TV Commercial Production with Robin Williams


My best

TV Commercial production

client for several years, in the person of my old Ansel Productions colleague Dave Johnson, was N. Lee Lacy Associates. As I mentioned in Circumstances Beyond My Control chapter 12, I was surprised when DJ first hired me after our many management style conflicts when he was my boss. Shortly after leaving Ansel I was on location with another TV commercial production company… “After the day’s shoot I was having dinner with some of the crew and we were discussing working freelance, how to get and keep clients etc. I was being coached by experts. At one point I said that the only person I’d ever worked for who probably wouldn’t hire me again was David Johnson. When I got to my room and called Betsy [Elizabeth] she told me that there was a message from David Johnson wanting to know if I was available next week. What a surprise that was!”

TV Commercial Production On Location in Arizona

On Location in Arizona

This pic has nothing to do with this shoot but it’s from the same period and I like it.

Anyhow, Lacy was a bi-coastal TV Commercial production company with several directors in New York and L A. This was the first shoot I produced for one of their L A directors.

Excerpt from chapter 24 Circumstances Beyond My Control.

“Henry Holzman, of N. Lee Lacy … was a west coast guy and rarely worked in the City. My one unforgettable job with Henry was in February ‘84. The Budweiser commercial parody for SNL starred Robin Williams and Joe Piscopo. At the time Bud was doing sports related spots with pro athletes swigging their brew after a game so Robin and Joe were hockey players. A small college team was recruited as the supporting cast and we shot in their Rye, NY rink – in the middle of the night when they and the rink were available. Henry had been hired to give the parody the look of a genuine Bud commercial, several of which he had directed.

“Not only were these two guys, as everyone knows, very funny. They were also damn good athletes. They zipped around that ice seemingly as well as the college jocks and both swung a mean stick. Robin kept the hockey players and the crew in stitches for the entire morning yet when a setup was ready he turned off his motor-mouth and was all (funny) business. There was nothing else remarkable about this job but the opportunity to work with and get acquainted with Robin Williams was sufficient to make it memorable.”

TV Commercial Production Book

Author Ben Bryant’s TV Commercial Production Book

Read more TV commercial production stories when you click here and get Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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