Today I spent an entire 2 hours in the office. The rest of my day was divided between recording various radio ads and trying to watch a television commercial being filmed.
(Note to Americans: The word “film” is not said over here the way you might think. It’s not pronounced film like we say film which is: Film. No, over here they say Fill-um. The way normal people (Americans) would say, “Fill em up, Chuck!” It can be confusing and it’s hard not to slap the Northern Ireland person who says “Fill-um” when they talk about the film they saw at the movie theater (they say “cinema”) over the weekend. Are you all straight on this? Good.)
Anyway, I was pretty pumped about being around the set for this commercial because we wrote the thing about a month ago and we all (meaning myself, the Creative Director and the Art Director) have been looking forward to this day because we really love this particular script and we’re dying to see what it looks like.
Well, of course, this meant that my day was going to hammer me every which way and torture me and confuse me and keep me from ever setting foot on set for any amount of quality time.
So I’m bummed.
I spent a whole boring, uneventful 4 hours on set (which is nothing in terms of filming (or Fill-um-ing)) and never saw a single scene being filmed (or Fill-ummd). All I saw was a group of people walking around and smoking and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.
Oh, and waiting.
However, the building we used for this shoot was the same that some other big name production company used as a set for some Dickie Attenborough war movie about a plane crash on Cavehill starring that bitch actress from the OC (Mischa Barton) and Shirley McClaine (who’s not a bitch hard to work with as far as know but is a chain smoker (from what I hear)). I saw Shirley’s changing room which turned out to be a former sun-bed stall (the studio is in a dilapidated leisure centre (gym) I’m telling you, everything is weird here!). But of course I didn’t have my camera so you’ll just have to imagine the squalor.
(It was squalid.)
If the fates agree and smile upon my soul I will post a link to the commercial when it’s gone through post production.
But who knows. If I can, I will. If I can’t, well…I’ll never mention this again.
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Waiting For the Day I Wake Up Dead 
Still…not a bad day.
Please post the commercial, if possible.
Well Wayne,
It sounds like you were put on standby so you could stand by just in case you were asked to standby.
I’ve got to second Phils request, Please post the commercial, if possible.
Ah the wonderful leisure centre that was going to be knocked down for apartments but got a new lease of life as Iceberg Studios.
But don’t complain – at least it was beside Central Train Station for the trip home.
I’m only across the road from it – but meeting up with LTA listeners is probably a high risk activity you need to minimise!
Alan- is it really called Iceberg Studios? (I wouldn’t be surprised). Yeah, being next to Central Station and directly under the flight path to George Best’s Belfast City Centre Municipal Collegiant Etc Airport doesn’t seem like the best conditions to shoot under but the set we used was perfect.
Phil and Brian- somehow I will try to figure out a way to let you see the finished product. It’s in post production now and should be finished by the time you guys get out of bed Wednesday.
It’s more properly referred to as Titanic Studios
I wanna be an art director. Where do I sign up?
Christina- sorry, you don’t sign up…
you sleep around. Are you still interested? (No, I’m not kidding.)you *ahem* work very, very hard.Dude, I want to see the commercial.
There’s a potential for me to allow you people to see the commercial but I’m trying to decide on how best to do it. I may have to moderate access to the link or something (yeah, right. Like that’ll work.).
I am looking for a Wayne Bee, born December 13, 1942. He is a man I went to school with, and would like to correspond with.