Yet another cushy gig... commercials generally are!A car promo for Lincoln Mercury that had to have some elements of jogging and spectating hired about 60 of us to be extras in NYC's sunny Central Park. The director was Roger Michell, famous for his direction of the movie Notting Hill and the fallout from his sudden departure of not wanting to direct the 22nd James Bond film due to that old directorial demon: "creative differences". (Apparently there was no shooting date set nor was there a script!?!)
Our first assignment was to cheer the SAG runners from the sidelines. And then we had to change into our jogging outfits to run alongside a very iteresting young lady by the name of Sara. She had lost one of her limbs, a leg, but became an avid jogger utilizing a prosthetic attachment that looked like a curved metal band near the bottom and acted like a spring of sorts to give her an extra bounce as she jogged. She led the pack as we formed a wall of runners behind her while the camera-cart zoomed down the middle of our crowd. But in all the time that we were there, we never saw the Lincoln. Still wondering what the concept of the commercial is!?
A few more takes, and it was -"check the gates"...and "gates are good"... and "it's a wrap"!
Three hours worth of work for $175... and lots of laughs and gigles in between with the other extras. If only I could do this four times a week -like one of my fellow extras does. Alas, for me this was the first gig in 2 weeks. I still haven't mastered the skill of keeping the job-to-job connection work-flow going. It seems the trick is to register with multiple agencies that are getting most of the jobs... but which ones are they? Showbiz is a moving target... and although I got to run today, I still feel like I'm standing still.
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