1 post tagged “sound”

Okay, so I'm over not having my plug on ABC.  In order to survive these kind of let downs I switch gears and take into consideration that one never, ever knows what can come from having a little exposure (suntan, skin cancer or heck, even a new career!)

I went to my Quaker Friends meeting yesterday and had my rash of "cheerleaders" come to me and say they too were disappointed.  I even received emails from fellow writers saying they were too.  With so much support how can I not feel blessed by the whole affair.

And truthfully, it would not have been as easy to do the CNN show had I not already been in LA for the 20/20 show.  And CNN did great things! 

Showing up to the CNN building on Sunset Blvd. and being ushered into makeup immediately was great.  The security guards were lovely to Cayman.  They issued him a clearance tag for his shirt and then gave him two more WITH his picture on it.  Not a big deal to grown-ups but to an 11 year old, this was a class act. 

After a make-up touch up with a lovely make-up artist, Mecca, I was taken to a small, black box of a room with the projection on the back wall of Hollywood in lights.  The cameraman, Gene, set me up and chatted with me while putting my ear piece in and microphone on.

I learned something very important to a woman's modesty from my first TV show....always wear button down shirts.  The truth is that sound men will be up and down the front of your shirt twenty time because microphone spongy parts disappear, fall off and get misplaced in cleavage.  The spikes on the microphone dig into the chest with t-shirts where they hold onto button-downs quite nicely.  Then, a new microphone piece I experienced in London was a taped on variety with a hairy, shag-carpet-looking head.  I was wearing white (a huge no-no, but I had a different colored scarf on the help balance color for the camera) and the sound man comes at me with this newfangled microphone head cover.  I looked down my shirt and from my perspective it looked as if I had a hairy chest puffing up and out of my cleavage.  Hmmmm.

I asked the sound guy if perhaps I could have a cover in the color of the hair on my head so folks wouldn't think I had a hormone problem AND dyeing my hair to boot.  Graciously, he put it further down my top while explaining that he loved his job, especially when it came to adjusting mikes down chesty women's blouses!

Back to CNN.  While sitting in the black box studio, I heard a bunch of voices piping into my ear piece.  Some were from here in the studio in LA, another in New York, then finally, one....the interviewers.  She explained we were taping so don't worry about mess-ups....we could edit.  And we proceeded to have a lovely chat about Hollywood, celebrities and life as a celebrity personal assistant.

By the time it was aired it appeared that I was in studio with other people.  I was extremely pleased with the whole process and am thankful for the great folks there.