A couple of months ago, while Bleacher Bums was still in rehearsals, I stopped in at the taxi office to pay my lease, pick up my check and take care of other business. I had some little advertiser post cards with Bleacher Bums info on them, so I decided to drop them at desks in the business office there at 303 Taxi. When I set one down at the elbow of Erica, the new, young Public Relations director, she called back to me, "Hey! You're an actor?"
"Yes," I replied. "Of sorts."
"Would you like to be in a commercial for 303?"
The idea intrigued me, however, as I'm supposed to be a video production guy and not a taxi driver, the idea appealed much more to me on a different level.
"I'd rather make the commercial!" I quickly explained to her my background, and why I was interested in making her commercial.
My friend Sean — a video and filmmaker with whom I have been friends since 1989 — has been trying to find an avenue to reach local small businesses and offer to make web commercials for them. He had accepted my interest and my offer to participate in that with him if it ever came to be, and suggested that we do the first few for free to establish ourselves and build a portfolio, and create a need within other businesses for our service. And then Erica dropped out of the sky right in front of me.
She already had a pile of commercial ideas, some of them a little edgy, or perhaps even a little too risqué for local TV. Indeed, her target was the web, and specifically a 303 Taxi YouTube channel. She was very interested in what I told her about Sean and myself, but she wanted to go over the ideas in detail, and then meet Sean.
Her ideas were actually very well thought-out and very visual, which surprised me. I have worked with veterans of the video business who were not as imaginative or visually oriented as Erica.
Through many e-mail CCs and a few meetings with Erica and Sean at a local Starbucks we came up with three scripts to do first. Erica's approach is to complete three of the less edgy spots, present them to the owners of 303 (one to whom she is related, so that may be very favorable!), put them up on YouTube and watch them (with much hope) go viral. Then with ownership approval — and perhaps a budget! — we'll be able to do all of Erica's ideas, edgy and all!
We got a less than stellar response from our Craigslist casting notice, and Erica insisted that I play the role of the taxi driver in the first commercial we had lined up. After going bust on another actor for the role of the passenger, I called on Rick, an actor friend with whom I had worked on Vanishing Points, who jumped in with both feet! Another meeting, a few more e-mails, and we had set a shoot date!
This past Saturday, June 18, we all met at Sean's house, the location for our spot titled Affordable Therapy, which explores with humor the theme of taxi driver as good listener to a passenger who confides in him. Despite the weatherman's threat of rain, it was a wonderful — if a little muggy — day to shoot a commercial! Through Erica's connections within the taxi company, we borrowed another driver's brand new Scion xB to be our show car.
The 2011 Scion xB we got to use as our picture car.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Sean recently bought a Canon 7D DSLR camera with HD video, a camera platform that shows great promise as a filmmaker's camera which puts high-resolution, High Definition video within reach of financially strapped production companies. He's been itching to put it to serious use, and Affordable Therapy is the guinea pig in Sean's very capable hands. The camera offers little flexibility in recording audio, so we had to shoot in a bit of a new old-school way, using a separate digital audio recording, which will be married to the video during the editing process.
The Canon 7D in position. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Another shot, another angle, here with
the LCD monitor's view in view.
Photo: Sean McMenemy
Erica operates the boom microphone and the digital recorder
while Rick emotes. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
We had a tight script, a self-confident actor and an experienced crew, along with Erica who is new to it all, handling herself quite well as Executive Producer/sound recordist for the day-long shoot in very warm, humid weather.
Sean sets up the shot with Rick in position.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Erica rockin' the headphones! Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Actor Rick and me. Photo: Sean McMenemy
When the spot is finished, I will follow up at this site with a link to the YouTube (or other video) site where it will reside.
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