Growing Up Geek: My Super Nintendo Commercial
The very first professional gig that I got as an actor through my agent was a video game commercial for Super Nintendo. The video game was Super Adventure Island, and the commercial is as cheesy as 1990s video game ads could possibly get.
I remember only going to one audition for the lead role in the commercial. I excitedly read my lines, they liked my look, and they wanted to hire me. There was one little hang up though. I might have been too short. I've always had height issues. They kept testing my reach because in the commercial I had to pull down a screen in front of a classroom full of kids. After a few tests showing them I could do it they gave me the part.
A few weeks later I showed up to a sound stage where they were shooting the commercial. This would be the first time I was ever on the set of something like this, and it was the coolest thing ever! They had a full on elementary school class room set up where the commercial was set. There were a ton of other kids my age to fill it, and there was all the delicious food that a kid could want.
We filmed two separate commercials that day. The first included me skateboarding away from a boulder, and jumping into the classroom. The other involved me skateboarding away from a UFO. The boulder commercial is the only one I ever saw. Once I was in the classroom I had to immediately jump in and excitedly deliver my lines at a fast pace. We had to do a few takes because whenever I got to the word "treacherous" it just wouldn't come out right. I don't know why, but I just had a problem saying that word during the filming of the commercial. It was pretty embarrassing every time I got to it and screwed up. I didn't have a problem with it at the audition! We finally got it though, and everything worked out.
One of the more interesting things I had to do in the commercial is work in front of a green screen and interact with an animated character from the game. It was so weird! They didn't give me any real points to work with. I just had to interact to what the director was explaining to me which is why it all looks so laughably strange and stiff in the commercial. It was hard interacting with something that wasn't there!
One of my favorite parts about the experience was meeting and hanging out with some the other kids on the set. We would look around and check out the camera equipment and stuff. It was a little weird though, too. Some kids were really cool and nice and we'd hang out and talk. Others formed their own clicks, and I would over hear them talking crap about me. I guess it wouldn't be show business without having a bunch of jerks talk crap about another person. This was a hard lesson about life that I had to learn though. I've never liked people talking crap behind my back. Who does?! It's just another form of bullying, which is another thing I dealt with throughout my life. I learned at a young age how to deal with those people though. If they want to lower their standards as human beings that's their problem. If you couldn't tell, I'm very passionate about this issue. Maybe one day I'll go into it with more detail. This commercial was the first real experience I had with stuff like this where it really hurt.
Regardless of the hard life lessons learned while shooting the commercial, it was an extremely fun and rewarding experience, and acting is something that I wanted to keep doing. You can watch the commercial below. It's really embarrassing, so I hope you get a laugh out of it.