Lynn Shelton, director of "Humpday" -- the straight/gay friendship/sex movie I've been meaning to watch at Harvard Exit since I read Moira Macdonald's review -- is presently directing the Seattle (Ballard) installment of a show for MTV called "5 Dollar Cover."

The show, which is intended for web broadcast with limited TV play, is a drama, and stars members of local bands acting and also performing music. So: non-actors, acting and not acting. Except musicians normally invoke personas when playing music in nightclubs, so it's all acting. But, oddly, for their near-constant persona-invoking, musicians aren't always great actors. A brief glance at the Memphis "5 Dollar Cover" (here) reveals the creation has that weird reality TV/telenovela style MTV seems to have invented.

Readers of this blog may remember the Maldives' Jason Dodson told us he was working with Shelton during his Capitol Hill Block Party/Caffe Vita/Matson on Music video interview/performance last week. Yesterday evening, the My Ballard blog posted photos and words to the effect Maldives/Shelton/Tractor Tavern filming had just occurred. The blog said more filming will happen tonight, and also -- and I remember Dodson telling me this, too -- a ton of local bands (14) will be on the show, with more filmings upcoming. I'll go tonight, try and find out which bands will be filmed when, and blog about it.

UPDATE: The shooting closed at 4:00 p.m., at which point I was still writing about Phish. Fact-finding has been delayed. Stay tuned.