12 Aug Don’t Feed Your Pirate Beer
Howdy friends!
So the interview with Clovis Blackwell is taking a little longer than I expected. This might have something to do with being off the computer for 3 whole days (*gasp* I know, right?)
In lieu of the interview, I’m going to do a little behind the scenes on an older project, the “Yaaaris!” spec commercial.
The concept was pretty simple, “What would happen if a pirate tried to buy a Yaris?”
But why tell you about it when I can just show you?
Now the pirate was totally typecast. As in, he’s an actual real life pirate. I built a time machine and pulled him off tall ship cause a skinny guy w/ an AK-47 was just not the look I was going for. (Too soon?)
Heh, I kid, I kid. The pirate is actually my neighbor. And he’s not really a pirate, he’s a country rock musician.
Since this was a spec project that I was funding, I tried to keep spending to a minimum. The camera was borrowed. The lights were rented. Props were constructed. And everyone worked for free.
Troy on the boom.
Our pirate wasn’t free…but his cost was pretty cheap. He asked that we just get him some Budweiser so he could have a few beers while we were shooting. Up until that point I’d been really against performers being on any sort of drugs/alcohol while on set. But for some reason, I decided to let this slide.
“He’s doing me a favor” I said to myself. And myself responded, “Yeah, how much beer can he drink in a couple hours?”
The answer: A lot.
In his defense, it was the weekend…and he had been drinking when we picked him at 11am, so…the 8 or 12 beers he drank on set had more of an effect since they were on top of what he’d already had.
Costume & makeup test.
He kept getting the lines wrong and started to get a bit frustrated. At one point he got up and left set. Luckily, I was able to get him back… I told him it “wasn’t a big deal,” “everything was going to be fine,” and I could give him the lines “one at a time.”
I’d say the line, then he’d repeat it. It actually worked out pretty well. We got the takes we need without adding too much time. Since it’s such a short piece, the line prompting probably only added another 45 minutes to the shoot. And more importantly, I learned a valuable lesson:
Never feed your pirate beer.
Now as a special treat, for the first time on the interwebz, is the OUTTAKES Reel. Enjoy!
More pictures of the production and myself in various pirate garb tests can be seen in the Flickr set.
-Luke
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