Best Buy was shooting a commercial at the Gophers’ outdoor football stadium today and I volunteered to help out. Part of the reason I volunteered was because they were paying us. (“Will work for free as long as I get some money, too.”) I had a really bad experience working on a commercial before, but this was different. For one thing, they were paying us twice as much. They were also offering overtime of $18+ an hour past eight hours. For another, they also gave us real food as opposed to a tiny little boxed lunch. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Call time was at 7:00am near downtown Minneapolis, which meant I wasn’t going to be getting stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic. At least I didn’t think so. It’s been a while since I’ve driven into downtown in the wee hours of the morning. And when I say “a while”, I mean “never”. Thankfully, traffic moved really well, so leaving at 6:00 got me there about 6:30. I checked in, went inside the stadium and sat down at a table to start filling out paperwork.
I have to say that after doing extra work and little stuff like this for so long, it’s kinda cool to see random familiar faces here and there. “We were in [blank] together, right?” Since I had a while to wait before we got started, I spent some time wandering around the room and said hi to a few people.
There were close to 100 extras there, so it took a while for everyone to get their paperwork done. I’m not sure how they made their initial selections, but there was a group of people who went up into the stands first and the rest of us joined them 20 or 30 minutes later. I was really glad I was in the second group for one very big reason: it was cold outside.
I know, it’s Minnesota, I shouldn’t be such a whiny baby, but when you’re sitting on a hard plastic seat in an outdoor stadium and it’s… the temperature was in the single digits when I left the house, so it was still pretty cold. Plus we were planted in our seats not moving around much for about four hours, which is plenty of time to have the warmth sucked slooooowly out of your body. Thankfully, I acquired some long johns at the last minute, so by the time we went back inside, the only part of me that was really cold were my toes.
As we were filing up the stairs into the stands, I was walking next to a couple people I knew, thinking that I’d get to sit next to them and chat. There was someone standing on the stairs in front of us pointing down the row: “One more…” and then it was me, so I had to go up to the next row and abandon most of my friends. I ended up sitting next to someone from the first group; thankfully, I already knew him, which was good for two reasons. 1) We could chat during the shoot; and 2) we shared some mutual suffering the entire morning. Going through that on my own would have sucked big time.
See, we ended up sitting directly behind someone who might be referred to as “an attention whore”. That in itself isn’t a big deal, but when the camera is pointing in his direction (as it was for the entire morning since he was sitting a few rows behind the main actors in the commercial and in line with the camera), it gets ugly. During the course of our suffering, we thought about trying Ritalin or a little electric shocker in his seat to zap him or just punching him in the back of the head. I don’t know if any of those would have worked, but when the assistant director said “Action!”, it was never a question of “Will he do something this time?” It was “What will he do this time?”
We were supposed to be at a football game, jumping up and cheering when our team scored a touchdown. They wanted us to mime the scene a couple times (action, no sound) and he yelled something anyway. Just before “the touchdown”, I’d lean forward in anticipation, whereas he’d be bouncing around or jerking backward in his seat in spastic movements (“He’s having a seizure! Tip his head forward so he doesn’t swallow his tongue!”). When we sat down after the touchdown, I’d turn and fist-bump the guy sitting next to me while the dude in front of us… a lot of times after the AD said “Cut!”, I’d just put my head in my hands and groan.
And maybe the worst part about his post-cheering antics was that he’d be flailing his arms around in slow motion. If the scene isn’t over, you’re supposed to keep moving and you’re supposed to keep moving in real time. Hey, our hands were moving in real time as we mimed breaking open tablets of Ritalin or pushing a button to give him an electric shock. The scene was always over when we did that, but still…
They gave us a break at one point so the crew could move equipment around—in doing so, they moved the main actors into the row right in front of the attention whore. Literally, he could have patted their heads. (He only did that once to someone during his post-touchdown antics, so we figured that was out of his system.) What I don’t think he realized was that they were doing a close-up shot of the actors, so all the camera could see was his lap or maybe as high as his chest. I don’t think he realized it because he didn’t stop moving.
Not only did he not stop, he kept going after three requests from the AD to not move his hands or bounce around… three requests! Three! The final solution? Everyone in that row was instructed to move two seats to the left. I’m not kidding. They moved everyone two seats to the left so he wouldn’t be in the shot anymore. I had been in line with the camera the whole time, but I was very good about sitting there and looking out at the field. I might or might not be able to see my shins if they use that scene in the commercial, but at least they got a couple good takes without the attention whore in there.
I probably would have been more aggravated about this today, but we wrapped just before noon. We were scheduled for eight hours (plus overtime if necessary), but instead, we were on set for about four. Even better, they had a hot lunch to fill our cold tummies that was waiting for us when we got back inside. Salad, lasagna, chicken breasts, garlic bread… way better than a sandwich and an apple. (“Will work for free as long as I get some money, too. And food is bonus points.”)
So today was nothing like Buffalo Wild Wings. Admittedly, I had to suffer watching an asshat work (what he thought was) his magic in front of the camera, but at least I didn’t suffer alone. Plus I got paid more, ate a better meal, I had time for a nap this afternoon… yeah. So no love/hate relationship here, which is good considering how much money I’ve spent at Best Buy in the last month or two. It would be way too cliche: “After everything I’ve given you, this is how you treat me?!”
