All the clips were digitized through my Sony Mini-DV camcorder from my Sony VHS deck. The quality is certainly not the best, and nothing has been touched up, other than length editing and some fade in/out effects.
All of the source tapes are over 20 years old, some of them were recorded off of broadcast TV, and some of them have been watched multiple times. I'll be adding more clips as I digitize more...
Wheel Of Fortune
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My first union gig. A National Commercial. Yes, I did actually meet Pat & Vanna. They were both very nice during the shoot (which lasted a whole 6 hours) and Pat does have a wicked, dry wit. And yes, they are both fairly short people. I'm 5'6" and I am taller than Vanna and about the same height as Pat. I didn't really have to audition for the part. I had been in LA for about 8 months, and had an agent for 6 months. I had gone on about 30 auditions and not gotten anything (which, I understand, is pretty much par for the course). My agent called on a friday and said "Can you go to a look-see for a commercial tomorrow? They are looking for a Danny Devito type." As always, I said "Sure!" So, I end up going to the director's house. A fairly big place with a huge great-room. We sit down and he has someone get me a soda. We talked a bit, he asked "Can you dance?" I said "Sure, but I haven't studied it or anything". "That's alright, the girl we hired is a great dancer - you guys can work something out. Are you available Thursday?" "Yes." They hecalled over to a woman at the other end of the room to come over and measure me. "So, I got the job?" "Yes. You'll have to get the Union paperwork out of the way, and we'll see you on Thursday." The woman finished measuring me, and I left. I still wonder if that's more typical of "auditions" when you're a well-known actor...
Toyota
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This was a local commercial in the SF Bay Area. It was created because at the time, there was talk that the SF Giants were going to move to St. Petersburg, FLA. Hence the content of the commercial.
Price Crusher Smith
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This was a local commercial in the SF Bay Area. The African-American was a standup comic, Ngaio Bellum, and I remember him because his business card had the line "A Rare Medium Done Well."
Painting with Nedwin
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A friend of mine, Chip Curry (an accomplished Bluegrass musician and videogame programmer I met at Imagic in the early 80's) started a extremely low budget, local cable, 30 minute live comedy show (Los Gatos, CA) called "Kick the Blahs". He asked me to help him out with some acting. This was on the 6th or 7th show. I ended up doing this bit a few times as a standup comic act. Went over pretty well, actually.
Open Look
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This is one scene from a much larger video that was used to market the Open Look product. It's my only scene in the video. The product was a visual-interface (like Mac OS or Windows) for Uinix / Linux operating systems.
Inktomi
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I edited my parts out of the full-length Inktomi video. It was for a product they called DaVinci. They basically had the president giving a marketing speech, and they needed to spice it up - so they had the camera moving around while he talked, showed his image on monitors sometimes, and added other elements.
Please DO NOT put these up on You-tube or any other service.
They are for friends and family to watch here. Thank you!
Vent
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This was created for some video switcher thingy that Nolan Bushnell had tried to market through Vent, Inc.. It was written, filmed, acted, and written by Dan Schow and myself. Dan was a radio DJ in the San Jose area for years, a great improvisor and comedy coach.
Inept
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Not sure what company I did this video for, but it was fun! And yes, the director attached the camera to the car and we actors drove around and acted the scene. The director looked at the playback when we returned. We talked about taking off in that great car, but we didn't...
Tandem Win Services
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Video for Tandem in San Jose... see how dejected I can be!
Making the Call
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Part of an instructional video for taking a minute to get ready before meking a business call. I fail...
First Friday
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Silly Series for Tandem - long live Cabaltech