Same Old Same Old

Same Old, Same Old

Being overpaid isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It may seem grand and glorious to shoot a commercial, but it really is just another kind of work. The days are long, the pay is good, the people you work with are professional, and some of the work you do never sees the light of day.

I spent today shooting a commercial for a pain patch. These are called “industrial” shoots, since they aren’t intended for the big screen, but usually help sell some product. The pay is usually good and I got five hundred dollars for the day. I’ll also be working tomorrow for another five hundred, but when you deduct the personal leave I have to take from school, it’s not much per hour more than I usually make. Plus most people don’t know the regular shooting day is scheduled for 12 hours. It starts from when you show up and check in for costumes. After six hours you usually get a free lunch, and many of you already know how much I love to check out the craft services table. Craft services is a bunch of free food meant to keep actors close by. Today I enjoyed a Coke, a chocolate cake donut, and an energy bar. There was also some fruit, so I ate a couple of pieces of mango and cantaloupe just for good measure.

The problem with shooting schedules is they tend to get behind, and that may be the reason for a 12 hour day. When you schedule stuff that might take eight hours, it usually takes longer. I have been on shorter days, sometimes finishing in just a couple of hours. But then you don’t get a free lunch.

I was shooting with a nurse who has actually given the product in the approval tests, so she was excellent, especially filling in the details of what the rest of us didn’t know. She was very excited since this was her first day to be filmed except a movie which was shot in her yard. But today, she was the star, and it’s hard not to feel pretty excited after getting the right clothes on and having someone fuss over your hair and makeup. This is why actors usually look better on screen than in person. I won’t mention names, but you would be surprised how some very famous actors look when not made up and in the center of a soft-focused lens. Let’s just say it makes the imperfections disappear.

She was having a good day, but to the rest of the crew it was just another day to everyone else. But the bad news is many of these talented professionals don’t get to work every day, and there may be long stretches between jobs even when they are the best at what they do. So even though the pay is very good, sometimes it has to last a very long time.

Every time a commercial or movie is shot, someone has to haul the lighting and camera equipment to the shooting location, today two floors up from the parking lot. The grips and lighting guys show up early to get everything set up, and then they get to be the last to leave as everything is loaded back up.

Before the shooting day even begins, scripts have been written, scenes designed, a shooting schedule designed and remember – someone has to arrange for craft services also. But enough about the food. And don’t forget, after the scenes are shot and in the can, they have to be edited, orchestrated and marketed.

The worse news is after all this hard work, sometimes all the hard work never makes it out of the can. I have worked on films yet to be released. That’s right. Even though it is listed on the Internet Movie Database. The IMDB is a place where most films get listed so people can look up their own work. Really, it’s just another place to see who was in a movie, and directors will sometimes list films which have not been released, but it still would be credited to that director, actor, etc.

A Cyprus Credit Union commercial I play a small business advisor which recently showed up on television was shot almost three years ago. Why the wait? Who knows? But the good news is I get paid whether it shows up soon or not.

So after a 12 hour day, I get to go back and do it again tomorrow. I don’t have to go quite as early, so that’s always nice, but I did have to make a couple of adjustments to my schedule. But how often do you get to pretend you are in pain and get paid for it? Wait while I work on my grimace.

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