Victoria Jackson

Day 5 -- Tuesday August 4

Tape day. The hustle. The bustle. The excitement. The four lines.

So the time had come. My four lines were going to be my four lines all day and also for the show tonight. Nothing else could be done. We rehearsed the show during the day, ran it once, then broke for dinner. Nothing earth-shattering happened, I was just coasting on in for the big show.

Finally at about 7:30pm, the big show arrived and was even less big than first anticipated. The scene, itself, did not get a rip-roaring amount of laughs. The audience was simply not hip to the kooky cemetery scene. Then throw my two cents into the mix and it was a very rough outing. All three of the first lines got no response. The fourth got a middling amount, but so much so that I couldn't even hear it from where I was.

Which brings up an interesting point... Whoever was running the switcher that controlled which angle the audience would view was doing a terrible job. He would show a wide shot when someone had a subtle punchline. He would show the listener instead of the talker. There was no timing in the switching of angles. It was like he was drunk or sabotaging the show. Very odd. I have never even noticed the "switcher" before which, I guess, says a lot about this guy's ability to switch. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all but just not cut out for the switchin'. Meanwhile, my scene could not physically be viewed by the audience so they only had Mr. Switcher's work to go by.

So, anyway, I didn't see him switching on my scenes, of course, but based on all of the other scenes, whcih I saw stumble and struggle because of his choices, I assume he made the same mistakes in the cemetery. Not the end of the world. Post-production can add a little laugh here, a chortle there, and the person in charge of the permanent "swithcing," the editor, will be just a little less drunk and a little more in tune with what's going on. So even though it will still only be four lines, and even though it will probably never make a Ducey Reel, the scene will come out decent and all should be fine in the end.

After the taping, the Conrad Squad made its way over to Mexicali and ordered up a few pitchers of Margaritas. As I have remarked all week, this was a very fun group of people to hang out with and tonight was no exception. It was a nice little cap to my week on the show.

Go back to Day 1

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