"Just hang in there, Mal! We're almost finished!"
You nod at the director, Kristen Barlow, before taking a sip of your bottled water. Today you're filming the music video for your latest single "Fire With No Burn." Its been quite successful on the radio, and you're excited about how the music video will turn out, but you're also ready to wrap everything up and go home to your husband Hunter. You wonder if he's sent you any texts or tried to call you recently; usually he always does when you're making a music video. Sometimes he comes to the set and watches but today he had to take care of some things in the studio. At least you can tell him about everything later on.
The video mainly takes place outside, but there are parts that take place inside this little house in Nashville. Earlier, you were outside, and since its starting to get darker outside, you're now inside the house.
"How's the video looking so far?" You ask Kristen, who stands by the cameras looking at the music video. It looks like she's in deep thought.
"It's good, but it could be better. It's missing something..." she says.
"Like what?" You ask.
"More romance. It's cute but it's not romantic enough..." she replies.
"Well,---"
"I'll take care of it." She says, turning to face you. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah, I guess," you reply. You wonder what she has planned.
"Great." She gestures for your co-star Adam to come closer. He's a model and an actor, and he's a sweet, hardworking guy. Still, you don't feel comfortable having another guy so close to you. If Hunter could've been in the music video that would've been great, but since he's been so busy lately, that won't happen.
"Okay, everyone follow me..." she says, walking out of the kitchen and towards the front door, opening it quickly.
You and Adam follow close behind her and the camera crew joins you all outside on the front porch. The porch light is on, and its not too bright or too dark outside.
"Alright." Kristen briefly looks down and rubs her forehead before directing her attention to you and Adam, who stands next you. "We have to finish this up. So...this is simple. All I need you guys to do is kiss on the porch."
"K-kiss?" You stutter, shocked. You were really hoping that when she said she would fix it, she would come up with a better idea than some stupid kiss on the porch. Its bad enough that you had to let this guy wrap his arms around you several times in the music video, but you feel like a kiss is just crossing the line. "Maybe we could do something else?"
"No." Kristen shakes her head. "In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to make a music video for a romantic song and there's no kiss. It's like a romance movie with no ending kiss."
"Well, that's your opinion. Mine is different," you say firmly.
"Is this about Hunter?" She asks.
"Yes! And even if we weren't together, I still wouldn't be comfortable with a kiss!" You say.
"Mallory, he works with other females all the time. He's constantly around them. So a little kiss in a music video shouldn't bother him. And if it does then that's your problem and not mine," she says.
"Kristen, that's not---"
"Listen, I'm not going back and forth with you on this. I'm the director, so what I say goes and that's that. The best thing to do right now is just trust my judgement since I actually know what I'm doing," she says.
At this point, you really don't know what to say. There's nothing you can do to convince Kristen to take the kiss out of the music video. Once she has her mind set on something, there's really no changing it.
"Are you two ready?" She asks. You can sense the frustration and impatience in her voice.
You just nod. All you want to do is finish this music video and go home. You're really wishing that you could've gotten a nicer director; someone who would actually respect your wishes instead of insisting on doing whatever they envisioned. But when you're famous, you don't have much control over certain things you wish you had control of.
