i never thought i’d actually have this footage to show, but with some persistent googling and a youtube video capture application…voila! portfolio piece.
this was the first on camera gig i booked from an audition. i didn’t know what it was at first, but was psyched when i booked it. turned out to be a web commercial for chevron techron. now trust me, i’m no champion of the oil and gas industry. but i hope i’m also not a hypocrite. i have a gas guzzler. i fill it with chevron techron (safeway club card makes it pretty much always the cheapest gas around these days). and i drive a lot.
but also…i’m a VO guy trying to break into on-camera work. i’m not exactly in a position to be picky or turn my nose up at a project because of, well, anything, really. unless it was like, an instructional video for how to change lanes without using a turn signal. fuck, i hate it when people do that.
and finally, “a gig’s a gig, right?”
that’s my only line, fittingly enough, in the chevron piece. i play a hair-flipping, eyelinered-‘n’-tattooed grunge metal guitarist gigging at a little girl’s suburban backyard birthday party. we were named CRUD, for the shoot, though our name is never mentioned. suffice it to say, we’re not exactly a good fit for the event.
one of the things that’s so different between voiceover and on-camera work is time. as someone who has logged a lot of studio time over the years, i’m still amazed at how efficient (in most cases) VO work is. you show up, you get in the booth, you talk into a microphone, you get direction, you talk some more, you’re done. rarely does a typical session go longer than a couple of hours unless you’re doing something like long-form narration.
on camera work, on the other hand, takes hours…days sometimes. for this short video, we were on set for a good ten hours, most of which was spent sitting around. it was eye-opening for me. i came away with a huge appreciation for the amount of work and coordination and planning that goes into even the shortest of film projects. and it’s helped inform the other on-camera work i’ve done, if for nothing else in terms of how i prepare myself for a day-long shoot.
so without further ado, here it is. a gig’s a gig indeed. check it out here.