The Story of the Group Shoot

My morning stretch.

The day started out pretty good.
I’m at my sharpest the moment I open my eyes. I always seem to have an answer to a problem I couldn’t solve the night before. It’s really, really strange but I’ve been like that all my life. It’s also the time where I’m most creative.

In da shower

As I showered that morning, I tried to figure out a plan for the day, after all, it was the day of the big shoot. My goal was to get as many Actors and Models in one shot and to put that shot on the header part of this website. It would pay homage to all the peeps that helped make this site special. I’ve done a few shoots in the past where I’ve had more than a handful in my studio but nothing as large as this.

I’ve learned that when I share my ideas and make them clear, things work out much better, which again brings me back to this site. It’s sole purpose from day one was to have the ability to share scripts with all the actors. Having to send individual messages with attachments thru the PS3 network is time consuming and I’d get bored with that real fast.

So I did exactly what I didn’t want to do and that was to send out individual messages over the PS3 network. Because we have different time zones, I got a lot of messages asking what PST means. I figured if I wasn’t clear with the time, I’d have a lot of no-shows due to confusion. So, I did that. I sent out one attachment with time instructions. I also typed 2 posters of guidelines which I was going to post in my studio. I saved those posters in gif format and for some reason, when i tried to post them on the studio wall, they weren’t visible. The posters were instructions on what to do while in the studio and a map of where to stand during the shoot. 

Breakfast time

During my breakfast, I had decided to make finger snacks for everyone who showed up. I was trying to figure out how many would come and how many snacks I’d need and then it suddenly dawned on me, what if I invited too many peeps?  I wasn’t sure how many would be allowed in the studio at the same time. Not knowing, I decided an emergency back up plan would be to relocate the shoot to the Central Plaza. That would be the only place where size didn’t matter. So I quickly got dressed and zoomed down to the Plaza to scout a place for the group shot. Because I depended on the natural light of the sun, it was important that the group face me with the sun to my back. So I looked and looked until I found perfect spot (or at least we thought). Having found a backup spot, gave me peace of mind.

Busting some moves

I felt like busting out some moves with a few actors.

It was about 20 minutes until show time. I decided I should head back to the studio and start inviting the actors. Back at the studio, I looked at my invite controller and noticed about 90% of the actors we’re online. I was so excited. I quickly started inviting all the actors.

The Wait

They were lining up to get in. At about the 20^th invite, I got a message, “Your invite failed, the Server is full.” Oh no! And then, I started getting individual messages, “I can’t get in.” and “invite me again.” I looked around the studio and noticed everyone was running around in circles, all excited. Some actors approached me and told me to invite so and so again because they can’t get in. Eeeek! It was time to put plan 2 into action. I apologized to the actors that showed up and said we had to move the shoot to the Plaza.

Day Dreaming

No one actually listened to me, they were all too busy commenting on the wall poster but I finally got their attention and explained that if the Host leaves the studio, they’d all be kicked out and that I had no choice, I apologized again and clicked the plaza. My screen went blurry and so did all the actors.

So now I’m at the Plaza and at my perch. One by one, the actors started appearing. They quickly started approaching me, most of which were still ghosts. I again started getting messages from actors saying they can’t get in because the server was full. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t even have time to respond. Those of you who were there know our group drew lots of attention, too much attention for our own good. Not only were we surrounded by a crowd of lookie-loos, some of which got in my face, we even had one of our own fellow actors lose control and freak (incidentally, that actor is not longer with us).

But overall, this attempt at a website header group shot was dead on arrival. There were just too many peeps at the same time. As a matter of fact, there were so many actors, their avatar features never developed. We had actors walking around faceless, Q had his shirt off but no muscles, and those actors with faces had the strangest look in their eyes. I didn’t have a chance to look at myself, thank God because I’m sure I would have seen myself brainless. I tried over and over to get a good group shot but it was impossible. Not one shot I took is worthy of posting as the website header, even with edit or touch-ups. I’m sorry to all who were looking forward on capturing a great shot, it’s not exactly over yet and I hope I’ll come up with a new idea soon, any suggestions?

To end, I’ve decided to post several pics of our exciting day. Just read the text above the heads and I’m sure you’ll have a laugh.