Last night was the first episode of the new TV show that Momo has a small
(very small!) part in. We all hung out at the in-laws to watch it
together. Momo wasn't interested in watching her part, but got very
excited when we all applauded and drove everybody crazy the rest of
the
evening jumping around on the couch!
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Take a look: http://www.imgo.tv/clip-201107-1-1366-112389-122923.shtml
Go directly to 24 minutes and about 40 seconds into the clip. (this
site
might be very slow outside of China...)
2nd episode
Two parts, from 11:56, then from 88:35.
In the first one her eldest brother is going out to his HS prom, and her
parents are going out to a cocktail party, so she and her middle
brother
are stuck at home.
The second one is a re-creation of the scene from "The Sound of Music"
where all the kids are afraid during a thunder storm. Her middle
brother
(and his future self) are talking and Momo runs in, so they sing to
her
until she cheers up.
PS - Jasmine sent this after an introductory episode, which we haven't seen:
Momo had her first TV show filming last Sunday (June 19, father's day). It
is an introduction to the show, which is called "Youth Evolution". I
googled the name and apparently a famous Japanese cartoon drama has
the
same name; don't know whether the show and the Japanese cartoon are
related or not. Seems that right now everything about this show is a
secret; hopefully we will know soon.
This time, the show filming was about a family eating breakfast. There
were 5 family members: parents (acted by professional models: looked
like
Russian and Spanish to me), 2 brothers (singers from a same singing
team:
RTA, all Chinese) and 1 little sister (Momo) , and they were having a
breakfast. There were no lines for Momo to say, what she needed to do
was
to eat! Momo was hungry (we arrived there at 4pm, and starting filming
at
6:30 without dinner to almost 9pm ), and started eating bread
immediately.
While she was eating, she did have eye contact with all her family
members
whom she was seeing for the first time :). At last, the director
wanted
Momo to eat bread again, then she said: I am full, and she refused to
eat
again, instead, she drank . When we told Momo that it was finished,
she
said: "I just had a meal, I haven't performed yet"
Next filming will be next Monday.
The family had lots of questions about the process, and Henry
answered
most of them:
You are right, Momo doesn't like being touched by people that she doesn't
know. If you look at that scene where the actors player her mother and
father are getting ready to go out, she recoils a little bit when her
'mother' touches her arm.
This doesn't apply to scenes with her middle brother, 'cause they are good
friends (he is a really nice kid). She didn't mind hanging out on the
bed
with him and his double, and actually seemed to be enjoying the whole
process.
It was kind of funny, when I arrived to take over from Jasmine, who had to
go teach, Momo was playing on the bed and the two brothers were fast
asleep - they had filmed till 2am the previous day, caught a few hours
of
sleep, then were back in the studio at 8am . . . a really tough
schedule!
Everybody was trying to catch cat-naps during the filming of that "A
Few
of My Favorite Things" scene.
About the filming, everything is done out of order, and I have no idea
what it will look like in the end. All filming is done in an elaborate
set
built in one corner of an enormous exhibition center next to the TV
station headquarters. There is no audience (the laughter is canned).
We
will usually get Momo's lines the evening before the shooting, print
them
out, and go over them with her. She is great at remembering them and
understanding the situation.
Nobody has recognized Momo (besides some friends/relatives) as the actor,
and from looking at online forums nobody has tried to identify her or
anything (something I was a bit concerned about).
The actor who plays her middle brother (Zuo Yi) has a lot of fans - there
is an entire forum dedicated to him on baidu.com. There have been
posts
talking about his 'little sister', mostly about how cute she is, and
how
people wish they could be his little sister too.
I think Momo's reaction to this has been mostly positive overall. She
seems much more confident about doing things in public, and has been
really patient and well-behaved at the studio.
A couple days ago at her Montessori school she and her best friend gave an
impromptu vocals + air-guitar performance of a children's song to a
group
of visiting parents, something I could not imagine her doing before
(or
imagine myself doing at that age...!)
So far we have been going there about once a week, which we can all
handle. If it continues like this I think everybody will be happy!
love Henry
A very different kind of show that Momo participated in is called "Little Genius" and involves a number of children being interviewed and then going on various quests.
There were excerpts from Disney's Cinderella and a show about a prince who has been turned into a frog. Momo and two boys were filmed while searching for
Cinderella by finding women whose foot fit the lost shoe; in the end, they found a waitress who had the second shoe. They they searched for a frog and, after a wild
chase, captured one, which they then proceeded to take around trying to get random women on the street to kiss it. Some came close but a lot were not
interested. They the children returned to the studio, where each of them kissed the frog (there is a picture below showing Momo doing this). There is a poof at a
certain point and the prince appears. I can't tell if the children were taken in by this or not, but they seem genuinely surprised when he appeared.
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last modified 20 November 2011