Before They Were Famous

Hey! Here's a collection of famous actors in TV spots before they were famous!

It's worth clicking on for ten reasons.

10. John Travolta in short-shorts.
9. John Travolta singing about the chemical properties of soap.
8. Leonardo DiCaprio, multiple Academy Award nominee, shilling Bubble Yum.
7. Ben Affleck's cell phone.
6. Ben Affleck's hair.
5. Seth Green's hair.
4. Oh my God, Seth Green's hair.
3. Keanu Reeves really enjoying some Corn Flakes
2. Bruce Willis singing about wine coolers and almost but not quite french-kissing a dog.
1. That amazing commercial for "The McDLT" ('It keeps the hot side hot and the cool side cool!') with Jason Alexander is there.

Trust me, you don't need any reasons beside that last one. Who thought that product would ever be a good idea?

Jesus Has The Power Of Greyskull

Were you ever forced to watch really terrible cartoons in Sunday School? Y'know, the ones where they didn't even try to sync the mouths with the words, so a sentence will finish and the mouth will just keep going - O - O - O - O?

Well, just be glad you weren't a Jehovah's Witness.

Make sure to click over to the synopsis on Worst Cartoons Ever when you're done.


Live TV Directing

Over the years I've put up examples of video projects I've put together, whether they were things I was proud of or things I found particularly interesting, and occasionally things I hated that I couldn't believe I'd had to make. And making projects like those are the vast majority of what my job entails, so those are the things I put all my effort into.

But that's really only part of my job. On Sunday mornings, it's my responsibility to direct the cameramen and cut together the live feed that goes to the screen - it's called directing to IMAG, which stands for image magnification.

Now, most of this is pretty staid and it's rare that I direct something that I'm proud enough of to hang on to, but this Christmas I had a pretty good opportunity to direct with a little more flair - our annual Christmas show. Every year we drag our crane out of storage and haul some cameras over from our other sanctuary, and now that our other director has been tapped to work full-time in our other service, this year the directing duties landed on me. I'd never gotten the opportunity to direct more than four cameras before, so it was exciting to go to do prep work on the show - going to rehearsals, listening to the CD, prepping the videos to roll during the show, marking up the sheet music with notes. I actually had a music teacher come in to read the sheet music and cue me off my notes while I was directing. It was quite a production. Unbeknownst to me, one of the pastors wandered into the control room while I was working and stood in the back. He found me later that night and said "I just have to say, I gained so much respect for you tonight - there were cameras going everywhere, and you were shouting orders, and I had no idea what you were doing!" And if that sounds a little self-gratifying in print, you should understand that the pastor's tone made it sound a bit like "I had marginal respect for you before, but this convinced me you actually have some sort of value."

Weirdly, this past Christmas show really raised my profile within our church, which I wouldn't have predicted, but it definitely did. It's ironic because I put so much work into the 3-D film we did this fall, and a lot of the backhanded compliments I got afterwards made me realize that the film had lowered a lot of people's opinion of me more than anything. So it was nice to win back some measure of respect.

Anyway, here's a couple clips from the show which are worth checking out - though, it being past Christmas and into that "if I see anything Christmasy in the next six months, I'll just ralph" time of year. So I'll understand if you don't. But either way, here they are. The first is the piece I'm most proud of.

Make sure to play in high quality: as the video starts to play, click "HQ" on the bottom-right corner of the viewer.



The second is the clip you'll probably enjoy most - the combined kids/adults choir (the kids are adorable):

And the last is the clip that'll tell you the most about our church - it features Elvis, a crying cowboy, an opera singer, and chiquita dancers. Featuring, by the way, Claire's mom as one of the chiquita dancers:


Grammy Results

Well, this year I did better than last: 51 out of 110, for a total of 46% (for point of reference, random selection would've likely given me an accuracy of 18-19%). This year I got most of the major categories right, too, something I'd completely bombed on the year before (I ended up at 43% in 2008). I feel I could've done better if I'd reworked the rules a little bit. The following standards would've helped out:

1. Whenever it's one female versus four male nominees, always vote for the female. (this one trumps all rules, including the Barack Obama rule)
2. Never go against artists traditionally loved by Grammy voters - B.B. King, Natalie Cole, Mary J. Blige, and anyone named Winans.

The reality is that it's possible to be fairly accurate in the areas that you actually know something about - from the major categories through the end of the Country section, I was 25 out of 43 (58%). Twenty-two categories later, I was 29 of 65 (45%). The sections that killed me were the ones where I knew nothing: Latin, Jazz, New Age, Production. I did random, fun guesses - and went 1 for 19. With everything else, I was solid to excellent.

Mostly, though, I found that the rules worked! The Old Guy rule, the Barack Obama rule, and surprisingly, the Get Drunk and Guess rule, were across the board near-perfect in selecting the winner. I may use these strategy in future for other things - movie rentals, car shopping, choosing friends. Who knows the benefits this system can give?

Frankly, I feel next year I can do even better, come back even stronger. But guessing the Grammys is still a fool's errand - of the 110 categories, I'm really only qualified to guess maybe 30 to 50 with what could be called a valid opinion.

Of course, in categories like the Latin awards, that's half the fun.

Until next year...

Oh! As a final note, I have to say: every year I put my faith in the Grammy voters to get the Gospel section right, and every year I am deeply, painfully disappointed - but this year I found it truly scandalous. That Brandon Heath should have the biggest single in Christian music history and lose Song Of The Year to Kirk Franklin is an embarrassment of epic proportions. The Grammy Foundation should be completely ashamed of itself.