Let me clarify one thing first; I did not act in any TV commercial so you don’t have to sit in front of the TV to wait for my appearance, ok?
The other day a friend of mine called for dinner, so I went. She later told me, during dinner, that she was going to Pavillion for a TV Commercial shooting (its her work), so I went to Pavillion in the middle of the night to company her.
One way to describe it; interesting.
First of all, the setting up itself took about 2 hours (and its not a big set up, mind you). The lighting was adjusted again and again, the crew members running around to ensure that stage is as required by the producers and director, and then the choreographer was busy giving last minute instruction to ensure the artists and talents were doing the right move.
Then, the camera started to roll. One scene took at least few tries until everyone moved as a team and synchronized the move. Then the prop was removed and then another scene came up, and again, the choreographer was giving another last minute instruction whereas the director was in deep discussion with the camera man about the next scene while comparing to the storyboard.
Me? I was just standing around, watching in amusement and then not doing anything at all.
After 5 long hours, the director was agitated because they still had one more scene to go and yet it was about time to wrap as Pavillion management only allow them to shoot until 5 in the morning. He started using the megaphone to shout at the artists and talents, getting them to buckle up and be serious, and finally, it worked like magic!
Viola! It’s a wrap!
So what did I learn?
Apart from the fact that I can get a very flat ass (for sitting on the floor while waiting for my friend to be done), no matter how stupid the commercial looks (especially those late night commercials on TV), it actually requires a lot of effort and attention from the crew members (there were around 35 of them) and it wasn’t as simple as I had previously thought.
PS: Sorry for the low quality picture. I was using my camera on my phone to capture those images. Furthermore, I don’t think its right for me to reveal which was the company that produced this TV Commercial and which commercial it is. I guess you will have to figure it out from the pictures 
My God all that time for a 30 second commercial! there are too many perfectionists on this set I suppose…I used to do camera for this show in Melbourne, setting up and shooting took 5-6 hours…this was for two shows each an hour long mind you. Absurd to waste all that time and money on a commercial! What is the world coming to?!!!
The problem was that those artists and talents were not paying attention and they didn’t synchronize their movements, so the director got no choice but to re-take those shots. If everyone is working as seriously, then I guess the shot can be done in fairly quick time.
Yeah that’s bad…they probably went way over budget on that shoot. I wonder if they rehearsed before the shoot? that would have saved them a lot of time and money…