What's Your News?

Earlier in the year Riley went along to an open audition for a children's program. On the day he spoke really well but was very shy and so as we left we thought that we would just chalk it up to experience and think nothing more of it. Thursday last week a lovely lady by the name of Sharon called to tell us that Riley had been cast in one episode of the show! He jumped for joy and screamed something at me which Sharon and I took as a sign that he would be slightly interested in giving this a go.

The program is called What's Your News? and is a kids show featuring real kids (not professional actors) and animated characters (mostly ants). The ants are the staff of a news program and report on such things as a game of hide-n-seek (which is Riley's episode). So for Riley's episode the story is that he and his friend Taya are playing hide-n-seek, the twist however is that they play it with a bear. One of them dresses up as a bear (in this case Riley) and goes and hides the other person tries to find them and if they cannot find them they shout "Where's the bear?" and the person hiding growls Grrrr. So day one Riley filmed scenes of him walking up the street and the driveway to Taya's house to play with her. They also filmed him sitting on the front porch with Taya explaining to Gi Ant how the game is played. Today his scene was inside the lounge room hiding behind a chair where Taya finds him.

I am so proud of my little star he started out a bit shy on the first day but the staff were all so great and used to working with kids that they had him relaxed in no time. His little co-star fell in love with him on the first day and nick-named him her hottie hot hottie! Brad and Angelina have nothing on these two.....although after a couple of days to think it through he decided that he would stick with the girlfriend he already has at school...........they are married aferall.........

Overall he had a great time and was kinda sad this morning when I told him that today was his last day. I think that I will keep my eye out for anything else that he can do over the summer as I know that this has been a great confidence booster and I can only imagine how stoked he is going to be when this airs in September. To quote Riley, best get your autographs now whilst they are still going cheap LOL!!

Running lines with Taya and Jason (aka Gi Ant) on the first day.

Getting 'wired' with his mic inside his suit.

Fixing the suit after having the mic put in.

Day Two. Look closely you can see Riley behind all that equipment.....


Riley between takes hanging out behind the chair that he had to jump out from behind. Check out all the guys and equipment around him that he had to ignore......now if only they all looked and sounded like me he would have had no problem ignoring them..... seriously though he did do really well at this.

The look of concentration, I am imagining he is going over his lines in his head............(his ONLY line for the day was GRRRRR teehee)

Now there is the cheeky Riley smile we all know and love.

Peeking out from behind the couch whilst Taya was saying her lines.....

Goofing around with Jason. If you look closely in the background on the left hand side of the screen you can see the head of Gi Ant............whose voice is done by Jason.

Action shot!!Riley and Emily in the back of the production truck! Emily is holding a little teddy bear that they gave to her and Riley got himself a box of 4 army trucks as a thank you at the end of the day too.