TV Commercial production at 6 degrees

• Posted on 24th February 2015
• in Entertainment, entertainment books, Film Production, Hollywood memoirs, TV Commercial Production
• by Ben

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During my years in

TV commercial production

as a producer/AD I found myself in all sorts of strange places and extreme weather: humid swamps, baking deserts, snow covered mountains, open pit mines. Some were uncomfortable, some were scary but all were – in their own challenging way – fun. I enjoyed my work. The job I’m about to report was way more fun to talk about afterward than it was to shoot!

Riding my bike to my midtown Manhattan office this morning with the digital thermometer at Columbus Circle reading 9 degrees brought that job to mind.

Excerpt from Circumstances Beyond My Control, Chapter 26 “The Good, the Bad and the Strange

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“I didn’t know it at the time but the last job I would do with Gary Young was a spot for Pioneer headphones. It must have been 1983 because Gary had married his second (third?) wife, Frances the summer of ‘82. I was his best man.

“We shot in lower Manhattan and on the Brooklyn Bridge – in February.

“The storyboard depicted a young man wearing a pair of Pioneer headphones plugged into a Walkman type device. He carried a pair of drumsticks and as he walked along the streets and onto the bridge he was using objects in his path on which to beat out his rhythms. The spot was to be aired in spring and summer so he was dressed in light clothes with no jacket. The temperatures that day were in the teens and the poor actor, though wearing two layers of thermal underwear, was freezing his ass off.

“We started at sunrise on the bridge. There was a digital thermometer on a building in Brooklyn and when the sun came up it read 6˚. I was wearing heavy-duty long johns, flannel lined corduroy pants, a thermal turtleneck and a thick wool shirt. Over all this was my full-length shearling coat. Like Peanuts’  ‘Linus’, had I fallen over I wouldn’t have been able to get back on my feet unaided. And I was still cold.

“The actor not only had to look comfortable and happy but, while the camera rolled, he had to hold his breath so that clouds of vapor would not issue from his orifices. Immediately after each take a PA would pounce upon him with a blanket and shove his hands into wooly mittens yet the lad was, indeed, suffering for his art.

“I also felt for the camera assistant. Threading a motion picture camera is well nigh impossible while wearing gloves. But at least he could put his hands in his pockets while not actively engaged.”

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Tags: Ben Bryant, Brooklyn Bridge, Gary Young, Pioneer Headphones