weren't there.").
To the rescue came John Dike, Cindy's husband and manager of Maple
Street's Lakeside Book Shop, and always a very busy person, who
nevertheless IMMEDIATELY produced an impressive, drawn-to-scale
rendering of the whole building on official-looking paper which
included official-sounding words like "East" and "West."
Finally, before any living flesh from
BBDO Agency actually came here, a two-page contract arrived that
looked deceptively simple, but Cindy, of course, consulted at least
one lawyer to make sure we weren't getting fiendishly duped. In
an informal ceremony with coffee flowing lavishly, the contract
was signed. Cindy then quietly checked herself into Mandeville while
the rest of us had fun going around saying "the shoot"
this and "the shoot" that.
The Friday before the Wednesday shoot,
eleven of the fifty-five people it took to make the commercial showed
up, introduced themselves and . . . well, they didn't do anything
then that we could see, but they stayed at the Pontchartrain over
the weekend, in order to, we suppose, get in the spirit of the city.
The people from up North were Adina, at least one producer, the
director, the assistant director, the Visa client, the writer, and
some mystery people. They were all very friendly and polite,and
they teamed up well with the many locals they had hired as technicians,
electricians, carpenters, the carriage driver, actors, caterers,
makeup and costume people, security guards, cameramen, location
experts, liaison people, water truck driver to wet the street (water
makes it look better, a filming tip we can all file for future use),
snack table supervisors, and clean-up and pack-up people.
The simplest (laziest) way to describe
the scene |
 |
is to say that
it looked exactly like movie-making scenes you see in the movies.
First thing Wednesday morning, our whole block was closed to traffic,
although two big signs and NOPD officers on each end made it clear
to pedestrians that all businesses were open except the Children's
Book Shop and the Vera Cruz Restaurant, which had been leased as
headquarters. Giant trucks full of cameras, thick wires, and lighting
equipment vied for street space with trailers and campers reserved
for the power people. The sidewalks were turned chaotic by more
equipment and throngs of bustling people, crew, and bystanders.
Snack tables overflowed with gorgeous fresh fruit, cheeses, crackers,
chips, nuts, candy, coffee dispensers, and tubs of juices and soft
drinks. Massive trash bags filled the yard of the main book shop
next door to the shoot. The neat freaks on our staff broke out in
hives.
By Friday at noon, the commercial
was done, everybody and everything had gone, and we were left to
go on with what seemed like a very bleak existence. Two weeks later,
Adina called Cindy with the thrilling news that "we" would
debut on NBC the Sunday night of the commencement for the Summer
Olympics. To add to our glitz, Jim Welsh, a reporter from the Times-Picayune,
wrote a wonderful article about our commercial for the business
section, which appeared on the Saturday before the big Sunday. Despite
our fears that an untimely breakout of World War III or a distracting
invasion from outer space would prevent everybody from watching,
seven o'clock on the big night finally rolled around. And there
we were! And there we still are on our VCR copies, which we'll be
happy to lend you if you'd rather not risk getting brain-rot from
TV. |
