Fat Bankers and Little Men

This past Thursday and Friday I was lucky enough to be able to go on another commercial shoot. This time the spots (commercials (in fancy cool-guy advertising speak)) that we were shooting were for a company called JJ Loan. It is not a very well known loan agency and their aim for their new commercial campaign was to make an image that is easily recognizable to the public. And thus, their campaign was centered around one man and the fact that he has a large, smiling banker on his back at all times. The basic idea behind the image was that this man, let's call him Jean Queue Publique, who had just taken out a loan, was constantly burdened by the thought of his contract. This manifested itself as a literal banker riding him all over the place. Here is a picture of the banker sitting opposite his unlucky co-star. Little did you know directly after this picture was taken the banker climbed over the desk and mounted Jean like a rented mule. The contents of the commercials ranged from the banker asking for a little cash when Jean got money out from the ATM, to the banker sneaking a bite out of Jean's toast at breakfast. One of the highlights of the shoot was when Jean sits down to read the paper, in the morning, and sees that interest rates are rising. This prompts a small man (midget) in a banker's outfit to run in the door and leap onto the large banker's back who is currently on Jean's back as well. The little man definitely didn't have the ups to make it onto the banker's back unaided, so they set up a small table with a trampoline stationed just after the end so that the small banker could spring onto the larger banker. (Here is a picture of our wee banker poised and ready to act.) If that were not excellent enough, this action had to be repeated several times in order to get the right shot. So, in essence, I was lucky enough to witness a midget vault repeatedly onto a fat man's back, solely for the sake of future profit. Now there's a sentence you'd only expected to hear in the circus, or possibly some seedy night club.
Despite the fat men, midgets and slapstick, the shoot was still a little long for my taste. As I said, it was filmed over the course of 2 days, each day the cast and crew had to arrive to set up at 8:00 AM. The time doesn't sound too bad, but considering that I had to travel about an hour and a half by train to places I'd never been to was not too easy. The real rub, though, was the length of the shoots. Multiple takes of every shot and time-consuming setup caused the shoots to run until 12:00 to 1:00 in the AM respectively. Luckily, I was able to leave around 10:30 PM both nights because I had to catch the last train; but two full days of standing up in crowded, swelteringly hot sets was more than enough to wear me out. The really cool part was that over the course of only two days, we filmed enough material for 5 commercials.
One of the best parts was getting to talk to everyone involved in the shoot. I was able to gain insight from the production crew as well as the agency and creative minds who came up with the commercials. Luckily, the director, as well as the agency representatives, spoke english, so I was able to have even my most intern-ish questions answered.
In the end, the shoot was an amazing experience, and I gained a lot of valuable, and hands-on insight into the processes behind filming. Thanks again for all the feedback and I'll be sure to update more quickly next time, seeing as I'm back in the office.