Truth in Advertising (34 page)

Logos everywhere. What do they mean? Is anyone listening? While you're thinking about that, have a Coke and a smile.

•   •   •

Day one goes off without a hitch. Okay, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration. There were problems from well before the opening shot. In the pre-pro meeting, for example, Flonz had said, “We're going to do this old school. Film, none of this digital rubbish. We're filmmakers, not digital makers. Digital is something a proctologist does to an old man. We'll shoot thirty-five millimeter. We'll cut it by hand on a Movieola. Who needs a computer to edit?”

Super. Why not just have the Amish do a flip-book?

Shoots are highly organized events. Every detail has been thought out and planned ahead of time by the hierarchy: director, first assistant director, line producer, agency producer. Every hour of the twelve-hour shoot day is accounted for. When you have a film camera and fifty union crew members working, you are spending large sums of money, so structure is crucial. There are only four things that can endanger that structure: solipsistic stars, insecure directors, animals, and, the most dangerous of all, babies.

Ours is a three-day shoot. And during almost every minute of those three days, we are shooting babies. To recap, the spot opens with our drone-babies walking through a hallway in a futuristic setting. We then see an auditorium where babies sit and watch a screen. Then our hero-mom comes running into the hall and throws a doodie diaper at the screen. Very simple.

At the moment we are trying to shoot the mothers sitting with their babies, all of whom are supposed to be mesmerized by the Big Brother–like character on the screen, who's talking about the welfare of the planet and who—per the client's in-house legal department—will not be Big Brother–like at all, as that's A) legally far too close to the original Apple spot, and B) too scary for the babies. So Big Brother instead will be a she and she will be a bunny. Flonz felt strongly that we needed to shoot with as many babies as possible. “I want real. I want a thousand babies and their mothers. I want to feel it, smell it, and taste it on the film.”

Pam, on the other hand, did not want to feel it or smell it and especially did not want to taste it. She said we were asking for trouble, that
surely we could shoot ten, maybe twenty babies tops and replicate them in post-production, much the same way crowd scenes are shot now, where you simply cut and paste a small crowd to fill a stadium. Pam had raised this concern again to Flonz's producer as the pre-pro meeting was breaking up and all of us were headed to dinner. Flonz had made the terrible mistake of being both condescending and sexist to Pam in the same sentence.

“Don't worry, sweetheart,” he began, retying his kaffiyeh around his neck. “I've been doing this awhile, okay?” He chuckled but there was a hint of nastiness to his comment.

Pam had paused and then nodded a lot. Never a good sign with Pam.

“Grampa. You haven't made a commercial since the Internet was dial-up, but if this is how you want to play it, be my guest. Also, call me sweetheart again and I'll pull the hair off your balls.” (They were seated at opposite ends of the long table at dinner.)

But Flonz got his babies.

We arrive at a soundstage at Universal at 7:00
A.M.,
Pam, Ian, Keita, myself. A wide-eyed production assistant greets us, smiling.

“Lot of babies,” he says.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Lot of babies. Never seen so many babies in my life. You'll see.”

He asks if we want to get breakfast first or go to the set. We opt for the set. We have an hour before Jan and her team arrive and want to make sure everything is ready for the first shot. The plan is for Alan and Jill to escort them here from the hotel.

Keita says to me, “This is very exciting. I love Hollywood.”

The PA brings us to the set, a replication of the set from the 1984 commercial—auditorium-like, chairs facing a large movie screen. And it is there that my good energy begins leaking like a baby's wee from a Snugglie. It's not the set itself. It's the sound, and, to a great extent, the smell. Babies. Everywhere. Smiling, happy, screaming, crying, wailing, teething, crawling, toddling, running, falling. Who's to say how many. A million, perhaps? A huge section away from the set in the cavernous soundstage is dedicated to tables with baby
formula, diapers, clothes, and rows of chairs for the moms. Makeup people try to tend to the mothers, who are also in the spot.

