Be Like Kiss Guy
This may seem a bit off topic but, trust me, it’s going somewhere.
Have you seen the video of Kiss Guy? If you haven’t, open up the interwebs, and type ‘Kiss Guy’ into Ask Jeeves (or whatever search engine is popular when you are reading this). Or you can click here. I’ll wait.
What you will see is handheld video from the crowd at a Foo Fighters concert. Dave Grohl, lead singer of the band and controller of all that is awesome, tends to invite people up to the stage to play an instrument on one of their songs. It's a longstanding tradition and it’s kind of great. Well, at this show in 2018 in Austin, TX, he looked out in the pit and saw this kid with long black hair and his face painted like one of the members of Kiss, the 80s band that always performed with specific face makeup on (except for that one video that they did which we are going to pretend doesn’t exist because it just sucked). The kid, whose real name is Yoyo Sanchez (a spectacularly awesome rock stage name, by the way) had brought a sign that said “Let me play Monkey Wrench” and had been holding it up earlier in the show to no avail until someone behind him screamed at him to put it down.
About halfway through the show, Grohl starts asking him about the makeup and he says “Didn’t you have a sign up earlier in the show?” He raises the sign, Grohl talks to him a few more minutes including asking him if he sucks, and then says “Get your ass up here and let's see what you can do.”
Two minutes later, this kid is up on the stage and walks up to Grohl who gives him his guitar. As Grohl goes to hand him a pick, the kid shows him that he already has his own.
HE BROUGHT HIS OWN PICK!!!!!
Then, as Grohl starts to talk, Kiss Guy cuts him off with a screaming guitar riff and from there the insanity begins. The band kicks in and this kid takes the stage as if he owns it and has been there his entire life. As the kids say, he shreds, and it’s one of the most joyous rock moments I’ve ever witnessed. It ends with Dave down on his knees bowing down to this kid who came out of nowhere and just killed it. If you haven’t seen it, treat yourself.
So, what does this have to do with being an operator? Well, the face paint is up to you, but in a subsequent interview a few weeks later, Yoyo, who does have a band of his own, was asked if it was a stunt and he assured them it wasn’t. He admitted though that he had practiced Monkey Wrench “like a million times” because he so hoped his dream of playing on stage with Grohl and Co would come true.
The point of Kiss Guy is this: You can’t control what show is going to call you. You can’t control whether you will be given some killer life-changing opportunity to do some crazy shot. You can’t control if the movie you are working on will ever be seen or even see the light of day. But what you can control is, is being ready when the chance comes. You can continually hone your craft, perfect your abilities, study art and storytelling, watch and dissect classic movies, read, read, read, and enjoy the thousands of videos and podcasts that are out there on the interwebs so that when the day comes and you get your shot, when the DP says “Let’s see what you can do”, you get on that camera, work flawlessly with your team, and create images that perfectly tell the story. In a word, you can make sure that when your time comes, you shred. Kiss Guy got up on that stage and didn’t just get it done, he elevated that concert to a new realm, and that is exactly what you want to be ready to do as well.
Control what you can control and be ready when the moment happens. Sometimes that is not only all you can do, but the best thing you can do.
Simply put, be like Kiss Guy.
