My eight year old niece spent some time with me over the holidays just before New Years and we had a fun time doing all kinds of thing that she might not do at home. A few months ago I did a short movie of her to show her friends and she told me she wanted to do another movie, only this time she wanted to be the Director. Did I say she is a precocious eight year old?
To add to the mix and let her know that being the Director is not just being in charge and fun but required a lot of work, I asked a lot of questions regarding storyline, subject, and my rights as an actor. We took our shots and she gave me instructions as to the lines she wanted. She handled the camera fairly well yelling "Action!" to let me know to begin talking and "Cut!" to stop. This went rather quickly.
Then came the hard part of sitting down to edit the movie... and boy did the fur fly! She picked up the technique of editing rather quickly as young people do, but wanted things in a particular way that was different than I might have chosen. To my horror, half of my performance ended up on the cutting room floor! I now know how Meryl Streep feels after putting in a great performance and not having it included in the movie.
Below is the world premiere of "Plant Care"
Oh by the way, I told her I would never work with such a flaky director again and her reply was "Oh yes you will... we have a contract!" Lord help me!
Cierra, u go girl!... U have one smart niece... "Contract" , hmmmm, that was one word that was not in my vocab when I was her age... These kids are way more advanced!.lol
ReplyDeleteChrissy,
ReplyDeleteShe shocked me too! And she did it without thinking about it. It was a quick comeback as she walked out the door. You are so right when you say they are more advanced than we ever were!