I look at Ian and Ian looks at Pam and Pam is shaking her head slowly. “This will not end well,” she says.

Keita is smiling. “So many babies!”

Ian says, “This is gay man hell.”

And then we all happen to notice our director, the once-famous Flonz Kemp, the man in charge, the man with the vision, the man who is responsible for our Super Bowl spot, our chance for greatness, a man who is earning $25,000 a day for the next three days. He looks confused. This is not the look you hope to see on your director's face on the first day.

Unfortunately, the client arrives early. Jan walks up to me and says, “I don't understand what's happening.”

•   •   •

We are scheduled to roll film at 8:30
A.M.
Our first shot is slated to be the babies walking through the hallway to get to the auditorium to watch the Big Brother–like character. By ten-thirty we are still setting up, as the babies keep falling or walking in the wrong direction. Some boycotted the idea of walking altogether and simply sat, looking around. A decision was made to reduce the number of babies, which helped a great deal.

By late afternoon we get the shots of the babies toddling, though some of them are crawling, and we all agree, after a twenty-five-minute discussion among the group, that this is adorable and, as Flonz says, “exactly the reason I love working with babies. You never know what you're going to get.” His smile is not met with other smiles.

Not surprisingly, the shoot ran late. The overages cost the agency tens of thousands of dollars. Ian and I are supposed to be in charge. Martin will hear about this. Moods soured. A dinner had been planned and we all agreed that perhaps it would be best to postpone until the following evening. Everyone wants to go to their rooms, order room service, and hope to find
Tommy Boy
on Pay-Per-View.

Throughout the day I looked to Pam each time her iPhone buzzed.
Is it my father, who never traveled to Europe or China during his life but managed to visit both shortly after his death? Have the gods of logistics—these movers of cargo and packages, toilet paper and salmon, legal documents and illegal drugs, and, occasionally, the remains of a World War II veteran from Boston—finally rerouted him the 7,254 miles from HKG to LAX, deep within the cargo hold, ashes class, 30,000 feet above sea level, one last time?

Each time Pam looks over, shakes her head.

•   •   •

My cold is getting worse and I stand in a hot shower for a long time. I can't seem to get warm. L.A. is unusually cold, even for January. The news says something about strange winds from the North Pacific. The heat in my room doesn't seem to be working, so I put on both bathrobes hanging in the bathroom, thinking I might be able to sweat out my illness. I've ordered a bowl of spaghetti from room service. I've also opened a half-bottle of red wine and a $15 can of peanuts, which I'm confident the finance department will reject. I'm lying in bed clicking through the channels on TV.

Ian calls.

I say, “I'm wearing two robes.”

Ian says, “Paulie just called me. Phoebe quit.”

The Mighty Ducks are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs on TV. A commercial comes on and it's Snugglies' main competitor. A guy with long hair plays guitar and sings a song called “Do the Potty Dance.” Toddlers dance. The man sings. “Let's all wear our big-kid pants.” I feel jealous. Why didn't we come up with that? I hate it but admire the thinking.

I say, “When?”

“This afternoon, late. She gave two weeks' notice. Have you talked to her recently?”

The next spot is for soda, done by our agency. I press mute and watch with the sound off. The cool instantly dissipates and the spot without sound looks absurd.

Ian says, “Fin.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you talked with her?”

“No. I left her a couple of messages.”

Ian says, “You should call her.”

I'm not hungry and I regret ordering the $25 bowl of pasta. For a moment I think about taking a red-eye home to New York. I flip the channel and watch as a man puts petroleum jelly on his nose, dips his nose into a bowl of cotton balls, and then runs to another bowl, where he shakes the cotton ball off with some struggle. He then repeats this task several times as a clock counts to sixty seconds. I have the TV on mute but watch as the audience shrieks with delight; whether this is an honest reaction or the result of aggressive, unseen prompting by flashing signs and eager producers, one can't know. The host, a fleshy man with dyed, spiky hair and who, if he hadn't landed this job, looks like he might be tending bar at a convention, watches with a smirk. It comes out quietly and surprises me, a private thought expressed out loud.

