{"id":389,"date":"2003-11-21T11:28:40","date_gmt":"2003-11-21T16:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinepage.com\/wp\/2003\/11\/21\/you-make-me-feel-like-a-natural-woman\/"},"modified":"2003-11-21T11:28:40","modified_gmt":"2003-11-21T16:28:40","slug":"you-make-me-feel-like-a-natural-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/2003\/11\/21\/you-make-me-feel-like-a-natural-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"You make me feel like a natural woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I arrived at my hair salon last Thursday, I was surprised to see the place invaded with lights and cameras. They were shooting an episode of M\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdtamorphose<\/a>, a Montreal produced makeover type of tv show.<\/p>\n

I am used to crews taking over when they film on location, so I wasn’t too excited about having them around . Let’s just say that with all the noise they made, they ruined my relaxing head massage experience. The whole thing was making the hairdressers a little more nervous than usual – even though they were trying to act cool and detached, it is a hip salon, after all – and people on the street would stop to look in, probably hoping to catch sight of a famous personality.<\/p>\n

My hairdresser is a guy in his early twenties with a strong appreciation of male models (he often shows me the hottest shots from magazines), who watches tons of movies on video and a fair bit of tv. We started talking about M\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdtamorphose<\/em> and he said that he was surprised to see how fake the whole thing is. They had forced the featured hairdresser to say lines like « how do you like it? » while turning the chair to reveal the new haircut to the woman getting the makeover. « I’m sure they don’t stage things like that in What not to Wear<\/a>, it’s so much more natural », he said. Even though I admitted that the hosts tend to be a lot more « natural » on these big American productions, I know everybody is just faking it.<\/p>\n

It still amazes me how television can be good at pretending to be natural and how most people won’t notice the difference between a true « cin\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdma v\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdrit\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bd » technique and a staged shot or a heavily edited sequence. Hell, even « cin\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdma v\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdrit\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bd », by the sole presence of the camera, interfered with reality and influenced the course of events. Bring a camera somewhere and it becomes the focus of all the attention. People who are usually spontaneous start acting strange and self-consciousness kicks in big time.<\/p>\n

My first tv job<\/a> brought me both behind and in front of the camera (as a reporter and co-host). While it is still somewhat painful to see myself on tv, the first few times were by far the toughest. I thought I just needed to be myself to appear likeable and not phony. Ha! Was I wrong! My voice hardly registered in the microphone and I looked so serious I should have been reading the news (but only the bad ones). I sounded and looked like someone who wanted to excuse herself for being there. I had to learn to project my voice (like in theater, but only a bit less), I had to learn to smile even when it had no connection to what I was saying (just don’t smile too much) and I had to learn to stare at the camera as if it were some kind of lover I was trying to convince of something. All of this for a tv show about technology!<\/p>\n

I felt ridiculous and very artificial at first, like the kind of girls I hated in high school. After the takes, I would ask: « Wasn’t this a bit much? ». The director answered: « No, that was it. You got it. » We would view the take together and I would be surprised to see how normal I sounded, even though I felt like I was doing too much during the shoot. The camera takes who you are and makes it very very flat and bland, while adding a few pounds in the process. You have to be yourself, yes, but also bigger, perkier and with a little more makeup, to be an interesting tv personality. I’m still not quite there and that’s why I tend to be happier behind the camera.<\/p>\n

It is the biggest paradox about television but it’s true: it takes very good actors to make things look natural. Most tv show hosts that you see and appreciate have a bit of that actor in them, which allows them to look friendly and close to the viewers. That’s why a lot of them are annoying in real life, where they can’t seem to get back to their non-performing selves…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I arrived at my hair salon last Thursday, I was surprised to see the place invaded with lights and cameras. They were shooting an episode of M\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdtamorphose, a Montreal produced makeover type of tv show. I am used to crews taking over when they film on location, so I wasn’t too excited about having… Continue reading You make me feel like a natural woman<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martinepage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}