Erin's Housing Ad

So Erin had another commercial shoot today. It went well...mostly :-) It was for a housing development. The storyline involved a very happy young couple, their young daughter (Erin) and a dog so happy with life. Unfortunately the director had hoped to have footage of Erin snuggling with and frolicking with the dog. Oops - he didn't know that Erin was deathly afraid of dogs! Luckily, the director was a really nice and reasonable guy and he took the dog out for the shots with Erin, keeping him in only for the shots with her Polish model "parents". And thankfully, while it does take some time, Erin does tend to settle down and become more relaxed around dogs - which she did. By lunchtime, she was willing to have the dog run around her - as long as he didn't get too close! :-) In the end, the director was happy with the shoot. Phew.

Now we look forward to seeing the cut version. :-)

Ten year anniversary

Alright I know when I've done too much shopping. This morning while snuggling with Erin, I thought I'd romanticise with her about the fact it was Peter and my 10th year anniversary. So smiling down at her, I asked her if she could guess what Mommy was doing 10 years ago today? She bit her lip in concentration, thought about it and then grinned brightly, and confidently exclaimed: "Shopping???" LOL - Um no.... but based on history, it wasn't a bad guess!

Erin's commercial

Erin was runner up to filming a commercial this week and then halfway through the filming day, the production company called her because the first actress had turned out to not be very cooperative. We went bounding down there excited for the opportunity and a little nervous - what if Erin wouldn't cooperate either? She siad she wanted to do this but when push came to shove - well, 95% of the time she's great but - gulp- the other five percent of time, she has some pretty strong opinions and may or may not like what she's being asked to do...

Luckily, acting turned out to be something Erin loved doing and was quite good at! She laughed, she danced, she acted coy (perfect role for her apparently). It was super. At first, she was nervous and they asked her to look bored and uninterested at the boy trying to get her attention. Erin couldn't quite do it. She kept laughing nervously, trying but just couldn't stop her smile from smirking through. I remembered a few days earlier from the playground when she was mad at me and gave me the shoulder. Mentionned it to her and sure enough - she could pull off that face! In the next shot, when the boy came up to her, she straightened her lips, furrowed her brow, yanked her head to the right over her shoulder, stuck her nose in the air and said "hmmmf". The director burst out laughing and yelled to the camera man - did you get it? did you get it? And little Public Actress Erin was born...The rest of the shoot went magically well.

Maddie played her part by taking care of the little boy playing opposite Erin. He was shy and looked very stiff on set but in between takes, Maddie played cars with him and then kicked a soccer ball back and forth and he totally loosened up so much so that he found a flower and gave it to Maddie! He also took a liking to Erin and on set, started laughing, hugging and kissing her! At one point, he (on his own) grabbed her in a bear hug, lifted her up (he's four). Erin laughed, throwing her head back and then leaned forward and kissed his cheek! Another time, they were supposed to be talking while sitting side by side on a swing. But Ethan (the boy) grinned, reached over and tickled her nose, she giggled and then leaned in and nestled her head onto his shoulder!!!! It was all bizarrely cute and bizarrely mature. The director loved it. Erin's agent grinned and told us we'd better watch Erin with the boys! No kidding!

At the end of the night (we shot until 10:30 pm!!!!), everyone on set clapped at the end of the filming but Erin closed her eyes, put up on mischievous smile, held her palm out, shook her head and said: no no no no! The director practically jumped and insisted we shoot her doing that too! It was hilarious!

Problem is -the client really wants an Asian actress and insisted the director use shots from the earlier girl (who was Asian) and who hadn't really worked out for them. The director protested but has to do as the client says. He siad he was going to cut two commercials - one with Erin and one with the Asian girl and the client would choose. He thought Erin was better but...we don't know...we saw the Asian girl, she was beautiful and seemed pretty coy looking out from under beautiful long dark lashes in the few shots we saw... And if the client wanted Asian, he'd probably go with her. (Why he picked Erin as his second choice though we'll never know!) So we're crossing our fingers hard but not really holding our breath that Erin's commercial will ever actually see airtime...

Heart of the Ocean

Last night, Titanic was on TV after the girls had gone to bed. It was near the end, when older Rose was about to throw the necklace into the ocean and she held it in her open palm. Erin came bounding in to tell me something of utmost importance (how cool a bicycle she saw was) but in mid-sentence she saw the necklace. Stopped, turned and literally mesmerized, eyes popping she walked right to the tv, reached out and said -- wowwww!

With that type of wish list - she better get do a few more commercials. heeheeeheee

All Attitude

Yesterday, we all climbed up the Yangmingshan stairs. When we got to the top of the stairs, Maddie, Peter and I wanted to plunge forward along the monkey trail and make it to McDonald's at the very top of the trail. Erin said at first she wanted to as well but then soon changed her mind. With Erin still angry at the world about twenty minutes later, we came to a little piddly stream crossing our path. We stopped for a second, looked at it and then upbeat, I proposed we jump over it or walk across the little wooden plank someone had placed there as a bridge. At that, Erin crossed her arms, pinched her face and defiantly walked right through the water!!!