I haven't decided whether this would become a series.
If you watch TV commercials closely, you’ll notice that when they show children, they usually show girls. There is a reason for this: according to studies, cute little girls sell more products than cute little boys. This is particularly true when it comes to teens and pre-teens.
Girl actresses are in higher demand and get higher salaries than their male counterparts. They also tend to be more stuck up and snobbish, particularly the good ones like 12-year-old Tippy St. Nicholas. Her real name is Clarissa, but nobody calls her that and escapes her wrath.
There’s no doubt: Tippy is exceptionally cute, beautiful even. What the producers like the most about her is that with the right makeup and the right wardrobe, she can play almost any role from a 9-year-old in a toy commercial to a 14-year old in a public service announcement on drugs.
She not only looks the part, she acts it too. She can come off with the all sweetness and innocence of a little girl expressing excitement over her new doll or a sexy teen seductress luring boys to do drugs. That is, on camera.
Off camera she is pure bitch. She is good and she knows it. Her mom and her agent know it. I don’t know how much she makes but I am sure it is top dollar. The entire staff treats her as royalty and the adults in charge order the adults not in charge to do her bidding.
She usually has a special assistant hired just to do whatever task she decides she doesn’t want to do for herself. She seems to take a perverse pride in ordering adults – especially adult men – around. Rare is the shoot where she doesn’t have one of her snits and production is halted until she is mollified and gets over it. She is that good in the eyes of the agency that they tell their directors to put up with it.
I’ve seen her in action, and I was glad I was never in a shoot with her. That changed today.
My mom and I were at the location. The part called for a 13-year-old boy of athletic build. I’m a 15-year-old boy of athletic build. The producers generally hire actors older than the part mostly because of their acting ability. I look a little younger than I actually am.
There are rules about child actors to protect them from parents who usurp their salaries. Mom didn’t need those rules. She saw this as a way to fund my college education. I’ve been acting since I was 8 and have enough put away for a good school. I’m not Ivy League rich, but at least I won’t have to start out with Community College.
Mom and I were watching Tippy and another boy going through their script. Basically, it was a family picnic complete with mom and dad and big brother and younger sister tossing a special kind of ball back and forth to each other. The ball was obviously the product being sold.
Unfortunately, the boy stepped into a hole and went down. “Cut,” the producer yelled and everyone went rushing to the boy’s aid. Everyone except Tippy who seemed to be miffed at having her rhythm interrupted.
It turned out that the injury was nothing worse than a sprained ankle, but the boy was done shooting for the day.
The producer called everyone together and said, “OK, we’re going to have to do a reshoot of the whole thing.”
There were groans. He went on. “You,” he said pointing to me, are going in for Todd. I felt like the second string running back coming off the bench. He shoved the script into my hands and said, “This isn’t a speaking part. Tippy has the only line in the commercial. Just toss the ball back and forth to her and make sure you don’t make her work too hard to catch it.”
Tippy rolled her eyes at this. “I’m not going to do a reshoot. All my parts were perfect.”
“But Miss St. Nicholas,” the producer pleaded, “We have to. We have too many shots of Todd and you playing and all of you together as a family.”
“Most of Todd’s shots are from the back. If you dress this boy like Todd you can get away with it.”
“This boy is called Steven,” my mother put in.
The producer glared at her. How dare she correct Miss St. Nicholas.
Tippy just sniffed and said, “Whatever.”
The producer had me work with the toy manufacturer’s representative and practice throwing the ball to show off its various features.
In the meantime, Tippy was barking orders for people to bring her various items and to tend to her needs. The last I saw of her before the shooting resumed was her going into her personal porta-potty (It was in her contract. Everyone else shared the other one.) I felt tempted to run into it and knock it over with her in it.
