ an hour. It was an hour for Episode 01 also, but for different reasons.

Last time, I had no idea about the process I was getting involved in and just jumped in, resulting in the max-headroom-esque video style that I used to edit sentences out of various takes that I did over the course of the hour. This time, I knew what I was out to do, so I had notes ready and I had spent the better part of the day before writing, practicing and revising my lines to match what I already had from Brainy and selecting more clips to bridge from my comments to hers.

Anyway… When I was done with my lines, I was simultaneously elated and depressed. That was after only one hour of being in character. From what I hear, some people do 16-hour days as actors. I can’t yet imagine what it feels like to come back to reality after ‘being under’ for that long. I’ve edited for 16 hours straight… more than that, even… but I don’t have to “be somebody” while I’m editing. Actually, the thing about editing is that you have to “be NOBODY” and devote yourself to the process. After a full day (or double) of editing, I feel like I haven’t been myself in HOURS. I recognize now that that’s a different feeling from “being someone else” for hours.

The reason I call it “being someone else” is that you’re not talking to ANYBODY AT ALL! NOBODY! You’re looking into a lens and remembering to deliver lines AS IF you’re talking to someone, perhaps someone in particular. You’re delivering lines AS IF you think this clip is amusing that you already saw 85 times when you were deciding whether it goes in the piece or not. You’re delivering lines AS IF you just watched the clip, so you’re basically working off of memory and emulation of having seen the clip. I’m reminded of “300″, which I saw @ the IMAX and was really good, if you’re into warrior-type stuff. All of those backdrops were bluescreened in. The actors had to PRETEND that there were ships being destroyed in the water and that there were thousands of guys rushing them with swords and axes. All they were looking at was a blue screen, and MAYBE some actual terrain under their feet.

Anyway, I’m glad that’s over. Now I get to try to load my scenes and finish the piece in the next five hours so I can meet up with Masako and head over to Bre’s party.

In response to The Lab Episode 01: Swingers, Randolfe wrote:

It was well edited and entertaining.

Thank you. :)

Ultimately, I think you fell into the trap of allowing the film to pull you down to it’s (their) level.

This statement assumes a couple of things. A) It assumes that I’m not “down to their level” already. B) It assumes that whatever I say in a video has anything to do with my actual personality. C) It assumes that “their level” is below someone else’s level. I see why you feel that way based on your statements below.

“IF” I were fifty years younger and female in gender (‘if’ is a famously BIG word), I don’t think I’d be interested in getting to know you better and/or dating you.

This is an interesting statement because I realized after I read this line that in all of my calculations about set design and show concept and DVD selection and graphics and music and decisions on commentary and editing….. that I gave *ZERO* thought to A) whether females would watch my show or not, B) whether they’d want to date me, or C) whether anything I said might increase or decrease my chances of getting a rap.

The reason I can’t be concerned with that is that it’s tough enough to get topics that I want to talk about and make it all happen without adding in the filter of “I can’t use this clip or say this or that because some chick might not want to hook up with me”. :D

I agree with you that if my goal were to present myself as a candidate for marriage, talking about not only manipulating women, but in fact manipulating guys into having abilities beyond their natural capacity to “pull chicks” would be just about THE LAST thing I’d want to do. :D

As a matter of fact, if you watch the video again, you’ll notice that I call guys out for their bullshitting, lying behavior. They don’t ACTUALLY own yachts and expensive apartments. They just SAY they do because that’s what they think women want to hear in order to give them some. They’re hoping they can hit it before she figures out that they don’t have any of that stuff. That’s why Mikey got caught in a lie. Instead of just coming at her straight up, that he liked how she looked and wanted whatever he wanted from her, he went the typical route and tried to talk himself up and got busted. The problem with that technique is that so many guys use it that it’s effectiveness is diluted. You may as well walk up to her and say “I’m about to lie to you so I can try to get laid”. :)

Anyway… Having thought about what you said, and appreciating your comments, for sure… I STILL can’t be concerned with whether some chick wants to hook up with me or not because she doesn’t like something I said in a video. hehehe Something about that just makes me laugh. :D

Actually… Your suggestion that I tailor what I say on the show to present myself in the best light as a suitor is merely a different technique of manipulation. That would be as bad, ethically, as the behavior I just finished discussing. :)

This “game” single males (of all orientations) play demeans the really important dynamic in sexual-social relationships by reducing them to the level of a sport like fox-hunting and/or archery practice.

