blog: what it's like to shoot a commercial!!

Hello my dears!! So I'm headed home from Portland today and would love to share with y'all my experience shooting the commercial yesterday~ It was a really fun, chill, well-run shoot, which is always a joy hehe

I wasn't able to take photos of every moment (mostly cause I was either busy waiting actively between takes and didn't have access to my phone), but I'll put up all the photos I have and do my best to paint you beautiful word pictures of all the in between moments~

So usually the day before a shoot, you'll get a call sheet, telling you when you need to arrive to set/where set is, usually along with parking details/other relevant info for both talent and crew. This is what our call sheet looked like! (I've blocked out phone numbers and other sensitive info, but I trust y'all to not be creepy weirdos)

Everyone on set was required to be fully vaccinated as well (obviously!!) So, my call time was 7:30AM, meaning I woke up at about 6:15am, called my Lyft at 7:10am, and arrived at 7:29am! You always always wanna make sure that you arrive early when possible -- I usually like to get to set/rehearsal about 10 minutes before call, by the Lyft took a little longer than expected. :o) Also before I left, the cat at the AirBnb (also named Sophie!!!!) gave me some very good flops and meows to send me off for the day <3 

I also brought a selection of my own clothes with me, for wardrobe; the wardrobe manager called me a few days before the shoot to confirm all my sizes, and also asked me to bring along a few neutral "PNW business casual" pieces that I might have lying around in my closet (which was...difficult, as I have very few neutral pieces at all HAH), and so I stole some of Connor's button downs (lol) and brought my fave jeans and two pairs of cute booties. We ended up using my jeans and boots, and then went with a sweater and jacket that Paola (the wardrobe lady) had acquired on her end.

Once my wardrobe had been picked out, it was time to head to hair/makeup! The makeup artist's name was Amber and she was an absolute doll. Everyone on set actually was very very nice and friendly, which has been my consistent experience when working on commercial sets up here in the PNW. The makeup was very natural/a little glowy, and they basically did nothing to my hair -- just added a bit of product to make my waves more piece-y and add some more texture. 

I should also tell you the concept for the commercial - it was for a credit union, and was about "making good smart decisions" (in context of the credit union, about making the good decision to invest with them/something about student loans?? something along those lines lol) 

So! My character, Eliza, decides to stop in for a walk-in haircut at a salon she happens to be passing by. She's met with a very rude, completely indifferent receptionist (think smacking gum, flipping thru a magazine, literally could not possibly care less bout this job lol) but takes a seat anyway to wait. She then starts looking around the salon, seeing photos of terrible haircuts on the walls, before locking eyes with a dude currently getting a terrible terrible haircut from the stylist. Eliza decides to get out of there before her hair gets ruined!! With the way it was shot, and the performances from the other actors, I actually think it's going to be a very funny commercial -- I was cackling over in video village (where ppl watch footage playback) when I wasn't on set. 

I was the first actor called to set -- we shot all the exterior scenes first, and finished just in the nick of time before the rain came down. It was..so cold and blustery outside lol but I just danced around a bit between takes and did my best to stay warm hahah

These photos were taken when the clouds started to roll in as the crew was very quick to get all the equipment covered heheh. It takes a lot of people to make a commercial! This was a very smoothly run operation -- there were very minor delays, and though we wrapped at 5pm instead of 4pm like they had scheduled, I still feel like we made very very good time! 

After we got the few exterior shots we needed, we moved the whole set-up inside! This next portion was a lot of close ups of my face, going through various states of shock/horror lol. LOTS of strong eye acting going on -- I always felt good when I heard the director giggle from where he was watching playback lol. One of my close-ups was SO close, the camera was maybe a little less than a foot away from my face, which was a bit nerve wracking but I got over it pretty quickly. ;o) Here are some photos that one of the other actors took while they were sat over in the other room watching playback!

(this is me walking into the salon and politely smiling at the receptionist)

(and this is part of my shock/horror face sequence lol)

I think we wrapped almost all of my scenes shortly before lunch (we were filming right next to a pizza joint, which really worked out for us) and then I got to go sit in video village next door and watch the other actors work! Emma, who was playing the receptionist, did such a phenomenal job -- she's very sweet, but she has a great face for the "very pretty, wholly bored and unimpressed" thing hahah

We were using a very darling little coffee shop called The Little Griddle as our second location for holding talent, wardrobe, makeup, and video village, which is where the clients (people working for the ad agency working for First Tech, if I'm not mistaken on the connections there) were sat watching all the playback/footage as it was being shot. They would talk to the director over walkie-talkie if they wanted additional coverage for something, or if they wanted to try a scene a different way, or if there were logistical issues that could pose a problem down the line. 

For instance, the receptionist was at first just scrolling through her phone, but then there was the worry that they wouldn't be allowed to show an Apple product in the final commercial, as even with covering the logo, the three cameras are a pretty distinct feature. This is when we switched over to the magazine, which the client ended up liking better anyway!

The director, Joshua, was very kind and funny, and he would ask me to do a scene a couple different ways, and tell me "I can already hear the client notes in my head, so go on and do it this way for me, just in case." He said that once you've been doing this kinda thing long enough, you can see the notes before they happen lol. 

I pretty much spent 1pm-4pm sat in that little coffee shop, crocheting a shawl for my mom, chatting with the client people, and watching the video feed, which was very chill and relaxing. :') I got called in for one last bit of coverage at the end of the shoot, and then I was released! I got out right around 4:30pm I think. And then I took a Lyft back to the airbnb, decompressed for an hour or two, went out to a nearby Thai joint to get dinner, and then wandered back to the airbnb to chill and hang out with Other Sophie Cat hehehe. 

It was a pretty seamless day! There was no drama on set, no big conflicts between the director/client, everyone was super nice, and everyone was very very good at their jobs. I shot another commercial back in October of 2020, and the other dude acting with me in my scene basically had to be fed line readings, cause apparently he was related to a friend of the director?? Which is why he was cast?? but he had no acting experience, and so..,a lot of time was spent just trying to get good takes out of him, which was exhausting. But luckily there was absolutely none of that on this shoot! Everyone was great!!

And that is, more or less, what it's like to work as an actor on a commercial set :D I tried to cover everything significant to the best of my abilities, but please please let me know if you have any questions about anything -- I will do my darndest to answer them >:)

Happy timezone!! I hope you're well!

Love,
Chey ♡ ♡ ♡