Austin Lindy Hop
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Austin Lindy Hop
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On Thursday, February 14 (Valentine's Day), Sunday and Lawrence drove to Gruene Hall outside San Antonio to be dancers in a Miller Genuine Draft Commercial. The casting call asked for Swing dancers, and the clothing description called for "Urban Club wear," and specifically excluded "cowboys" from attending. The music was Los Lobos' "Shakin, Shakin, Shake," which is more of a rockabilly tune than anything, but still within the realm of what some might call "Swing." Man, were we ever misinformed.... These pictures came from a new digital camera being used for the first time, with not too impressive results on the low-resolution setting. But the story is worth it.
Sunday was EXCITED driving down to the shoot while listening to Britney Spears (the non-blues version, of course, since the blues version has not been recorded, yet). We found out that everyone except three other people at the shoot had agents and did this commercial thing for a living or as a part of their aspiring acting careers. We were just there to have fun.
Foreshadowing being an element of all fine literature, it should by now come as no surprise that we WERE, indeed, miscast in this commercial.
But, being the immeasurably flexible types we are, we fit in fine. Sunday, a native Texan, fit right in. Lawrence initially needed a little encouragement to stick around. To quote Sunday (with pressed lips), "Lawrence, I did NOT take a day off work and drive down here for you to just turn around and leave at the first sight of cowboys!!!" Wearing his finest rugged-preppy shirt, Structure pants and Armani glasses, Lawrence needed a little help from the woman with the funky European accent in wardrobe to fit in. But even he got into the "Swing" of things.
"Heck-darn, girl, I didn't live in Central Illinois for 9 years fer nothin'!!"
We met lots of aspiring actor/actress types, some of whom were friendly and clued us into "the game" that everyone was playing: trying to get "bumped up" from an extra to a principal role. Mostly, it happens in the editing room where the editors decide they like a shot of an extra enough to justify paying the extra "the bump" in pay to feature them in the commercial. Some of the extras blatantly schmoozed and flirted with the director to get the bump and to get in more shots (one of them we nicknamed "Blonde Ambition" because of her tacky, Madonna-wanna-be hair extensions); others used more direct tactics. The dance partner of this (unidentified) friend of ours in this picture blatantly cut in front of everyone throughout the twelve-hour shoot in order to try to get herself on camera. She also told our buddy that she had butt implants to make her butt more look appealing, but we all agreed that she should ask for her money back.
Late in the shoot, after 8 hours of doing the same, simplistic, redundant choreography, the choreographer tried to get us excited and cheer us on. "O.K., people, remember, give it your best shot! I know we're all tired, but... remember... FILM IS FOREVER! FILM IS FOREVER." Sunday and I, standing about ten feet away, in between the choreographer and everyone else, looked at each other for a moment--as if to confirm that she really did say that--and started cracking up uncontrollably. We were laughing so hard that we started crying and virtually fell down on the floor. Anytime we started joking around thereafter, we would look sternly at each other and say, "Stop it, be serious: film is forever." I should actually thank the choreographer for perhaps the funniest line of the day... although I'm still... not... sure... if she intended it to be funny.
"That's a wrap, folks." Yes, they really did say it.
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Here are visual depictions of our first clues that we were dreadfully miscast
for this commercial. A picture does say a thousand words, although these
low-res photos do not quite get the full effect of the "bushy to the lower
lip" look of these gents' Marlboro-man mustaches. The
"look" of the commercial was pure and plain honky-tonk, made to sound
more appealing to the mainstream by using Los Lobos music instead of Clint
Black. Uh-oh....
This picture confirms the lesson learned at this shoot that the low-res setting
on the camera was NOT good for taking candid shots.
We met a few local dance instructors, as well, including Telitha, who could not contain
her, shall we say, "disappointment" with the choreographer. (Her
expression was lost in the low-res image, but her body language says it
all). Truth be told, her disappointment was not unique amongst the people
there who had any dance experience, whatsoever. (Our body
language and expressions were probably worse; we just don't have pictures of
them.) It was surprising and disappointing
because every other detail of the shoot was impeccable: lighting, wardrobe,
make-up, direction, production, location, props, and even the
catering. 
They had wardrobe and make-up people coming in during each break to tuck our shirts in,
rub mambo butter on us to make us look like we had a healthy "glisten"
from dancing all night, and tweak our costumes. One of the wardrobe girls,
Kristen (aka "that cool L.A. girl"), was definitely from L.A., not Texas (thus
the nickname). She wore pink converse
high-tops, and had four different "ensemble additions" to accessorize
and build upon her "artsy-casual work look" as the day progressed and
the temperature got colder. The first layer she added was a cute little
quilted jacket that matched her pink converse high-tops (pictured below).
Then she wore a thicker, bold-striped jacket, (pictured below), but still
accessorized with the matching, pink scarf. At the end of the night, she
broke out a huge, yellow down jacket because, m'gosh!, the temperature dropped
to, like, 55 degrees by midnight.
Telitha also got along quite... "well" with her partner, Mark, who had
quite a talent for
portraying an amazingly diverse array of dumb or drunk Texan/southerners (right),
including Billy Bob Thornton's "Slingblade" character. To the
left is a
photo of Mark and Telitha (middle) providing "atmosphere" toward the
end of the shoot. We missed getting a shot of him necking with her there
against the back wall. (O.K., they were joking, and Telitha was a good
girl....) Lawrence agreed with Mark that it would have provided an
authentic honky-tonk flair to the commercial, but the director didn't want to
use it.
At around 10:00 p.m., one of the assistant producers came up to me and asked if
Sunday and I could stick around for some "special" shots "with
people who know what they are doing." We thought they wanted us to
dance a bit, because they selected the other couples who kept up with the simple
choreography, as well, and then "wrapped" all the other
extras/dancers. However, we stuck around purely to sit in a vintage bus as
it drove up to Gruene Hall, and then run out the door into the Hall. We
re-shot it seven times or so, and the diesel fumes really made most of us
sick. But we still had fun getting on and off the bus. We also saw
Santa Claus in his off-peak season job driving the water truck that sprayed the
street so it would glisten. We interrupted Mark and Telitha to take this
shot as they got cozy in the seat in front of us. Jennifer (right) was not
quite as "busy."
In return for being such good sports and sticking around, they fed us a dinner
of cold hamburgers, pasta salad, and fried chips from the Grist Mill next
door. Ironically enough, even though we all felt like drinking, they
did not have any cold beer on the set. 