First and foremost, I finally got to meet Bryan! I’ve “known” him online for about 10 years on the Tivo forums but we’ve never actually met. Come to find out last year—long story short—he lost 140 pounds on Naturally Slim and has kept it off for three years now. He was one of the two people who were initially responsible for me joining NS. 🙂
He is a videographer/producer by trade (617 Production Group) and had been doing the videos for the program and after many years he had an AHA moment and never looked back. His company no longer does the official program videos but Marcia does call him in for stuff like this. And especially for my testimonial since I know him!
We were recording it at Bryan’s church because it was the most convenient place. The sun was in my eyes…
…so this is apparently my look as I’m figuring out if this new spot will work.
Getting ready to start!
A pic Bryan snapped during the filming.
The whole thing was just…odd. And surreal.
First, even though Marcia was asking me questions, you won’t ever hear her asking them…so you have to rephrase/include the question in your answer. So if she asks “What was the easiest thing about Naturally Slim?” you’d have to start your response with “The easiest thing about Naturally Slim…” Of course, not every question led to a response that was that easy to formulate and I often had to take a moment to think how I was going to respond to get the question in. The good thing (which took some getting used to) is knowing that it will all be cut and edited for the best sound bite, so even though everything was recording, it won’t all be used. That was also helpful when I was answering a question, yakking on and on, and then suddenly losing my train of thought or realizing I had veered violently away from where I’d been headed with my answer and I would just stop and say “Yeah, that’s it. I lost it.” Marcia had told me to just pretend I was having a conversation with her, but honestly, it’s a lot harder to answer questions when you know someone is counting on you to give sound bite answers. That said, every so often as I answered a question, I’d see Marcia do a mini fist pump showing she loved my response. After one (which I don’t even remember what I was talking about), she said she really wanted to use it at the end of week one! So who knows, maybe I’ll actually be in the official videos!!
Second—and I touched on this above—is that I often veered totally off course as I was answering a question. I remember a time or two when I’d be talking and talking and then suddenly I was also thinking “Wait, that is NOT anything related to what they asked.” I would ask if they wanted me to start again or try another take and the answer was generally no, because even if I didn’t answer the specific question, there was still usable sections or they liked the direction I went. I did have to retell a story once because I mentioned IKEA and they said I couldn’t say that just in case a competitor ever used the program. So then I worried about telling the story again and hoping I got all the same excitement and inflections…and who knows if I did or not. Time will tell.
Overall they said it went very well—even though I felt I was completely ridiculous and out of my element—and we talked for about 30-40 minutes. I know Bryan’s company can work magic, but I am still crossing my fingers that I come off natural.
Afterwards, I asked Marcia and Bryan who wanted to get in my pants. 🙂 Seriously—I had brought my FAT PANTS and had thought it would be fun to get two people into the one pair of pants. (This did not surprise them—they had both been forewarned.) Marcia is SUCH a good sport and agreed to do it. First, though, Bryan recorded a snippet of me trying on the pants, so hopefully I’ll get to see that in the end. And then this happened…they were stretched out a bit more than when I actually wore them, but STILL. Two of us in one pair of pants. Good times. Again, SUCH a good sport.
I have no idea when I will see a finished product, but you know I will let everyone know as soon as I see something. And don’t get your hopes up that it will be a 20-minute piece. It is likely to be a 20-second snippet here or there in a compilation of other testimonials. Fingers crossed!!