Yes. You are right about that. However, that doesn’t make “the game” any less of a reality for very many guys. Some guys chase chicks just for sport… just because they can. Other guys try to develop skills because they CAN’T pick up girls to save their lives. It’s because of Mikey’s lack of confidence in himself that he decides to lie about his job and what he owns and what he plans to buy. It’s because he doesn’t believe this girl will like him for who he actually is. For some guys, having some sort of tactics are just plain necessary, or they’ll never get on in their entire lives.

I had a parting of ways with a friend of mine over just this very issue. For some odd reason, he wasn’t getting any interest from girls that he liked. I mean, he was really in a bad way about it. Once he started learning how “the game” works, his first reaction was JOY that now, he could pull girls that used to NOT give him the time of day. Eventually, he rejected “the game” for the very reasons you mention. What he wanted was a girl that he liked that also liked him. You can’t get that by lying to her, because she likes who it is that you told her you are, and she doesn’t know a damned thing about YOU at all. She likes what you told her… It’s not that she likes YOU. What he learned for himself was that he was better off going the honest route and throwing his hat in the ring, win or lose, without manipulating the ladies into giving him what he wants. Unfortunately, once he “converted”, I represented the dark side of the force to him, so we didn’t hang out after that. I respect his decision and wish him all the best.. but that path doesn’t work for everyone.

I agree with you though that “the game” has a desensitizing effect on guys. Women become expendable when you can get another one five minutes from now or by turning the next corner. The more effective you get in “the game”, the less each individual “success” matters at all. It’s merely repetition and reinforcement that the same stimulus creates the same response in many different women. *YAWN* For guys that can get on without gaming chicks, I recommend that you don’t get involved in the sport of it all.

You’re a bright perceptive guy. Focus on more serious and deeper stuff. Leave films like this one to the loners and losers who inevitably end up living them :-).

Thanks. :) However, you’re projecting _your_ value system onto *me*. I’m sure there are serious as well as deep topics that I’ll get into eventually… however… hahahaha it’s NOT going to be in Episode 02! :D If you disliked Episode 01, you’re going to HATE Episode 02! hahahaha

Please take all this as a compliment not as criticism.

I appreciate your comments as well as your being up front about how you felt about the episode instead of just saying something generically nice. I really hadn’t noticed that I honestly didn’t consider AT ALL what chicks might think about my “Swingers” commentary. I’m glad about not caring about that, but I can’t take all the credit for it. Not that I would ever compare a single-episode-show to Rocketboom, but look at the statistics. They had something like 8% of their viewers as females. There’s a low percentage of females in the Yahoo Videoblogging Group. Even out of the females that are apparent, the vast majority of them are in some form of relationship or are for whatever reasons completely undateable. From Friday to right now, approximately 48 hours, I have a reported total from blip.tv of 116 views. Even if all of those were unique visitors (which they aren’t), there are two chances that one of them would be a “dateable” female… SLIM… and NONE…..

….. and Slim left town! hahahahaha :D

I thought the ending credits were the best part :-).

Again, thanks. After all I went through to get Episode 01 “in the can” and then back out of the can, I had to give myself proper credit for doing EVERYTHING. It’s out of my system now, and I’ll be using “regular” credits from now on. :D

Thanks for the note, Randolfe. :)

WOWWWWW!!!

OK… So I just spent an hour recording my lines for my first episode of “The Lab”. I’m an editor, not an actor. I had the incorrect notion that what I was about to do was more like talking than acting. It was really something I’ve never experienced before……

That was an amazing trip. I wanted to blog it now, while I’m still feeling it.

There’s a journey that you take when you try to record something quasi-theatrical. I’m even more sensitive to it since I’m an editor. I’m more aware of what I can and can’t use.

What I mean by record is when YOU’RE the on-air talent. There’s so much to think about, but then you can’t actually afford to think about it because you have to deliver the lines… that is… IF you scripted your lines ahead of time, and preferably studied them. I did neither, since I’m not an actor. I had no idea it was going to be so hard to pull at least three directions together and then do the right thing with what you receive to deliver the goods. I have no idea whether I have a show or not. If I don’t, that’s fine. I’ve slated my release of episode 1 of “The Lab” for Friday. I still have tonight and all of tomorrow to do it over if I don’t have what I need.

