Korean Acting Debut

For all you who ever wanted to make it big in the Korean Television Industry, and I know many of you have had such glamorous aspirations, this is for you...you sick sick fools.

This weekend I drudged through my second day of filming for a public education English Television Program on Korean station EBS. Think PBS only exchange the "P" for an "E", then replace Mr. Rogers and the cast of Seasame Street with myself and hyper, over-animated Korean actors- aaah yes, now you get it. It's a recipe for wackiness...and learning.

I started my day at about 8:30 with 2 Korean women battering and smattering my face with enough powder to open a ski slope on my nose. Then filming the scenes began promptly at 9am, right on schedule...and by 9:02 that schedule was officially off. Setting up the lights, then adjusting the lights, then setting up cameras, adjusting the cameras, then waiting quietly to adjust the sound, then some more camera adjustments...oh and could someone fix that light...hey, why not another camera adjustment...No, you know what, let's reposition the shot entirely. Of course this was all transpiring in Korean, so I did my best impression of a wide-eyed oblivious doe and waited for someone to look at me, nod and say, "Ho- kay".

The scripts this time around were mercifully short and simple which made the actual filming of the dialogues pretty quick. We banged them out in only 3 or for 4 takes. Unfortunately, in between each of those takes was an obligatory 15 minutes interum of waiting uncomfortably ...then the "Stan-by"....wait for it, wait for it... (make awkward eye-contact with dialogue partner...smile and shift to avoid making further awkward eye-contact) aaaaand ..."Ku!" (Flawless Acting, Superb Performance) ..."Ho-Kay...one mo' time"

This lasted from 9am until 7:30pm when I finally finished my last scene at the Bank: "Very good sir, I'll need to see some I.D. if you don't mind. If you'll sign here, I'll get you your money." I was so convincing everyone in the studio whipped out their Korean Driver's Licsence on the spot and had pens ready to sign for cash.

HA! After such a long day I would have given it to them if it would have gotten me out of there sooner.