Snow Day in SoHo (Sweet Shoot, Sally)!

I haven't met anybody in New York named Sally.

I have, however, met people named Reese, Maritza, Caleb, Cortade, Raphael, Manel, Annabelle, Elvira and Church.  In my hostel alone, I've met people from Brazil, England, Scotland, Catalonia, Germany, Sardenia, Little Rock, Honduras, Hong Kong, and Texas - and wait, as of 5 seconds ago, Vancouver.  There are great people from just about everywhere.

Yesterday I spent pretty much all day at a Tiffany's shoot.  This was a HUGE shoot, occurring in 3 different locations (SoHo, Central Park, and Top of the Rock).  The company I intern at is called 'North 6', which deals with print advertising.  Its sister company, 'aWHITELABELproduct', does work in video/commercial advertising.  Both companies were present for this shoot.

I showed up on set, a cute little side-street in SoHo a few blocks from the office.  There, I saw a slew of rental trucks and mobile trailers for talent, hair/makeup, crew, etc.  On set there were tents set up where monitors were positioned with live feeds from the camera.  Oh, and it was snowing.

'a foam-like substance that looks like snow'

-Noah (Brandon Brown), Musk

Yesterday it was at least 75 degrees out, but when you see the ad, you would never guess that it was shot in the summertime.  They got the snow on the ground with ice trucks that essentially operated like giant slushie machines.  If I had some fruit punch on me, I would've chucked the carton into the shredder and watched it spew out of the hose all over the set.  And then I would've eaten the set.  Okay you get the point...

I was much more involved during this shoot than the Maybelline shoot.  Which was amazing.  This guy named Jamie who was super intense but also incredibly personable sort-of took me under his wing for the day.  It was very apparent that he was a veteran and knew exactly what had to get done, so I listened to him whenever he told me to do stuff like collecting cones and moving tables.  The jobs don't sound exciting but it is all stuff that needs to get done, and once again, just being on set was a privilege that I am extremely grateful for.

For the next set of shots we ventured to Central Park, and that's when it started raining.  Yep, a supposedly winter-time shoot and it was raining.  Luckily, real life rain doesn't show up on camera (Jurassic Park special features disc taught me this), but fake snow does!  And at Central Park and SoHo, they had plenty of fake snow.  It literally was soapy foam bubbles that floated down and stuck to your clothes, and when they accumulated on the ground you had to be careful not to slip on them.  Not only would you look like an idiot but you would be clean, and I have learned so far that it is not in a PA's job description to be clean (*Work now, bathe later).  So I avoided falling for sucio's sake.

I think I can only show very limited photos of the sets, and I can't include talent.  Sorry guys.

The camera and crew is all gathered underneath the arches.  I was in the rain directing park pedestrians and one crazy guy away from the set.

The one crazy guy I am referring to almost ruined the shot.  The director yelled action, and the two actors began walking slowly up the stairs (snow-foam falls gently).  A guy walks up and almost on set.  I had to use my arm and say "excuse me sir, I'm sorry there is a shoot going on".  He just stared at me.  "Oh yeah? You guys got a permit?"  Oh boy.  Here we go.  Of course we have a freaking permit, it's a Tiffany's shoot.  The last thing I needed was some guy walking down the stairs mid-shoot and halting the operation to make sure that he ran an impromptu permit check on Tiffany & Co.

I said "yes, we have a permit.  I'm sorry sir it will just be a minute."  To which he responds, "I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Patrick Swayze, did he leave yet?"  Ooooh boy...  "Yeah sir, you just missed him..."  At this point I'm thinking, okay, there's something off about this guy.

When I saw him lean up against a stone pillar and let out a bellowing rooster crow, that pretty much confirmed it.  At that point it was alright, he had found his happy pillar and was safely away from the set.

NO reenacting that scene from 'Ghost'.

-Community

After Central Park we ventured to Rockefeller Center.  After traversing a labyrinth of underground tunnels, parking garages, freight elevators, etc., the other PAs and I made our way to the 65th floor of 30 Rock, in the Rainbow Room.  This part of the day was the single coolest thing that I've done in New York to date.

Free food.  65th floor, 30 Rock.

The actual shoot was on the 69th floor of 30 Rock, the Observation Deck.  Aside from the fact that the Rockefeller Center itself is one of the most beautiful buildings in New York, we were on top of it, shooting an uber-classy Tiffany's commercial there.  Everything about the experience was stunning.

I put those ropes there!

cool view Hansel.

The funny thing about this shoot was that earlier that day, before the shoot, I had no idea that I would be going to 30 Rock for the Tiffany's shoot.  I had to run an errand that morning, and that errand took me by St. Patrick's Cathedral (near 30 Rock).  I stopped into the Cathedral for a bit to pray, and on my way out I snapped this ditty.

'Oh hi Mark.'

When I was on set for the Tiffany's shoot, I snapped this ditty.

'Oh, hey Johnny.  What's up?'

The male and female models were both really good looking people.  There were some tourists hanging out at Top of Rock craning their necks (tryin' to creep a little sneak peek!  YOU can travel the--) to see the models, and there was this one Italian mom with an Italian boy, maybe 6 or 7.  The Tiffany's shoot had some suave moonlight dance-type music going, with some female on vocals.  And the little boy was just staring at the woman model, and he kept asking "Esta cantando?  Esta cantando?"  He thought the woman was a singer.

When I saw that, I thought to myself, this right here should be the ad.  A little Italian boy for his first time visiting New York, awestruck, staring at this beautiful angel and hearing the music.  THAT was the ad.

I'm going to end this blog with some pictures that pretty much sum up how my night ended.  I don't think I really need to say anything about them.

 first picture of me in NY.  I am actually here.