"Harold, are we on COPS?"*

We filmed our TV Commercial yesterday, with a call at 8:30am. It was requested that dancers show up with hair and base makeup already done:

Go ahead and sing it, Mama Butterfly: "Blonde in a Lexus!"

My hair does not like to be curled or stay curled. However, the curly-Q's in front (and back in the ponytail, though you can't really see those) were accomplished using only two things: Bobby pins and hairspray. LOTS of hairspray. I know that pin-curls are a pretty old-fashioned concept; but with the right amount of hairspray they not only work, but are WAY faster than hot rollers or a curling iron. Consider yourself edumacated.

In other words, yesterday morning a piano could have fallen on my head and I wouldn't have noticed. Even Gabriella touched my hair at one point and exclaimed "Wow, you weren't kidding. Your hair feels like straw." Twenty-four hours later I have washed the crap out of my hair (not once, but twice) and my hair still feels like straw. But it was worth it; because the three of us? We looked pretty damn hot.

We knew from last time that our space to dance would be REALLY limited, so we set to work on learning a little bit of choreography that we could do in the background. We put it together, went into the studio, and waited our turn. Our director pointed out some people from the station that she knew, another dancer told us she had tap-danced on TV spots when she was a kid at the same TV station. We all commented on the shoes of other people who were filming--because man, there were some GREAT shoes in that room yesterday, let me tell you.

Lesson of the day: Filming a 30-second TV spot with the most minimal of choreography imaginable... can still be nerve-wracking if you have a habit of looking fat on camera. >_< But it went well, and it went quickly-- we were done in two or three takes. With some time left before rehearsal, Elspeth made a food run and we all met at our rehearsal space early and had a nice, long barre together. And it was fun.

Yesterday, yesterday was a good morning. And even though the rest of the afternoon did not pan out as well, having a good morning is good enough for me.

(* For those of you wondering about the title of the post: Thanks to a long-running joke from my church camp some eight years ago-- yes, EIGHT; as in one more than seven-- anytime someone is on TV or being filmed for a project, it is imperative to quote this scene from Drop Dead Gorgeous)