Dr. Cold and Miserable or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Have My Picture Taken

Last Saturday, which was one of the coldest days in recent memory, the members of Activity Book descended upon a warehouse north of Center City for our first-ever house team photo shoot.

Now, two things I always try to avoid are going outside on the coldest days in recent memory and having my picture taken, so I was not exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm as I headed out of my apartment (running a bit late, of course) and loaded up my car with an assortment of wardrobe changes and props. However, my mood started to change as my commute turned out to be stress-free and I managed to arrive ten minutes before the call time of 2 PM. Even better, I found a parking spot right in front of the warehouse. Movie star parking! My mood continued to elevate when I spotted Michael Schwartz getting out of his car with his assorted wardrobe changes and props. Within moments of exchanging hellos, Jason Stockdale pulled up and I felt even more at ease. There really is safety in numbers.

Entering the warehouse turned out to be a surreal experience. There appeared to be large double doors on the front of the building, but the entrance was actually a small door cut into one of the alleged large doors. (Visions of Jason's trompe l'oeil whistle danced in my head...) Even stranger, the door appeared to be too small to fit through, but as I approached, either it got bigger, or I got smaller. Curiouser and curiouser!

The warehouse turned out to be just as cold as the street, as the sole source of heat was a small propane heater, but that didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of photographer Tom Lovelund and his crew, who were in constant motion, setting up lights, bounce cards, reflectors, and tripods. Just as enthusiastic were Executive Director Greg Maughan and Artistic Director Alexis Simpson, who had successfully supervised the Everything Must Go photo shoot earlier that day. I chatted with fellow ABers Alan Williams, Kim Breslin, and Rick Horner as the rest of the group arrived.

But the arrival that created the biggest sensation was that of the pizza delivery guy. Watching steam waft out the pizza boxes added a surreal touch -- a mouth-watering fog effect! Not one to be shy around food, I pounced on the pizza like a beach urchin on Sebastian Venable. Soon, we were all gathered around our "craft services" table, where Greg and Alexis led us in a discussion of the PHIT Resident Group (grant proposal-speak for "house team") Manual. They discussed their plans for the house teams and for PHIT -- a great pep talk!

Around this time, Tom signaled that he was ready to take our individual head shots. Naturally, I ducked behind everyone else and watched as my teammates handled their camera time with ease. Eventually, it was my turn, and I'm sad to say that nothing short of a morphine drip would have gotten me to loosen up. Standing in front of the camera, scowling and tense, I found myself thinking that I was fast becoming the neurotic, pain in the ass member of Activity Book, just a bottle of vodka and a handful of Seconals away from turning into the Neely O'Hara of PHIT. I think poor Tom knew he wasn't getting anywhere with me, so he snapped a few pictures and sent me back to the safety of my teammates.

As Tom and his crew prepared to shoot our group photos -- they set up one of those huge roll-out backdrops just like in the movies! -- the rest of us chatted, ate more pizza, and played with the props we brought for the shoot. Alexis captured these behind-the-scenes happenings with her camera, and the results can be seen on PHIT's Facebook page. (There's a picture of me with Mr. Peanut and I don't look half bad!)

To get us warmed up (figuratively and literally) for the conceptual group shots, Tom took a series of photos of all seven of us interacting with each other. (Hats were involved.) Immediately, being with my teammates, I started to feel more at ease. Then, for the first set of group photos, we were told that we would be photographed in groups of two or three, and then those photos would be composited into a full group photo. First up were Kim and Jana, who invoked The Wizard of Oz and seemed enviably at home in front of the camera. Next came Kelly Jo, Michael, three very large crayons, a crocheted Big Bird, and some very interesting antics. Finally, Jason, Alan, and I were called into service. Having Jason and Alan to lean on (as well as a Nintendo machine and a stuffed Fievel to play with), I was finally able to relax fully and get into the spirit of things.

Then came the time to shoot our "Find the Differences" photos. The idea was to recreate one of those games in which the player must spot the differences between two seemingly identical drawings. Much time was spent on finding just the right pose for us. Then, as we held the pose, Greg and Alexis added and subtracted props, and made other changes. More photos were snapped, and before we knew it, we were finished.

However, there was still a bit of unfinished business to attend to, as Tom announced that two people had to have their head shots retaken. One person had to have his/her photos retaken due to "shine" issues, and -- surprise! surprise! -- I had to have mine retaken because I looked "cold and miserable." "But I'm always cold and miserable!" I protested, to no avail. "That's just who I am!" Ever the diplomat, Greg calmly and patiently explained that PHIT simply could not use photos of one of their performers looking uncomfortable. So, before long, I found myself back in front of the camera. Sensing my discomfort, everyone stepped up to cheer me on and distract me from the task at hand, and Tom managed to get the necessary shots.

And, on that note, the first-ever Activity Book photo shoot came to an end. I have to admit that, when it was all over, I actually felt a bit sad. Although I was not exactly the easiest or most cooperative subject, I did manage eventually to get into the right frame of mind. Plus, it's hard to stay in your shell when you're surrounded by supportive people whose company you genuinely enjoy and who make you feel at ease. So, I want to take a moment to thank Greg and Alexis for making all of this possible, Tom and his crew for all their hard work and patience, and Rick Horner and my fellow ABers for putting up with me and my moodiness.

(Now, if I can just convince Greg to use the Mr. Peanut photo as my official headshot...)

what won't we do for a little publicity?

Today I went to my first ever photo shoot. It would have been a lot of fun to see how this type of thing goes down, but it turns out that I was also in charge of the artistic direction of the photos. I thought we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted going in, and then I just had to work desperately to keep up with trying to learn how to do something as I was doing it.

It turns out pictures are not taken the way they appear on publicity postcards. So after a fair deal of goofing around, our awesome photographer Tom Lovelund, pulled me aside and explained that although the end product was a picture of all 8 members of my cast (for example), the actual photos would be best taken individually and then stitched together. Mind blowing. Honestly, I didn't know how to react... so there was a lot of trusting that went on.

The next most prominent thing to mention about the shoot was that it took place in a HUGE warehouse. And said warehouse ended up sorta, lacking...um... heat. Very chilly. As people were processing through headshots we had a few cast members running out to wait in their idling cars, and many other huddled around space heaters in coats. Then Rob Cutler from Everything Must Go completely lost it and started posing for photographs wearing only a carboard box (large at least) and socks. Real trooper, that guy. Or maybe a nutcase. I really can't be sure.

Fortunately the morning group helped us work through kinks in our system so that the afternoon went quickly and got great stuff for us to use promoting Activity Book. The stories from that session were far more tame, although the photos themselves were not.

We're going to try and get up some photos of us taking the photos on the blog - as well as some short snippets of what a photoshoot looks, sounds, and feels like. Keep an eye for them sometime next week (once I've figured out how to get them off the phone and onto the interweb).