This last weekend was quite an exiting culmination of a lot of hard work for
a friend of mine. Jeff had been working for a couple of months on an
animated piece. What might it be you ask? Well, he was going to propose to
his girlfriend, Natasha.
After Jeff got his idea of of creating an animation (he’s an animator by the
way) to propose to his girlfriend he contact the folks at the
href="http://tlc.discovery.com/">TLC show
href="http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/perfectproposal/perfectproposal.html">
Perfect Proposal. Not only were the producers of the show really
interested in Jeff’s idea, but they helped him out with the planning and
duping.
Now, Jeff couldn’t work on his animation during work hours so for a while he
was doing a lot of the work in the off hours and staying until midnight or
not going home for many nights. He was very lucky that he had many animator
friends help him and animate for him because the final product came out
perfect.
Along the way I took care of Jeff and Natasha’s cat Tigger while they
were gone for the holidays in December. When I got to the apartment to see
where Tigger’s food and stuff was Natasha asked me a lot of questions about
why Jeff was working so late and I didn’t have to. Luckily I’m in a different
department from Jeff so it’s very possible that I would have to work only
the normal business hours and Jeff would put in some overtime. Thankfully I
was able to bluff (well, actually lie to) Natasha and tell her that Jeff was
working on a short that we have in-house. Now, we do have a short in-house
and it’s been worked on for a while, but what I told Natasha was that because
we got a new board of directors they had decided that the short needed to get
finished A.S.A.P. She seemed to buy it because she told Jeff that and he
agreed so the story was in place.
While Jeff had pay work to do there were some times towards the end where
during the day we’d help him out with his project a bit. The funniest one
that I got to help him with was figuring out why in his new versions of his
opening shot wouldn’t render the floor. There was a wastepaper basket, papers,
and walls, but no floor. Eventually we got it to render and all was well.
So, back to the story. The Perfect Proposal crew came into town on Thursday
and got everything set up for shooting for the next couple of days. On Friday
they shot some interview and b-roll at the Wild Brain offices and on Saturday
they shot more with Jeff at the
Parkway Theater. I was apparently Jeff’s alibi that morning so, again,
I was helping to deceive Natasha. The night before Jeff and Mike at work had
made a DVD to use at the screening. Unfortunately the DVD played smoothly only
on computers. At first I was going to somehow get the data from Jeff and burn
a DVD for him, but then I got a message that Mike was able to make a good DVD
but he had to leave it on Jeff’s desk at work. Being the swell guy that I am
I got in my car, drove through a massive pacific storm that was blowing through
the Bay Area (including suckingly slow traffic on the Bay Bridge both ways and
getting to see lightning either strike one of the towers or really near it).
I got the DVD to Jeff at the theater and they were able to make sure it worked
(by the way, when I dropped it off Jeff introduced me to the host of the show,
Nikki
Boyer. I tell you, I was a bit stunned because she’s so gorgeous).
That same Saturday Jeff and Natasha went to lunch in Rockridge and the TV crew
approached them in the guise as of a fake TLC show they were calling “Popcorn
Picks.” The premise was that they were going to get an audience together
and have them pick a romantic movie to watch and talk about. According to Jeff
they got Natasha to talk quite a bit about her favorite romantic movie and even
enact a scene from the movie. I don’t know all of those details but I’m
looking forward to seeing it.
The crew also told Jeff and Natasha that they were going to be drawing for
one couple to be a featured couple and that they would get “red carpet”
treatment including a limo ride to the theater with twelve of their friends.
Amazingly Jeff and Natasha won the limo ride so that she wouldn’t suspect a
thing when they got to the theater.
So, on Sunday all of the invited folks (family and friends) were to meet at
the Parkway Theater at 2pm. When I got there the crew was still shooting Jeff
and Nikki doing set-up stuff including putting a poster for the fake show up
outside (they had the marquee already set as “TLC Popcorn Picks”), rolling out
a red carpet, and putting up stantions. At least that’s what I could see from
the sidewalk. Eventually we were all let in and had to find seats. If
Natasha would recognize us then we had to sit on one side of the theater.
Unfortunately there were very few people that she wouldn’t recognize there
so some people had to be careful. The only saving grace was that the lights
were down and she had a camera in her face with a light on top of it.
Jeff and Natasha walked in, were led to the front where they sat on a couch
and then Nikki introduced it as “Popcorn Picks” and the movie was supposed to
start. Then, instead of the romantic movie Natasha was expecting Jeff’s
animation started. In the first shot the camera pans over to a desk with a
caricature of Natasha in a picture frame and then cuts to the animated Jeff.
During that time Natasha was looking at the screen and then turning to look at
Jeff and then back at the screen.
When the animation was over Jeff stood up, got Natasha to stand up, and
proposed to her. Before Jeff got down on one knee and had the ring out Natasha
could be heard to say “What the heck is going on?” which got a good chuckle
out of the crowd. Jeff proposed and Natasha said yes and the entire audience
burst into cheers. At this point Natasha still didn’t know who was in the
audience and they turned the house lights up and she got to see it was her
family and friends. I don’t think I’ve seen quite that much shock on anyones
face in a long time. At that point the host came out and explained the show
and what had happened to Natasha. She was really happy and I think Jeff had
a permanent grin.
I’m glad everything went off without a hitch considering how many people knew.
That Natasha was surprised was even better. I’ll be sure to post a note
when I find out the air date of the show. At the theater they told us it would
be about six to eight weeks so we’ll see.
