My most interesting TV-18 adventure yet
(Sorry for the length!)
Yesterday at work, one of the guys, Jamie, came into the graphics room and said, “You’re going on a shoot with me.” He was going up to Monticello, which is about half an hour north of here, to shoot a commercial for a restaurant and bar. It was called "Double D's" (sounds like a strip joint, but it's not). This place was quite a smorgasboard of entertainment. Part of it was a family restaurant, part of it was a bar, and there was also a go-cart track and a mini golf course. And the whole place had a mafia theme, for some reason. There was an old black gangster car parked out front, and inside there were pictures of Al Cappone, Bonnie and Clyde, and Al Pacino everywhere. And it’s not even really an Italian restaurant.
We were supposed to get shots of food, and were told we’d be fed at some point. They were a lot busier than they had expected to be, so it took forever to get the shots of food and everything that came out was promptly whisked away to a customer. The back part of the place, in which we were filming, must not be used very often because there were spiderwebs connecting some of the chairs. I looked out the window and saw a large statue on the put-put course that Jamie and I swear looked like Wolfman. After we finally got all the food shots we needed, we went back to the bar, which was loud and very smoky. We lucked out because it was karoke night! There were people singing off-key Fleetwood Mac songs and lots of skeezy drunk guys, one of whom was eyeing me. There was also a little machine you could put money into and pictures of topless girls would pop up (not that I tried it or anything).
As we were hauling the equipment out the truck, the owner stopped us and asked if we’d gotten shots of the go-cart track, which we hadn’t. Apparently we were supposed to do that and focus less on the food. But it was getting dark at that point and we needed to go, so we just told him to call the advertising guy and hash it out with him. We never did get food there because the employees were too preoccupied. So we stopped at a Wendy’s that I had spotten down the road. We didn’t need to get back to the station immediately so we decided to go in and eat. It was like 9:15, but there was a very long line inside. So we waited. And waited. And waited. For half and hour. There was a lady in front of us who had a beard. We talked about college, religion. We finally got our food but at that point it was 10:00 so we didn’t have time to sit down and eat. Jamie was getting nervous so he called Jason and said we’d just gotten done with the shoot, and asked him to do chyron for him. We finally headed back, and got back at about 10:45. I was exhausted, but it was fun, actually. Jamie had a sense of humor about the whole thing, and he was fun to hang out with. I think this will be one of my favorite memories from my internship.
Yesterday at work, one of the guys, Jamie, came into the graphics room and said, “You’re going on a shoot with me.” He was going up to Monticello, which is about half an hour north of here, to shoot a commercial for a restaurant and bar. It was called "Double D's" (sounds like a strip joint, but it's not). This place was quite a smorgasboard of entertainment. Part of it was a family restaurant, part of it was a bar, and there was also a go-cart track and a mini golf course. And the whole place had a mafia theme, for some reason. There was an old black gangster car parked out front, and inside there were pictures of Al Cappone, Bonnie and Clyde, and Al Pacino everywhere. And it’s not even really an Italian restaurant.
We were supposed to get shots of food, and were told we’d be fed at some point. They were a lot busier than they had expected to be, so it took forever to get the shots of food and everything that came out was promptly whisked away to a customer. The back part of the place, in which we were filming, must not be used very often because there were spiderwebs connecting some of the chairs. I looked out the window and saw a large statue on the put-put course that Jamie and I swear looked like Wolfman. After we finally got all the food shots we needed, we went back to the bar, which was loud and very smoky. We lucked out because it was karoke night! There were people singing off-key Fleetwood Mac songs and lots of skeezy drunk guys, one of whom was eyeing me. There was also a little machine you could put money into and pictures of topless girls would pop up (not that I tried it or anything).
As we were hauling the equipment out the truck, the owner stopped us and asked if we’d gotten shots of the go-cart track, which we hadn’t. Apparently we were supposed to do that and focus less on the food. But it was getting dark at that point and we needed to go, so we just told him to call the advertising guy and hash it out with him. We never did get food there because the employees were too preoccupied. So we stopped at a Wendy’s that I had spotten down the road. We didn’t need to get back to the station immediately so we decided to go in and eat. It was like 9:15, but there was a very long line inside. So we waited. And waited. And waited. For half and hour. There was a lady in front of us who had a beard. We talked about college, religion. We finally got our food but at that point it was 10:00 so we didn’t have time to sit down and eat. Jamie was getting nervous so he called Jason and said we’d just gotten done with the shoot, and asked him to do chyron for him. We finally headed back, and got back at about 10:45. I was exhausted, but it was fun, actually. Jamie had a sense of humor about the whole thing, and he was fun to hang out with. I think this will be one of my favorite memories from my internship.