On a July day 20 years ago I didn’t have much going on being I had not started working in Beijing yet. Yang had auditioned Aidan for a TV commercial and he got the part so on that day in the outskirts of Beijing, Aidan went to work. The first of us to work in Beijing.
(Aidan at a commercial shoot in 2005)
Today, being either retired or unemployed I didn’t have much going on and Sabrina arranged for Amanda to film a commercial. Amanda is about the same age Aidan was then.
This time the location was Chaoyang Park, on the east side of Beijing, 30 minutes from our apartment. Could not ask for a better location. Chaoyang Park is legitimately awesome. It was a bit cold; an indoor location would have been nice. After wandering a bit frantically being a bit late, we met up with “the crew”, a young woman on her macbook and a disheveled young man. The director then appeared from the woods or so it seemed. The directors all seem to have “a look”. Sharply dressed, narrow face. Around us sat maybe eight small kids’ cars. Amanda’s “shoot” would be to drive around in the cars and to look happy and cute. They had a series of scenes needed for the commercial and worked through them one by one. The camera used was a phone. Amanda did well except she wouldn’t yell “yeah!” and clap her hands in excitement. She did learn what the gas pedal did and almost gleefully ran us over.
About an hour into the shoot, a baoan (security guard) came over and started to ask questions first to me since I was closest to the cars. This did no good, so he spoke with one of the crew and eventually made his way up to speaking with the director. He then brought in a younger park management type guy to speak with the director. Apparently, filming in the park was a no no. They made some sort of compromise and moved the small cars to the side of the road. A middle-age woman who was stretching nearby walked up to the baoan and had some complaints of her own - I guess we were interfering with her stretching zone although it was hard to see how. You can think of her as a Chinese Karen. I stereotyped her as part of the ayi mafia, a group of middle aged women always ready with advice especially about Amanda (“she too cold!”).
The script had them filming in another part of the park and I was asked to watch over the extra cars and their stuff which was fine with me. I am otherwise useless. Headphones in, following Cal football on the ESPN website. It was now mid morning and runners were being supplanted by families. Several little kids came near the cars and stared expectedly. Fortunately for me, their parents dragged them away before I had to explain to them they couldn’t use the cars. Or could they?
One more attempt to get Amada to say “yeah” and shooting wrapped around 11:30 which counts as a full day for me these days.
