Let’s say you come in for work at an unfamiliar new location early in the morning, your co-workers have you stand still under half a dozen bright, hot lights with a veritable rat’s nest of cables underfoot, a room full of eyes (both human and electric) trained on you, when a stranger points a big fuzzy microphone at you and barks, “TALK!” What would you talk about?

That’s the kind of situation you can run into working as on-camera talent in the realm of video production. At Mosher Media, we choose to deftly deflect such distress with a simple question: “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

       Admittedly, it’s a bottom-of-the-barrel conversation starter, right next to asking someone which side of the bed they woke up on. But when all you need is to have your talent chat for half a minute to get their audio levels right, it’s good enough. It also helps loosen them up, which is very important! If your talent is too nervous and uncomfortable from being corralled around by a bunch of rude sandbag-slinging scumbags, their work may reflect that!

       The answers are always at least mildly interesting, as well. If you’re lucky, you will be permitted a glimpse into your talent’s nutritional nuances, and if you’re… alternatively lucky, you’ll be regaled with an exasperated alibi on why they skipped The Most Important Meal of the Day.

       It’s also a good litmus test for deciding when additional audio gear is necessary. On a full-day shoot when lunchtime often seems an eternity away, we don’t want someone with ravenous reveries of the midday munchies “humidifying” the audio equipment. That’s why if our talent skips breakfast and sounds particularly hungry, we’ll incorporate the SalivaShield® for our lavalier microphones to prevent any mouthwater-y mishaps.

       That’s why it’s become something of an unofficially official company practice. It’s our ol’ reliable way of having our talent talk about something, anything, so that we can adjust the audio levels on our microphones, while also getting our guest into a more comfortable mood.

       The dual-purpose is so devilishly useful, it’s almost like hacking a computer program, but for use in your everyday life! I’m surprised no one has attempted to coin a term bearing any semblance to such a notion. I think I’ll call it a day-hack. Or maybe a life-glitch.