The first thing I noticed was that I had to stop myself from wanting to deliver the lines in a stoic fashion, just to get them out. Then, I realized things would have been way better if I had scripted the lines and practiced them instead of trying to make stuff up on the fly. I had a couple of cues that I had figured out, but the problem was that by the time I was on the spot, doing the do… I had seen the scenes so many times that I wasn’t naturally affected anymore by watching them, and there was no natural launch into what I wanted to say about the section. I had to fake the launch and then make sure I wasn’t stiff delivering the actual lines that I had just decided upon and hadn’t practiced, ever. :/

The obvious question is why not pause the process until I made something up? :D The problem with that is that I needed to shoot the whole thing in one session so there was no chance of the camera moving from where it was. I decided to run the video from the monitors live instead of greenscreening them or matting out the screens and shrinking and distorting the video. I knew I was in it for the long haul as soon as I pressed the button, so I went for it and now I have whatever I have… if anything! :D

I can’t really feel the effects from the journey at this point, but I remember hearing the click that indicated that the camera had shut off and that there wasn’t anything more I could do about getting the show on tape. I remember this feeling of… ?relief? and a return to ?reality?… I’ll definitely be doing way more pre-production for my next episode, but this time, I was so glad to get the set done that I just had to try to make it happen. Actually, when I was completely ready, I wasn’t INTERESTED in filming the show right then. That was the first battle… actually getting myself to start in the first place. It was only after I was in the process that I realized how important a script is that you’ve practiced over and over.

There’s more to being on-air-talent than meets the eye… I mean if you’re going to do a decent job at it… and I’m not saying that *I* did a decent job! :D It’s that there are things you have to remember, and while you’re remembering them, you have to forget them so you can seem authentic or natural. You have to internalize them and then live with them and “act as if”. I guess this is why some actors *coughnicholascagecough* always seem to be portraying the exact same character. Their expression is the same in different movies, so you get the same effect when you watch the actor’s performance.

Another thing that’s tough is that you’re not talking to anybody! :D I mean, you know the audience is “inside” that little lens, but there’s really nobody there, so you have to pretend you’re talking to someone. Depending on the person or people that you imagine yourself talking to, you’re going to deliver differently. You’re going to sound different. You’re going to use different words. I’m sure my performance suffered from “identity crisis”, but I’ll just fix that in the edit. :D

Just about the only thing that I learned along the way that helped me was in order to get over the fact that I was no longer highly amused by the scenes, having seen them multiple times while I was selecting them, what I DID find amusing was how ‘lost’ I was and unable to recreate my surprise and interest in the shot. Fortunately… I found that realization so funny, that I ended up laughing at how ridiculous it was and realize that that was my out. Whenever I needed a laugh, I got a laugh off of the fact that I couldn’t laugh because the scene wasn’t funny to me anymore. :D WHAT LUCK! :D

So, yes… More scripting… More practicing (more like ANY practicing, since I didn’t practice at all, having no script, just some outline notes). I didn’t want to script it, but that’s because I didn’t know there were so many other things to worry about when you’re trying to make it happen from in front of the camera instead of behind it. About 1/3 of the way through, I decided to get over the fact that I was talking to a lens. :D It wasn’t so tough after that, but that was only one of several ‘issues’ that I was having.

I decided I was going to play some music to see if I wanted to use any of it to get me in or out of the piece. Unfortunately, the way the camera was set up, I had the choices of holding the guitar at a ridiculous angle to play it or play naturally, and the guitar wasn’t in the shot at all. Since I decided on using a single shot for the whole episode, I just had to miss out on the appearance of the guitar. I’ll have to see if anything can be done with that in post.

I was very glad when I heard the click indicating it was all over. It was a weight off, for sure. I learned A LOT about the process, and I’ll be ready for it next time. I’ll also be habituated to certain elements, so those won’t be issues for me. Depending on how it works, I might have to rethink my shooting style as well, or maybe shoot it twice.. once as a practice so I can see how everything works together and then a second time as the real deal. Another issue was that I was sitting in approximately the same place the whole time, so I said approximately the same thing again, closer to the camera…. that is, from what I could remember that I said, since I had no script! :/

Anyway… anyone preparing to do this for the first time, beware! hahahaha :D This is one of those situations where you have to learn by on-the-job training, because you’re not going to feel like this in any normal situation. Even having a normal conversation and having someone tape you isn’t the same as trying to deliver lines that you HOPE are going to connect scene A to scene B, while relating to the audience in an effective and preferably consistent manner. It doesn’t prepare you for talking to a lens and convincing yourself you’re talking to a person or people. It’s not as easy as it looks! :D

Actually, I started doing better (IMO) when I stopped caring if it was good or not. :)

After extensive consultation (as usual) with Dre, I’ve decided on the set for my new show, “The Lab”.

Show Page: http://thelab.blip.tv/.