Ready for my close-up

Just got back from helping to make a promotional video about my agency. I've been involved in these sorts of videos in my long career. One time I worked for a call center, and during the lunch hour when most people were off-desk, they put a few of us right in a row so still looked like the office was teeming with employees, while a host spoke in front of us about our vital work. The director, no doubt struck by my natural poise, had me do several takes of walking to "my" desk and handing a paper to an associate before I sat down and pretended to talk to a customer.

Anyway, today's video was much the same. They recruited seven or eight employees to populate the library's beautiful, newly renovated rooms. They needed to make it look like the place is always full of serious, moderately clean individuals instead of our usual patrons. I'm kidding! Our patrons are lovely people. I'm sure it was a liability thing--if we tripped on camera cords we couldn't sue for millions.

After some time at a library table, reading encyclopedias, they took a long shot of me walking in the door and approaching the librarian's desk to ask for information. We did that take four times, I think. There was no audio, so whenever I got to the desk, I would amuse everybody by asking the librarian for weird things: books on ancient Aztec erotica, or how to make meth in the office kitchen. It was my hope to make her crack up, but she was too professional, darn it.