On set of Ridgewood Bank Commercial

(from Sunday, January 18th 2009)

After a very slow week, I figured I would just chill at home and catch up on some of my administrative work on the weekend. I have tons of papers to sort through. It is true when they say that things come into your experience when you least expect it. This reigns true as I was not planning on anything and then all of a sudden I get a call from my friend, Steph, who I have not heard from since last year or seen on any background sets.

She was going down her list and gave me a call to see if I wanted to do this Bank commercial. At first I was hesitant because I really hate working on Sundays. It sounded on the message that they (production) really needed people, and since it was a paid gig, and being financially crippled right now,I sure won't /can't turn down money!


So she gave me the details really quickly as she was on set when she called me. She gave me the info and the call time which was for 7:30 am to be over by the film center on 9th ave. Now that is not a terrible call time, though since I have not got up before 9am for the past month, it was really hard to do so. Also I kept tossing and turning all night long as I was worried that I would miss the alarm.


I got up at 6am and tossed some business casual clothes and headed for the subway. Sunday subways are the worst subways. I waited over 25 minutes before some light appeared through the dark tunnel with the train approaching. Finally I got on the "E" for "Evil" train and surprisingly the regular homeless guy was not on board. Guess I missed his shift!

I got out at Times Square 42nd street and exited out to a very snowy Sunday morning, and vacant streets of Broadway. I felt like I was walking in my own musical as the big fluffy chunk of snow were falling and Times Square was sparse of people. Maybe only one or two people tinkled past, but for the most part it was not the usual chaotic mess it can be in that area. It was peaceful and euphoric. Definitely a rare moment indeed.


I arrived at the "pick up area" on 9th ave right on time. I went into the lobby of the building where my friend Steph was and to my delightful surprise, my very good friend Bill Rapp was there as well. I knew it would be a good day from that point on, and it was.


After about twenty minutes, some of us got into the first van that was to take us to the actual Ridgewood bank in Queens. Through the inclement weather our driver was very cautious and drove extra slow for safety purposes. We arrived to location in about half an hour. We got out of the van, went inside through security to get our badges for the day and then downstairs to a nice array of big fluffy croissants, muffins, danishes, and much needed coffee!

About an hour later, we were led back up stairs to get to set, which was the bank. Our job was to be customers at a bank. Bill Rapp and I were assigned to each other to portray a couple at the bank. We had our deposit slips ready and went from the line to the teller a thousand times over and over. We made SO many deposits and got the same lollipop in return that was given to us by the teller as a thank-you for our patronage.

As we were standing in our second positions waiting for the director to call "Background Action", we stood by our teller friend who turned out to be a really sweet girl. We started talking and I found out that she lives in Astoria too. Not only that she also lives on 49th Street! I live on 49th street! Talk about coincidence. This bit of information really came in handy later on when it was time to leave.

The commercial itself moved relatively slow as many of these productions do. You would think that because they are using the bank itself that it would be easy to shoot this commercial. Not so much. They designed the commercial around a full sized bed that was placed in the middle of the bank.

On the bed they had this black man laying in the bed and pretending to be sleeping. Talk about the best role! All he had to do was lay in that bed while the other bank activity was going on. In the scene his wife gets up form the bed , puts on her housecoat and slippers and interacts with one of the bank managers, while her "husband" is still sleeping and totally oblivious to what is going on because he actually fell asleep for real!

During break, Bill and I thought the concept was great about wanting to take a nap while waiting in line to get banking done. So Bill and I tried out the bed for ourselves and came to the conclusion that the bed was indeed comfy.

The rest of the day was dragging by after that. We had lunch which were platters of sandwiches and cold pasta salad from a local restaurant in the area. Our eating are was in the basement of the bank where the real employees eat during their shift. There was a TV down there and all the guys were swarming around the TV watching their precious football. After Lunch we went back up to set and they were doing close-up shots of the bed and the actors.

Finally as the evening was setting in, they moved on to the next commercial which involved a motorcycle in the middle of the bank. This Woman who looked liked she rode bikes on a regular basis, rolled the Harley to the middle of the bank where they were to shoot the scene. I think she owned the bike b/c after she brought the bike in, the commercial evolved around 2 guys on the bike in the bank.

Bill Rapp and I did a quick walk through and that was about it. Since they used us so much in the first scene, they really didn't need us. That was a relief because it was getting late. The young teller that I was talking to earlier already told the director that she had to leave, so I followed suit and we caught a car service back to Astoria.

Got home around 9pm. I was lucky to meet up with Heather to take the car service home together. The other option would have been going all the way to the "L" train through Manhattan and all the way around back to Queens which would have taken over 2 hours.

This wasn't a terrible expereince, though I must admit that it sure was not worth only getting paid 75 dollars for a commercial like this should have been at least $150.00. Oh well the way things have been as of late, you have to take ANY money that comes in, no matter how bad the wage is.