Hollywood Fever...Advil to the Rescue!

And now, I'll actually write about acting in this so-called acting blog!

There are some hard-core flu germs floating across LA these days. No six degrees of Kevin Bacon with this one, everyone knows someone or half a crew who's currently sitting on the bench. I was spared to a certain degree...101.1 degrees, to be precise, if I am to trust the Spongebob Squarepants thermometer my mom bought for me as a joke. Worse than that, it starts beeping the Spongebob theme song when it's done, so in my delirious state of mind that's the last thing I heard before going to bed. I had dreams that inspired me to to take SCUBA lessons and buy a pineapple.

But that was about it for me, I was fortunate. Also very thankful that it waited until after I'd shot an Advil commercial last week! Great set, great experience, and a holding room with a view from the 33rd floor of the US Bank building downtown. And hey, now I'll be able to buy a digital camera so next time, I can take a picture of it!

It occurred to me, speed-walking down a narrow office hallway and timing a near-collision with another actor who was not visible to me, that I trained for this role in no-budget USC film school productions shortly after I moved here. (Not the one below.) Sure, you can do fifty takes to get the timing and blocking down, but in the student films, they're limited in the number of feet of film they can shoot on a given project. In the Advil spot, they're shooting 120 frames per second, so we rarely did more than ten or twelve takes on any angle. Them feets adds up! Precision helps.

Some great physical comedy in this thing, and a cast full of great facial expressions. Once again, those USC productions were lessons in visual storytelling, as there was almost no dialogue. In the Advil spot, there's just one thing to know: "Doughnuts!"

And now, I could really use some Advil. Anyways, here's a shout-out to the USC boys who I owe a drink (and yeah, another shameless plug):