mamabean

Ha, residuals? I wish :-) No, residuals are given for work in commercials etc. when actors are involved and they are compensated according to their union and the individual contract of the commercial. Like, a big national network commercial can get you a lot of dough if they keep running it. "Real people" arent paid residuals and in fact if they do pay people to be in testimonials (as in infomercials) they have to indicate that in the ad itself. For this, they gave each of us $300 as a stipend for the weekend (to cover any of our expenses) and they paid for our flights and hotel. We were giving our real opinions, just for the camera. The "mute husband" was because they told us we could include our spouse in the shoot if he/she were interested. (My husband wasnt particularly interested! My kids were, but they didnt want kids in the shot!)They did say the spouse would just be there "in the backround" not giving a testimonial as they hadnt been "hired" from an interview, as we had.

No. The company "Homeadvisor" is one I had used many times and had great experience with, when I bought our house and renovated it and needed stuff done. We really hit the jackpot and got a really great contractor and since then I have had only good exeperiences with the service pros I hired using that website. Anyway, I was contacted by the company because I had written a review online. They wanted to know if I would be interested in participating in a possible commercial. It sounded kind of fun especially since they were offering to fly my family to LA where my sister lives, for the weekend, to do the commericial if chosen. I had a couple Skype interviews and they chose me along with several others and on the day of the shoot they bring people in staggered, at certain times througout the day. Theres a full set imitating a house, and you have a particular area of the set where you are going to give your testimonial. They have a makeup artist do the peoples hair and makeup to look natural, they choose wardrobe (You bring your own things and they have stuff there) and then you walk out on the set and a director interviews you and instrusts you to just be natural and share your experiences, coaching you with questions (he is offscreen talking to you the whole time) and they take your replies to questionsd and edit them later (he has a sheet of your responses to the interview you had before) instructing you to speak in full sentences and to smile and be animated and use your hands. Its harder than you might think! I never met Amy Mathews, she must have shot her part at a different time. I had no say in which part of my interview they chose, it was just me talking, I am just glad they didnt choose the part where they asked me to come up with a "jingle" for Homeadvisor and I did. Off key. Wow, I bet the person on here who hated me would take a hit out on me. I never watch the thing myself!

Chersteen C. Someone on this blog mentioned me by name. I found it hilarious (though honestly, a little disturbing too.)

In fact I did. I cannot tell a lie. I was bored and googling my name out of curiosity and landed upon this post. Serves me right I guess. To be fair I started looking to see what old links for my videography business were still there and after I found links to other people with my same name spelling (its a swedish name but my parents spelled it phonetically which was always hard on me, no one ever knew how to pronounce it) and so I eneded up scrolling through a few links out of curiousity, and foud someone saying the testimonial I made I made them want to stab someone in the eye. Never thought I'd read that about myself.

Oh My, I could not stop laughing. Thats me in the homeadvisor testimonial commercial. I did it 3 years ago, it was just a fun weekend in LA for me and my family, being asked to shaee my experience...it was one of those things where they ask you to just talk to the Director and smile a lot and be as natural as possible, answering questions, talking about your true honest experience in full sentences, meanwhile lights are on you and its really a commercial set and so its all a little nervewracking but exciting. Frankly, I have no idea where "poof! its like they appeared" came from in my brain, (its really a silly sentence I agree) but thats the part they took for the commercial. I have never been able to watch the darn thing myself because I really cant stand watching myself talk (AND I weighed 30 pounds more then, and hated my hair, LOL. So I wasnt even aware I clapped my hands in it but when I read your post aloud (through laughing) my daughter said dead pan, "yeah you did clap... A lot." (no, only once) :-) The fact that you wrote my name in your post AND linked to the commercial means I really made a (negative) impact on you. Sorry!!! LOL!!!! My 15 minutes.....