Won't Get Fooled Again?
Yesterday I was a cameraperson for an MTC Real Estate infomercial. It was my first time working on this kind of project, and while all the people were nice and everyone treated each other well, knowing that the end product would simply be another late-night TV time-killing piece of filler devoted to separating drunk and tired consumers from their hard-earned cash tainted the whole experience for me a bit.
I don't think any one of us for even a second believes in the reality that these kinds of shows are struggling mightily to convey, but to be a part of the rampant dishonesty that occurs behind-the-scenes just couldn't help but leave a bad taste in my mouth. Heck, one of the reasons I don't want to go back into working within the corporate TV world is to avoid having to be an unwitting shill for all the crap that television is trying to sell to consumers. But what was happeing all around me at the moment seemed like exactly the kind of situation that "out of the frying pan and into the fire" was written for. Sigh.
The funniest moment was the on-camera MTC representative saying "pacifically" instead of "specifically" three times over the course of two takes. Stuck behind my camera as I was, I couldn't really say anything to anyone, but during a break afterwards I went to her co-worker (whom I had seen giving her notes and corrections earlier) and pointed out the little gaffe to this person in-between takes.
The co-worker looked at me with polite frustration and told me: "I know, but she's my boss."
So I offered to mention it to her boss instead if they didn't feel like taking the heat for such a correction. But the co-worker thanked me and said that they would take care of it.
During the takes that followed, the MTC representative never once uttered either word again.
Sorry to be so pacific.... err, specific... with this little story that appears to demonstrate in some small way my feelings of utter superiority when it comes to the English language, but I mention it because it helps bookend the act of drunken futility that closed out my evening.
Which involved my returning home from work, eating dinner (2 slices of pizza and one beer per slice -- yummy!) and then hitting the internet to check my e-mails and search for any new jobs I might have missed during the course of my work day. Sure enough, on Craig's List I came across an ad looking for "volounteers" to help out with the upcoming New York Underground Film Festival (NYUFF). Feeling a bit tipsy and truly hating this particular festival (go visit sixteentongues.com for the full story on that one -- it's just too long a digression for this posting), I sent the following e-mail:
Just a little tip for future posts -- the word you're trying to spell is "volunteers".
Good luck.
Sincerely,
Scooter McCrae
So as you can see, after a couple of drinks I can be just as moody, churlish and pissed-off as the most common guttersnipe. Oh, and let's not forget the implied air of superiority of my smart-assed e-mail. Again, as someone who gets paid to write for Fangoria (or Sirens of Cinema, etc.) every now and then I do tend to see myself as a semi-professional writer during those darker moments that I need to reassure myself that I'm doing something worthwhile with my limited time on this spinning rock.
And have you spent much time on Craig's List looking through the ads? Just a few minutes going through these will leave your eyes swimming in jaw-droppers like "amature", "realty" (instead of "reality"), misusage of contractions and apostrophes that would make the head of a remedial English teacher spin 360 degrees, and my personal favorite (usually someone having a negative reaction to the poor language skills of another posting) is seeing "elliterate" or some other fabulous misspelling of "illiterate".
But I digress.
Only a few mintues later, I got an e-mail back from Daniel Carbone of the NYUFF. Two succinct words:
i'm british
Ooops! I guess it was my bad after all.
And while it would be easy to go after Daniel for not capitalizing his "i" or even ending his sentence fragment with a period, I gotta give the man game-point-match. How embarrassing, especially as I tend to prefer the British spelling for certain words like "colour" or "realize".
To quote Nicol Williamson's wonderfully wacky Merlin from John Boorman's classic EXCALIBUR (1982): "There's always something smarter than yourself!"
And so I end this post not as the brave protector of our fair language, but as another victim of one's own ego run amuck.
I don't think any one of us for even a second believes in the reality that these kinds of shows are struggling mightily to convey, but to be a part of the rampant dishonesty that occurs behind-the-scenes just couldn't help but leave a bad taste in my mouth. Heck, one of the reasons I don't want to go back into working within the corporate TV world is to avoid having to be an unwitting shill for all the crap that television is trying to sell to consumers. But what was happeing all around me at the moment seemed like exactly the kind of situation that "out of the frying pan and into the fire" was written for. Sigh.
The funniest moment was the on-camera MTC representative saying "pacifically" instead of "specifically" three times over the course of two takes. Stuck behind my camera as I was, I couldn't really say anything to anyone, but during a break afterwards I went to her co-worker (whom I had seen giving her notes and corrections earlier) and pointed out the little gaffe to this person in-between takes.
The co-worker looked at me with polite frustration and told me: "I know, but she's my boss."
So I offered to mention it to her boss instead if they didn't feel like taking the heat for such a correction. But the co-worker thanked me and said that they would take care of it.
During the takes that followed, the MTC representative never once uttered either word again.
Sorry to be so pacific.... err, specific... with this little story that appears to demonstrate in some small way my feelings of utter superiority when it comes to the English language, but I mention it because it helps bookend the act of drunken futility that closed out my evening.
Which involved my returning home from work, eating dinner (2 slices of pizza and one beer per slice -- yummy!) and then hitting the internet to check my e-mails and search for any new jobs I might have missed during the course of my work day. Sure enough, on Craig's List I came across an ad looking for "volounteers" to help out with the upcoming New York Underground Film Festival (NYUFF). Feeling a bit tipsy and truly hating this particular festival (go visit sixteentongues.com for the full story on that one -- it's just too long a digression for this posting), I sent the following e-mail:
Just a little tip for future posts -- the word you're trying to spell is "volunteers".
Good luck.
Sincerely,
Scooter McCrae
So as you can see, after a couple of drinks I can be just as moody, churlish and pissed-off as the most common guttersnipe. Oh, and let's not forget the implied air of superiority of my smart-assed e-mail. Again, as someone who gets paid to write for Fangoria (or Sirens of Cinema, etc.) every now and then I do tend to see myself as a semi-professional writer during those darker moments that I need to reassure myself that I'm doing something worthwhile with my limited time on this spinning rock.
And have you spent much time on Craig's List looking through the ads? Just a few minutes going through these will leave your eyes swimming in jaw-droppers like "amature", "realty" (instead of "reality"), misusage of contractions and apostrophes that would make the head of a remedial English teacher spin 360 degrees, and my personal favorite (usually someone having a negative reaction to the poor language skills of another posting) is seeing "elliterate" or some other fabulous misspelling of "illiterate".
But I digress.
Only a few mintues later, I got an e-mail back from Daniel Carbone of the NYUFF. Two succinct words:
i'm british
Ooops! I guess it was my bad after all.
And while it would be easy to go after Daniel for not capitalizing his "i" or even ending his sentence fragment with a period, I gotta give the man game-point-match. How embarrassing, especially as I tend to prefer the British spelling for certain words like "colour" or "realize".
To quote Nicol Williamson's wonderfully wacky Merlin from John Boorman's classic EXCALIBUR (1982): "There's always something smarter than yourself!"
And so I end this post not as the brave protector of our fair language, but as another victim of one's own ego run amuck.
posted by Scooter McCrae at 9:23 AM
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