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Thursday September 25, 2009
Full day with twice the pay...
A little after 9:30am my calling service called to convey my calltime had been moved up to 11am.
This was unexpected: usually calltimes get moved later, not earlier.
I quickly headed over to catch a bus that was scheduled at 10:05'ish.
Considering I got to the stop at 9:50, there was no way to have missed it... it simply never came.
I ended up having to catch the bus I'd initally planned to take.
While waiting
(with increasing frustration),
my calling service called to relay now I was "to get there as soon as possible."
They understood I was at the mercy of the MTA, and that the production understood as well.
(In my mind I couldn't help but think with some small amusement that needing us there at 11am as opposed to noon meant we'd be used by 2pm rather than 3pm...)
As it was, I made it to basecamp by 11:07, but there were others arriving just after me, from a few to many minutes.
Due to our having become a Rush Call,
Jordan
signed us in at 11am.
Not surprisingly after our rushing to be there as close to 11am as possible, we were first brought to set around 1pm
(lunch was from 3-4pm and we were wrapped at 7pm).
While I learned the affable Jordan
was not an AD or PA, but works for/with
Alice Ellis.
what I didn't realize until later was Jordon's surname is Ellis
(and that he and Alice made a couple of movies together)...
Generally, the day on the Dove commercial consisted of sidewalk crossings.
Several small set sections were created in the empty warehouse-like space.
As this was all ground level, and the walls to the sidewalk were all glass, pedestrians would peer in, noticing the bright movie lights being used.
Outside on the sidewalks during our filming out there, we couldn't help but find it quietly amusing that they chose 7th Street on which to film during a weekday lunchtime.
Countless civilians simply walking through; during the scene in which the camera was on the south side facing the north side on which we were doing crosses, tourists and locals would simply stop walking to watch, unable to grasp they were In The Shot.
It sometimes took a bit of coaxing to get them to move, even if only out of frame.
Inside
(for one of the Launch segments),
we were filmed being an audience for what seems a school play, featuring a young boy
(played by Stephen Rogers),
done up as Peter Pan.
I always enjoy meeting new people: on this shoot I got to work with was Janice with a very pretty face and quite a voice
(I'd have been surprised if she had not done voice-over work),
who ironically would otherwise be too shy to be in front of the camera beyond background work.
Also there was the super-cute
Allie Grant,
who's been doing film and TV work since she was a toddler or so, but some bad choices of agents kept her from breaking through and making it big.
As the day progressed I also discovered that this multiple day shoot
(of which our group was only working the one day),
was making
three
Dove commercials, titled
Launch, Wakey Wakey
and
Progress.
I came across a discarded shot-list, which I noticed listed that the initial crossings by a car, as well as we across the street for another angle
(as a turtle at one point is used on the street),
was for
Progress.
The final sequence filmed, in a created art gallery, was for Launch.
At the end of the day I noted that both Progress and Launch were indeed listed as on what we worked, so we'll receive our
private-sector compensation for labour
on the two different commercials.
Jordan was rather sure that this particular campaign might only air in Europe...
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