I have one more story to share from the film festival. But this one requires a bit of back story.
In 2007, I worked on a Fox tv show called “Unhitched” for one episode. It was technically background work (meaning no lines), but I was going to be featured so you could see my face and I wasn’t just someone in a big crowd. The scene was at a party and a kid who can’t swim gets knocked into a pool by one of the main characters. A very attractive woman wearing a white dress jumps into the pool to save the kid. As she comes out of the pool, her dress is see-through so a lot of the men are looking at her. The man playing my husband in the show is taking a home movie of her walking out of the pool and I walk into the frame about to eat a piece of pizza. My husband asks if I really need to eat that, and I take a giant bite. Fun fact from that shoot: we had to do it so many times that I went through 3 large pizzas (I got to spit it out so I didn’t really eat it).
Anyway, it was a one day shoot, I had a lot of fun, and I made some decent money (they screwed up my call time so I ended up getting a lot of overtime that day).
A few months after shooting that, my parents started to get a couple of calls about a commercial about a tv show I was in. My parents asked me about it, and I figured it must be from “Unhitched”. I didn’t see the commercial for a while, but when I did, it was during a commercial break from “American Idol” (so I know a bunch of people saw it). I had it saved on my DVR so I could remember that moment.
A few months later, I was working the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival when this man approached me and asked me if I was on “Unhitched”. I explained that I did a background role on one episode but yes, I was in that commercial. Well, turns out the man who came up to me was the man who cut the commercials for the show! He was the one responsible for putting me in that commercial! I thanked him so much for the exposure he gave to me, and he promised to send me a DVD of the commercial so I could keep it (here’s the link for it on YouTube).
I’ve always been so grateful to this guy for putting me into the commercial for the show (and sending me a copy of it).
Flash forward to this past weekend. When I was putting together all the materials for the film festival, there was one name that stuck out to me. I couldn’t remember how I knew it, but I figured that I would find out when I saw the person. Turns out, it was the same guy from 6 years ago who cut me into the commercial! He couldn’t believe that we ran into each other again (and it had been years since he worked for Fox making those commercials). He watched the commercial again on YouTube and showed it off to all of his friends. And we kept laughing how cool it was to run into each other again.
This all proves to me again how small the entertainment industry is. And how important it is to be nice to everyone you meet. This guy, who used to make commercials, is now in a position to hire me for a project (and of course I gave him my business card so he wouldn’t forget me). I also was so glad to run into him so I could express my gratitude to him again for putting me in that commercial and giving me that type of exposure. It is so rare to get so much attention from a background role.
Running into people you’ve worked with or met years ago is one of the reasons I love this industry. When you really get into it, everyone knows everyone and you don’t feel so alone.
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