What I've Been Reading Instead of Cleaning My House

Monday, December 17, 2007

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

Back in the early 50s, my father worked in TV. Even though he soon left that job to work as an electrical engineer, he still had some of that movie magic running through his veins.

It started with a Super-8 camera taking simple films of his growing family hanging up their stockings every Christmas eve. As the years went by, we couldn't just hang up our stockings, we had to have ever more elaborate skits that went with the hanging of the stockings. Regular lamps weren't good enough, my dad had these super bright spot lights that would blind us all as he would yell, "Open up your eyes!"

Lorna's husband, Jorge, proclaimed ours "The Cecil B. DeMille Christmases." Just like real film making, we had to wait forever for the lighting to be just right, we'd finally get our skit perfect and my dad would realize that he had the lens cap still on (or no film in the camera), and it would always go over time and over budget. I would half expect to see a couple of grips eating at the Crafts Services table in our living room with the way these productions would play out.

Then in the early '80s, we were introduced to video tape. SOUND. Just like the old silent movie era actors, we were kind of hesitant and some of our skits were still done with no sound. After a year or so, we used this new medium to showcase J.D.'s band or Rena's vocal lessons. Soon, all the neighborhood kids were also involved in our movies.

My favorite Christmas film was when the entire family was struck down with the stomach flu, but we still went on with the show -- with all the kids carrying pots around for barfing in.

Another good one was when Ardale went on and on about how proud he was of Spence and how much we miss him while he's on his mission. Then we hear Spence in the background say, "Don't you mean Henry?" Oh, you should've seen my dad's face on that one.

Just like in real life, we try our best to plan things out and control everything. And just like in real life, our favorite memories consist of the times when everything goes wrong.

6 comments:

Geo said...

I love this! Makes me want a video camera even more. I should post our Buchert Christmas spitting contest at Utah Lake from last year.

Lois said...

GEO -- those memories are precious. Maybe one of these years we'll get those old family films transferred to digital.

Geo said...

When you do, please invite us over for a screening. We'll bring dinner!

Lois said...

GEO -- hey, don't wait for that (it may never happen), just bring us dinner anyway!

Am'n2Deep said...

I love the last paragraph of this post...so very true.

Lois said...

AMN2DEEP -- sad, but true.

We had my sister's family come visit and we did tons of fun stuff, but what do the kids remember? Playing charades by flashlight when our power went out.