Hydro Slick Plane, 2021
This is where it happens. I’m in the vortex. People thought about this long and hard, how to sell this product. The treatment was submitted from a desk 2 months ago, at 1:00am Somewhere in Prospect Park. It was absolutely quiet in the apartment when the Creative Director pressed Send. Now we are all here to execute a deliverable.
On set, there are well intentioned people everywhere. There is talent. The talent is selling the product. The talent grabs onto the product, ready, set, action:
ENTER: Product, from out of frame
Talent makes an out of character head turn and asks,
“how do I pronounce” - [The Product?]" ”The Fluff peach-fuzz-free face_Shaver?” interrupted - enter CLIENT:
CLIENT
NO WE DON’T SAY SHAVER here. Repeat-after-me-”the hydroplane slick fuzz removal stick”
The shaver isn’t in-the-room with us right now
The monitor has been framed with red gaff tape to show the boundaries of the IGS ad, the outer edges of the smartphone screens on which this content will be viewed.
The talent squeezes the tube of cream, fake-shaves her face, pushes the lever of the bottle of serum. In the close-up, pastel green cream forms a perfect little pile on the tip of her index finger. She is maintaining her smile. She neatly returns the tube to the table and rubs her fingers together at Mark 2 while camera focus racks to her hands. She then turns her face slightly to the right, moves her hand to her cheek as focus again racks to her face; the camera follows her fingers stroking outwards from her nose to the top of her cheekbone.
Talent smiles, director asks her to wink.
“That’s a cut.” Hair and makeup hand her a towel and The Product Comes Off. Life and sound return to set. An executive producer comes in to say hi, his name is Steve or Gordon. He says hi to Everyone, he makes a joke which levels him with the employees at His Company, which has recently been acquired by Garp Productions. A joke about being gay makes waves of laughter in the hot studio. Everybody is thinking ahead, everybody has excellent planning. Everybody checks in.
The Assistant’s biggest nightmare is to oversleep. Today I get to shake Gordon’s hand. I am called an All-Star Production Assistant in front of Gordon. It is a good day. We just want to make the client proud to be here. The client is happy.
Happy to be inside of the machine instead of being on the outside looking in. There are a lot of dynamics and politics at the workplace and I feel lucky to be here. I’ve learned:
Never make fun of The Product, or the nature of The Product
Always be respectful of talent. Without talent there is no product
Act like this space is the most natural thing. Like it is truly organic
Maybe someone is being hustled somewhere in all of this, but this feeling has started to lift, at a rate parallel to the one in which I gradually receive more free food and skincare products from the commercials that I work on.
The talent always bring something personal to the project, they might say that ordering delivery food is a way for them to create a safe space in a city where safe spaces for queer people are scarce. They might say something about their mom’s skin care routine and what they learned from it. They might talk about their culture and how their consumption habits stem from their background.
Gordon walks in now. He wants to have a pow wow in the kitchen with the producer.
I keep my questions for the producer to myself for now, I help out with lighting instead. My questions about pita bread and sodas can wait.