i made this up
He makes very tightly controlled, unnatural movements, as if he has read somewhere that each particular flinch is going to reach out to people and help convey his point.
Listen, you can't blame Bob for that. Here's the deal. We were all set to film this vid at Apple's office at Bubb 8, in an empty space the retail group has. Filming in-house is ideal, especially for a small vid like this. Everyone is more comfortable, deadlines are a little more relaxed, it's cheaper, you don't have to bring in craft services, etc. So we borrowed a couple videographers from media and they brought some people and a whole setup over to the space. The backdrop was hung, the lights were setup, they even had the sound all ready to go. So we're waiting. Bob is always early to EVERYTHING, but now he's late... like 10 minutes late. This seems small until you consider that six very busy people are wasting their time doing nothing.
So finally he walks in, trailed by this snippy guy "Curt" from branding (think the maitre d' from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Bob is not smiling. Snippy guy: "Folks, we're not going to try and half-ass this. We're grown-ups now. I've arranged a shoot at Chiat." Total silence, but everyone is furious. These people are pros and they were helping us out from the kindness of their hearts. The worst part though is that apparently this a**clown, who none of us have seen before, talks to everyone like that with impunity. Bob says zilch. Connie, who everyone looks to, says nothing either. I start to get some dirty looks from the guys too, now that we've just wasted their lunch breaks for nothing. So we pack it up and dismiss our impromptu crew.
When we get to Curt's "shoot" absolutely nothing is ready. He pretends to be all upset about it like it's the studio's fault, but basically he did the booking all wrong. Two hours later, after choosing the overkill option on everything, we're ready to shoot. Bob starts. Literally two sentences into his dialog, Curt yells "CUT!" One important thing to know at this point is that we don't shoot like a movie. We're doing this stuff on DV and we shoot for the edit. The director/producer might casually say cut and give the talent a count, but we're always rolling and we can do a lot in the editing booth. The idea is the keep things going smoothly and if we hit a bump, we go back a little and start again. Anyway, Curt wants Bob to enunciate more. This is ridiculous because as always Bob is speaking clearly and crisply. A few more minutes go by and Curt belts out another "CUT!" This time he wants more hand movements.
Up to this point he's just been obnoxious and controlling. But going forward it starts to get weird. Curt turns into the hand movement junkie. And he's getting specific about what he wants. At one point he actually bumps Bob out of the way and stands in front of the camera furiously flailing his hands around. He wants Bob to "puuush" the info to the audience. Nevermind that the hand movements he wants are typically interpreted as defensive. Watch the final video without sound. It's like he's saying "Woah, I didn't eat your sandwiches." Anyway I'm trying to control my laughter as I notice just about everyone else giving me looks. The studio manager is watching too and starts making comments in a not-too-under-his-breath way.
I can tell Bob just wants to get this over with, and that for some reason he just has to hold his tongue. I have no idea who Curt knows, but he's apparently got some clout. Finally we get done with the stand up footage and it's time to shoot the screens. Curt has to get a latte, "so let's take 10 everyone." The second he's gone we start working at top speed to get the setup done and start rolling. We don't even really take the time to laugh. We can tell he wants to turn this into a two day shoot. BTW Bob isn't the hand... at least not
that Bob. "Hand Bob" is another good guy and when he starts doing his thing he is so on-task that we got through the script two times and shot some coverage in other apps before Curt made it back with his latte, which incidentally looked more like a giant sundae.
I had to go to a metrics meeting a few days later when they did the post production meeting, but I heard Curt was a nightmare in that too. Basically I just wanted to point out the fact that the jazz hands and robot-face are not Bob's fault. Bob is a really nice guy and I've worked with him for most of the time he's been at Apple. He is the last person you'd think of as creepy if you met him.