Meeting Shaun T & Andrea Ambandos // Filming Slim Series Express w/Debbie Siebers -- Next Day Report

I need to continue on with my story about filming the workouts with Debbie and Beachbody. I hope this all makes sense to you as I copy and paste my posts to Video Fitness from right after the trip. This was a quick one, believe it or not by the length :). Later I think I broke them down by the days there and wrote in more detail. Enjoy! (I know I am enjoying going back down memory lane -- especially seeing the pictures again!)

I'm Back!!!!!!!!! It was SO UNBELIEVABLY fun -- I hope I can give you even a FRACTION of the fun and excitement of being there. I flew in just 2 hours ago and am downloading the pictures right now. Debbie is sooooooooooooo friendly and non-bothered by us taking pictures with her. We'd taken so many and last night after dinner when Kali asked if she could get another picture with us in street clothes, Debbie said, "Take as many pictures as you want" -- so we all took out our pictures and took many more.

I'm trying to get one of me and Debbie on right now from the set. I'll have to figure out the best way to show these to you because it's going to take a while to compress them all, transfer them to my cox.net website for a URL and all that. But I'll be sure to do one now so you can see the set.

I ended up LOVING the set. It was all warm feeling and on camera looked even better -- kind of matched her other set and feel in many ways.

And when you see this picture, I'm wearing the turquoisish shirt, which wasn't my favorite color, but Jocelyn said it made my green eyes really show up, but then last minute before shooting, Andrea said that Jocelyn needed to be on the left because she's taller and the periwinkle top (my FAVORITE color) couldn't be on the left because it was too close to the blue on the wall, so we got to switch and I wore the periwinkle -- woo hoo! (In the stretch, we both wore a really pretty raspberry pink though)

Oh, and Andrea was THE Andrea Ambandos, if you can believe it. I'd talked to her and had rehearsed with her for 2 days and then yesterday morning while getting ready in the hotel, it hit me like a ton of bricks, "Maybe she's the mysterious Andrea Ambandos" (I've always wondered who she was -- she's on the credits of almost all of my videos). So when I got to the studio the next day, I asked "Is Andrea's last name 'Ambandos'?" and they said she was. So I just about flipped out. Someone told her what we were talking about and she just laughed.

THEN, she said, "Do you know about that website called 'Video Fitness?'" (And I was saying "YES, I'm on there ALL the time!") and she said her friend sent her a link from a thread on here asking who Andrea Ambandos was and she laughed saying that one person answered that she was just a fictitious name like Betty Crocker, then someone else said, "No, because I saw her on a Turbo Jam when Chalene "Jammed" her" and she thought that was all really funny.

So I said, "Well, I'll get a picture of us together and show them 'Here she is!'" and she said okay, then said something else, left and said we they were going to start shooting in just a minute. (It was really cool to watch her in action -- She'd go outside the set to a huge trailer -- I got a picture of her in front of the trailer too -- and it was like a full TV / Movie studio like you see on TV with tons of buttons and TVs everywhere and she'd direct which camera to switch to as they went and then on the "Cuts" she'd talk to us through a little speaker -- some called her "the voice of God" -- she was very helpful and very smart.

Anyway, so later on, I talked with her again and asked to get the picture and she was super willing. I wondered what had happened before, but thought maybe the timing was just wrong. But then last night at dinner, Anna said "Were you the one who got Andrea to put on make-up?" and then said that they'd NEVER seen Andrea in make-up before. But after I asked her for a picture, she went and had the make-up artist put make-up on her. Too fun!

As for the wardrobe -- we didn't end up keeping anything. But I'm fine with that because I didn't end up spending much of my food money and I'm going to use it to order the shoes and the periwinkle top I wore. The tops were by Couture Wear and I just LOVED the fabric and the feel of them. I'm thinking that's Janis Saffel's company -- her's has the Couture name in it -- if it's the same, then she has some REALLY good quality exercise wear. (Edited to add -- It's actually called Fit Couture and it isn't Janis's company, but after I posted this, the owner of Fit Couture contacted me and offered me a free top -- one that I wore on the set! I've bought many items from them since and just love their clothing. I'd buy more if I could!) Back to my previous post:

Also, by filming day, I stopped worrying a single bit about my size and felt like I fit in just fine. I think once you get all dressed up, they do the make-up and hair, you feel like a million bucks and everyone treated me like I was wonderful. EVERYONE at BB and the Infomercial people (Cort Howell) and Andrea's group were so much fun to be around. I took pictures like crazy because I felt like I was leaving all these friends I'd just made. (And they all said to come visit the BB offices when I come down again and all that because we just didn't have enough time to do that.)

Also, just wanted to add that the post I wrote at the hotel (plus one short e-mail to my daughters and one short one to my dh) cost $25!!!! -- Can you believe it? But it was fun to share while there.

I'll write more later. I need to stop ignoring my kids. But I'll find a way to post at least one pic before I get off.

Oh, and I got to meet Shaun from Hip Hop Abs yesterday. He is SO much fun. Once I talked with him, I was convinced to buy his workouts (plus Anna lost 5 inches in her waist being the 120 day test group). Oh, and then he and his background girls rehearsed for their Emergency Abs (they later called it Last Minute Abs) workout (they had to re-film it after us) and whoa! can he move! He was even moving and groovin' when he was talking to me. Then I asked if he'd think I was weird if I asked for a picture of us and he put his arms around me more than my prom date did! I said "No, don't do that -- my husband is going to see these!" then he laughed and squeezed me even tighter -- so I got 2 good pictures. I'll see if I can get one of those on here now too. And one more thing -- they think these will be released early next year, but not by New Year's -- hopefully in February. Shaun's should be released in December though (and I got to watch one of his workouts on Heather's laptop as she was making some editing decisions -- she's Carl's right-hand woman -- here I was sitting on the couch with her and Shaun watching together -- so great!)