Truth in Advertising Page 0,108
admit it to me or share the backstory. She forces you to read between the lines. Who knows, maybe she’s a distant Dolan relative.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Good luck with this, Fin.”
“You never call me Fin. Are you falling for me?”
“Fuck off.” She laughs and hangs up.
I call the front desk and ask if they could send the package up as soon as it arrives. Thirty minutes later, after a knock on my door, I accept a squat, surprisingly heavy well-handled FedEx box with my father’s remains—Boston to Los Angeles with stops in Memphis, Düsseldorf, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong—handing the kid who brought them up $20. Then, for the first time in twenty-five years, my father and I sleep under the same roof.
• • •
Day three.
It’s early and the crew is setting up for the first shot—our hero-mom running from the guards. It’s our last big shot. The remainder of the day will be used for shooting the green screen—that is, the movie screen at the front of the auditorium that the mom/babies are looking at so that the image can be put in by the computer artists later. A minor legal issue derailed us briefly late yesterday when the Snugglies lawyers urged us to avoid shorts and thus any potential infringement issues. Working together with several members of the marketing team back in New York, they drafted a memo (subject heading “Shorts v. pants issue”) reminding us that “our target audience is, according to research, very uncomfortable with their thighs.” Their italics, not mine. The marketing team, with the lawyers’ blessing, went on to strongly suggest that we consider “a nice pair of beige-colored slacks.”
Jan told us to ignore the memo and stay with the loose-fitting Snugglie-blue shorts-cum-gauchos.
One senses a change on the set. The excitement of day one, the camaraderie of day two have evaporated, been replaced by something heavier, more fatigued. People want to go home.
For me—and I sense for Ian—a mild panic has set in, expressed through moist palms, a mildly upset stomach, an all-encompassing fatigue. My career (such as it is) could use help. Indeed, I could use a significant boost to my fortunes at the agency, a Best-of-Super-Bowl spot, a much-deserved promotion, a new account. It would change my life and make it better. I would achieve happiness. In theory, anyway. I have believed this same thing for many years, that each commercial I made would somehow change my life, catapult me to the next level, whatever that level is. A happier level. Of this I am sure.
Some of that nervousness could be due to the fact that I’m carrying around my father’s ashes. I stared at the box as I was about to leave my room this morning and paranoia overtook me. What if the exceptionally efficient Four Seasons housekeeping staff mistook the FedEx box for an outgoing parcel? What if they mistook it for trash? What if they stole it, thinking it was drugs or money or jewelry? What if it disappeared again? I arrived in the lobby to meet Pam, Ian, and Keita. They looked at the box.
Ian said, “Bring Your Father to Work Day?”
I said, “He’s never been on a shoot.”
Keita said, “This will be fun.”
Pam said, “I still intend to smoke and yes, there will be ashes and no, I’m not going to feel bad about it. Let’s go.”
We shoot our hero-mom, who’s carrying a comically (one hopes) large doodie diaper. Initially there are problems with that as well. Some of the toddlers saw the guards (all female, by the way) don their masks, which we tried hard—with the production company’s art department—not to make scary in any way. But some of the kids screamed, setting off a chain reaction of screaming. It took forty-five minutes to calm everyone down (graham crackers, juice boxes, Elmo movie).
Flonz began to trust Ian to the point where he relied on him. Ian knows lenses, focal length, understands what we’ll need in the edit room. We shoot hero-mom in close-up and in a wide shot. We shoot her rounding corners and on straightaways. We shoot the drone-guards chasing her. We shoot her at twenty-four frames per second—the way your eye sees the world—and we shoot her at forty-eight frames per second—slow motion.
At some point during every shoot the moment comes when I see the idea as dog shit. On this shoot that moment comes when Flonz shouts, “Cut!”—a huge smile on his face—having just watched our hero-mom throw a giant doodie diaper (we