Organic Baby Food, Upright Citizens Brigade, and How The Internet Made Me Less Reclusive

I know I’ve been talking about confidence A LOT lately, but I kind of just can’t get over myself. I’m trying. I swear.

I’ve worked behind the camera for the better part of my adult life. Performing has never been something I’ve wanted to do. Quite the opposite actually. It pretty much terrifies me. I can’t stand watching myself on camera and any time I’ve allowed myself to be committed to film (or video) I’ve regretted it instantly.

It surprises some people that I have such an aversion to being watched. I’m not really shy in any other sense of the word. But for a long time this weird performance anxiety has plagued me, especially in my chosen career path which requires pitching entire movies live and in person and being funny and engaging while you’re at it, damn it.  

(Spoiler alert, I’m usually not.)

So back in March when I was asked to be in a commercial for Happy Family Organic Superfoods, you would think I would have been like: HELL NO.  But I wasn’t.

Contrary to what I’d heard about blogging leading to sitting in your basement in your PJs, it has in fact brought me out of my shell…and my sweatpants.

To my own surprise I told the folks from Happy Family that I would in fact LOVE to be one of their “Brightside Bloggers“, and that I would totally even do it barter-style in exchange for free superfood because Delilah has been eating that stuff since she hit six months and I ran out of steam on making her baby food from scratch. (True.) Happy Family insisted on paying me actual money but they still gave me some free superfood. Double win. 

Seriously from those early days of parenthood right up through today Happy Family has been one of the few brands I’ve come to legitimately trust (because you guys know how I feel about GMOs and using our kids as guinea pigs and stuff). 

[Two of my favorite new friends from the HF experience — Ben, our director, and Linda from All & Sundry who I got to hang with in between shooting our spots.]

Anyway, the commercial shoot was awesome. Having worked on the opposite end of commercials for so long it was really weird to step through the other side of things. The creative team was awesome, and we instantly clicked — so much so that I’ve taken to working with a few of them in my offline life as well. Until Happy Family I wasn’t sure if my online and offline creative endeavors could ever coincide. Now I know they can.

I really didn’t know what to expect until I showed up on set. I mean, I knew that I’d be telling a true story about Delilah’s first encounter with sugar, but I didn’t realize that my story was going to be acted out in front of me by world class improvisers from Upright Citizens Brigade. I liked what I saw, and it lit a fire under me to finally sign up for that improv class I’d been threatening to take to get over my crazy performance anxiety. My graduation show from UCB is this coming Tuesday, and when I saw the cut of my Brightside video, I didn’t even cringe that much.

Happy Family’s “Stories from the Bright Side” have been going up all month, and you can check them out as they go live HERE.  I’ll be sharing mine with you soon.

(Photos courtesy of Happy Family Brands)