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Thursday January 26, 2012
The League... of Clowns
Understandably,
like most people,
I am
not a fan of clowns,
as it were, despite in the past having played clowns in stage plays
and at least
twice
in very different
student films.
While I don't suffer from coulrophobia, I just don't see their purpose.
Ironically I can play clowns: and I can perform with clowns being played by people I know and with whom I know I can work....
I'm just never thrilled to have a random one show up out of nowhere.
I arrived for my twelve noon calltime on Burbank Boulevard at 11:35am to find... no one.
That is, I arrived at crew parking to find a closed parking lot
(all but one entry locked up),
but not a single bit of signage even to confirm it was the right crew parking.
Generally such has a security guard, but not here.
I called my service and spoke with Devon who was able to provide me with the number of the
assistant production supervisor
but my call went to his voice mail.
I texted, indicating my arrival and not knowing the actual shoot location,
He texted back
the location,
though it was a different promo with a different storyline.
Our spot was simply titled, predictably enough,
Clowns.
The storyline is that the three clowns bicker over their fantasy football picks.
I was brought to make-up and met
Shelly
who did up my make-up; later she provided me with the make-up headshot and two on-set photos below.
Erin
dealt with getting my sponge nose to stay on.
The three principal clown were played by the very humourous
Will Maier,
Andy Spencer and
John Baggio.
With the karate spot finished up, lunch was called, and, all made-up, the four of us sat and chatted together,
joking this was the Clown Version of
The League...
(A major reason I like working on commercials is that the principals are generally friendly and not high-and-mighty over those actors hired to be "background"...)
Andy offered and drove me to the
second location;
everyone was to drive themselves to the soccer field thereat.
The clowns' dressing-room/make-up tent was dressed, and across the way the world's Smallest carnival Midway, consisting of a single game of chance.
I was stationed at the gaming booth, initially to clean the target boards.
This was changed to my cleaning the wooden counter, so I was able to face front, not profile.
At one point after numerous takes, I was directed by clean the target board again, but then they changed me back and I remained cleaning the counter.
As usual, I'd previously asked whether they wanted me With or Without my glasses.
It was never really clarified; when it was clearly obvious how deep background I was, I did not remind them and retained my glasses for the shoot.
Similar to the
Arla
commercial, they seemed to choose the Wrong Time for each spot.
The Arla spot filmed in downtown Los Angeles on a Saturday, and the Europeans were astonished at the amount of pedestrians, when they'd expected a near ghost town.
Then on Sunday they filmed where there's barely anyone, easily at which they could have filmed on the Saturday as Sunday has less downtown pedestrians than Saturday.
Here they filmed at an interior location in the morning, then an exterior location as the sun was all but setting.
The sun set in time for them to do close-ups and coverage and stuff and soon enough I was Stepped Out.
After a few hours
(during which I learned I was booked for
the next day
on a commercial),
they eventually deduced they'd not be having me in the shot anymore, so I was wrapped.
I'd previously provided my contact card to Shelly, and Will
(who I'd not yet seen out of his surprisingly not overly creepy make-up),
accepted my contact-card offer as well; Shelly took charge of the three cards, what with clown outfits often lacking pockets, to give them to the actors when they were done.
Erin removed my make-up, and thankfully, considering the location, the buses were surprisingly cooperative, and I was able to get straight to the North Hollywood Red Line Station and back to Hollywood.
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