flying high for amoi
check it out here: amoi.mpg (warning: this file is around 15mb in size. it could take a while to load.)
photos of the shoot: click here
another ad i was in: adHIGH.mov (6mb)
this was a long shoot — around 17 hours or so — but it was fun: i got to fly! a bunch of us were hooked up to harnesses, hoisted in the air and rocked side to side. we did this individually (our images were later blended together by computer), so the day dragged quite a bit. the process was rather cumbersome and at times felt a little unsafe. oddly, the flying part of the commercial, which dominated the day, only gets a couple seconds of play in the spot. by comparison, the airplane scene, in which i am featured more prominently, took only about 45 minutes to complete — we did it at around 4am, a few hours before the director of photography had to be on a plane headed to his home in australia.
the main guy in the ad is an american model who was flown in from LA for the job. he was a nice guy, all smiles, which makes sense: he was getting paid several thousand dollars to be there. and me? i got paid a couple thousand … yuan. that’s around $270 for 17 hours. the previous day, i got paid about the same amount for one hour of “work.” all i had to do was stand on the bund, look at the pudong skyline, take a deep breath, smile a toothless smile and — “with all my heart” — think to myself: “shanghai is becoming more and more beautiful.” then i had to speak my thoughts — in english and chinese — into a big boom microphone while a crowd, who obviously thought i was someone important, gathered around to listen. kind of nerve racking for a guy who already isn’t too confident about his chinese skills. but i said it, over and over again: “shanghai is becoming more and more beautiful!” after i was finished, i turned around and saw a woman blowing a snot rocket on the sidewalk. ah, beautiful indeed. (photos from that shoot can be seen here.)
for those of you not patient enough to wait for the video to load, here are some stills for you:
pretty bright for 4am
my hands
it’s a fact: cheesy smiles help sell laptops
i’m up top. i like my chances for a clio.04.10.2004, 8:00 PM · Observations, Photos, Video