Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The Press Tour

The Press Tour is a necessary evil in the entertainment industry. Hell, it’s a required element of selling any new product in some form. Even at a party, when someone asks what you’re working on, the smart person will proceed with a very natural sounding sell. Luckily, it’s not on live television.

Media trainers will try to get you to remember a million little things about how to “express the ideas of the movie succinctly” in sound bite form, but all of that is incredibly difficult to remember when it’s 6AM, hot lights are in your face that make it impossible to see anything more than four feet in front of you and Matt Lauer is asking you to tell some story about a your film shoot. Luckily, there are only three absolute rules for the press tour.

Rule number one: Always sell whatever poster is hanging behind you. You might also have a hit TV show or a more anticipated movie coming up, but your job today is to sell the poster that’s hanging right now.

Rule number two: “Just say yes.” Get along with your interviewer, and your costar sitting next to you.

Rule number three: For the love of God, be flirty!

That’s it! With those three ideas, even if you don’t have ridiculously awesome answers, you’ll still be doing your job. BUT- playing by the rules does not always make for good television…

And without further ado, here is an example of great TV, featuring two of the stars from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II. Listen to the Gossip Girl, but watch Ugly Betty.

Ouch. And YAY!




Also, Happy Birthday Casey! You're 33!



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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! I love it. America Ferrera is so awesome.

NB said...

Her expressions - classic.