I say, “I think I'm in love with her.”

Ian says, “I know. Everyone knows.”

“Why didn't I know?”

“You really want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“Because you lie to yourself. Because you keep everyone and everything at arm's length. What happened to you as a kid . . . I wouldn't wish on anyone. But at some point . . .”

He stops. Then says, “Look. What the hell do I know. I just want you to be happy. She makes you happy.”

It's past midnight in New York. Too late to call. A text message seems weird. She's not responded to my e-mail yet. The doorbell to my room rings.

I say, “My room service is here.”

Ian says, “I'll see you in the lobby at six.”

“My father's ashes are lost,” I say, not wanting to hang up quite yet.

“What? What happened?”

“FedEx lost them. They were supposed to arrive yesterday. They're in Düsseldorf. Or Hong Kong. Maybe.”

“Jesus. So wait. Does that mean you're going to do it? If you find them?”

It's strange and embarrassing to admit, but I hadn't really thought that far. I just knew I didn't want Eddie to hurl them off the Tobin Bridge or into a dumpster. But actually getting on a plane to Hawaii, finding a boat, spreading the ashes . . . I hadn't thought that far. The doorbell rings again.

“Yes,” I say. “I am.” The words surprise me.

Ian says, “Okay.”

I say, “Okay. See you at six.”

I open the door and can't figure out why the room service waiter is looking at me strangely. Until I remember that I'm wearing two bathrobes.

•   •   •

This is the forty-second commercial I've made in my career. I know this because I keep the pre-production books from each shoot and number them. There's a name for that and that name is “sad.” You have to understand that I never thought I'd get to go on a shoot. A shoot was what you strived for, it was achievement and success. When I started out I was mostly working on direct mail letters, coupons, and in-store banners. I took it seriously. I would fight the client hard on the use of exclamation points (they pro, me con). I worked the copy to death, convinced, somehow, that despite the fact that it might have been for diapers, the likes of Aaron Sorkin and Jeffrey Katzenberg would see it and demand to know who wrote it. Sorkin: “There's a voice beneath the mail-in rebate copy that feels very fresh to me. Who is this guy?”

Those first few times on a set are unforgettable. The crew and the energy and the actors and the little magic that happens when the camera rolls, when the light hits the film and leaves a perfect inverse image.
I wrote this
, I would think.
Millions of people will see this on TV.

I wanted to be great.

So you try. You throw yourself into it. You learn. You learn the difference between writing and shooting. You learn the difference between how you hear a line of dialogue and how an actor says a line
of dialogue. The line you thought was so funny turns out to be hackneyed and expected. Later, in the edit room, the takes you thought were great turn out to be not so great. You try harder next time, work longer on the script, on cutting the superfluous, on saying it better, funnier, more . . . real. You read plays and screenplays. You study them. You try to understand how they work. You take a writing class at the 92nd Street Y. You see plays at an off-Broadway theater. You read the scripts of award-winning commercials. You realize that advertising, at its best, tells a story. It closes the gap between the thing being sold and the person watching. The really good work, done by the best people, makes you feel something. It tells the truth. It elevates the business, transcends a mere ad to something better, more valuable. It connects with another human being, breaks through the inanity and noise to find something essential and real and lasting. Like art. Not always. Not often. But sometimes. You have seen it done. You have admired the people who do it. And you have come to the realization, in spot after mediocre spot, that you are not that good.

•   •   •

Day two.

The rain has stopped but it is overcast and cold. Still dark on our way to the set. Pam gets a call while we're in the van. Jan wants to meet before we roll. Probably not a great sign.

My phone rings. I hold it up for Pam, Ian, and Keita to see.

I answer. “Martin.”

“What's going on?”

“Well, we had a good day yesterday . . .”

“That's not what I heard. Jan called last night. Had concerns, she said. Worried, she said. Too big to screw up, she said. What the hell is going on?”

His voice is low, angry.