How not to buy a Prop – Part 1
Way back in the 80’s, there was very little in the way of you just walking into stores and videotaping a bit. The management might come and beat you senseless, and then call the cops on you and you have to explain what the hell you were doing in a store.. and they sometimes don’t take the side that the customer is always right. They should, but they don’t.
Pat and I go to the local … I can say it now, since they’re both out of business… the old Zayre store in Haverhill, MA, which had just changed over into an Ames store. The idea was to go into the store, show how we got the prop, and see if the salesperson would go along with us testing it out… and since it was a trash barrel, we’d have to be inside it, and the situational laughs would bring people to side splitting guffaws.
It didn’t quite go down that way.
What you see is what happened – we wandered in and chatted up strangers, with me carrying a 20 lb camera and 30 lbs of 3/4 deck rig and batteries while attempting to follow the action and frame the shots. There was no way I’d be able to outrun anyone with that setup. Enjoy.
{other fun facts – yes, the open was Tom at his part time gig at Building 19 1/6 in Haverhill… an awesome place to pick up ‘good stuff cheap’, especially bedding and insurance salvage furniture. The intro was done in my driveway on a cold day on Plum Island, and as you can tell, heavily scripted – and the Grandmother looking for the tea set appreciated the help, but still didn’t understand why we were carrying all that equipment into a department store…}
Tags: ballerina, Boffo, camera, Comedy, dudes, humor, police, pyramids, skit, trashcan, trouble, yux
April 17, 2008 at 11:32 pm |
Nowadays you can get that kind of quality out of a 10 ounce camcorder that you can just casually hold in your hand. A little less conspicuous.
April 25, 2008 at 3:13 pm |
But not as funny as lugging a subcompact car around with you to tape something.