Mom could see my rising wrath and counseled me. “Look, it’s just a shoot. I will be over with in maybe an hour. This is a great opportunity for you. This is a big name company, and although you don’t like it, you are working with the industry’s leading pre-teen star. She’s going places; it won’t be too long before we see her in a movie and it can’t hurt to have you associated with her.”
I saw her logic and tried to put my anger to the side.
In the end, Todd had to strip down to his shorts as did I so we could swap clothes. We shot some additional scenes with me tossing the ball to Tippy (all taken over my shoulder).
Then came Tippy’s big moment. The original version of the commercial called for complete silence on the part of all the actors. The entire commercial was supposed to be voiced-over. However, Tippy’s mom and agent demanded that she have a speaking part.
I was a close-up of her and her only line as she held the ball up next to her face and announced, “It’s so much fun.” It took a lot of takes until she was satisfied that it showed her at her best.
The last scene was a re-take of the family arriving at the picnic site. Unfortunately, this had to be reshot in full since Todd was clearly visible in the group.
There was just one problem. Todd’s shorts were rather tight on me and I had an erection. Like her or not, Tippy was a very attractive girl and was acting in one of her sexier moods. It did have an effect on me. My woody must have been obvious since the producer yelled, “cut” almost instantly after setting the family up for the shot.
He pulled me aside and said, “Young man, you’re going to have to make that thing go away.”
I nodded with head down.
Tippy overheard and huffed, “Disgusting boys. Is this going to take long? I’ve already redone more scenes than I had to.”
The producer looked at me. I looked back at him and shrugged my shoulders. “It takes time,” I said.
“Can’t you speed it up?” Tippy demanded.
There was only one sure-fire way I knew to get rid of an erection, but …
Tippy’s agent spoke up, “We’re going into overtime, and you know how expensive that gets.” She was smiling as she was saying it knowing that she was also getting a cut of that dollar.
She then whispered something into the producer’s ear.
“I can’t ask him to do that,” he replied.
“I don’t see why not. It’s a perfectly normal act for a boy of his age.”
The producer nodded and took me off to the side.
“Miss St. Nicholas’ agent suggests that you masturbate your erection away.”
“What?”
“You know, jerk off and make it go away.”
I was silent.
He pressed on, “Look son. This is costing us big time. I tell you what. Do it and I will assure that you’ll be top of my list for future shoots.”
Mom was also drawn into the tableau. She said, “You don’t have to do this, but if you want to, it’s OK with me.”
I said, “OK” and walked off towards the community porta-potty.
“Where’s he going?” Tippy asked.
“He’ s going to make it go away.”
“I want to see it.”
“You can’t,” I replied, “This is private.”
Tippy put the back of her hand to her forehead, “I think I feel one of my migraines coming on.” Tippy was famous for her migraine headaches which stopped production in its tracks. The only cure for these headaches was to give into whatever it was she was demanding. The producers were at her mercy this time. The commercial was 95% done and could not be completed without this last scene.
The producer took mom and me to the side. He pulled out a checkbook and wrote in an amount. Mom and I looked at it. That college I was going to go to just got a lot better.
I nodded, “OK, I’ll do it.”
Tippy said, “Oh my headache is getting a little better. I want you to do it in front of the camera. I want something for my private collection.”
“No way.”
“Oh my headache is getting a lot worse. It might last all day and maybe even into tomorrow.”
The problem with outdoor shoots is the lighting. The sun does not stand still. Tippy had every advantage and she knew it and she was exploiting them to her ultimate advantage.
The producer said, “OK everyone, take a break. I’ll run the camera. The rest of you except Miss St. Nicholas, her mom and Steven’s mom clear out.”
Tippy smiled impishly.
After the crowd cleared out, the producer took mom and me aside, “There’s no dealing with her when she gets in one of these moods. She seems to fancy you, young man. Take some comfort in that. I’ve never seen her interested in any boy like this before. You know that check I just gave you? I’ll give you another one just like it.”
You know, maybe with more assignments like this, I just might be able to make Ivy League a reality.