Some of you may recall this thread where I told my sad story of being asked to teach an actor how to ride a unicycle for a TV ad instead of getting the gig myself.
The final product is now flighting and I’ve uploaded a version of it to my gallery.
There are two files there. One is the full ad (1.68mb) and the other is an edit of the unicycling only (244kb).
Hmm, it may be a clown, but at least it’s a cool looking clown.
Yeah, I prefer to think of the character as a jester.
A small but important distinction.
Excellent point. I think that’s what my mind was trying to get at.
He looks somewhat wobbly, but you can’t really expect much more from someone who had a pressured 12 days to learn it in.
Yeah, I also think they did a good job of incorporating his wobbliness into the flow of the commercial. To the passing glance of the casual TV watcher, nothing seems to be wrong.
Then again, I’m sure that when most people think of a unicyclist it’s of a person (usually clown) who’s wobbling along on one wheel and about to fall at any moment. So if anything, seeing a jester wobbling on a unicycle only reinforcese what they already believe, thus making it more realistic by playing to their preconceptions.
I wonder what he god paid? That’s a lot of work for one actor to do in a commercial. They should have hired you!
It is neat that they wanted him to unicycle, though. THey could have had him juggling instead.
B
We chatted about this during the lesson. By the sounds of it, it was a rather plum gig to land.
They had all sorts of casting difficulties. They wanted a pretty well-built individual but all the big guys they auditioned looked effeminate once they applied the facepaint.
This guy had the right face and looked good in the paint but he’s fairly small, maybe 5’6-ish and around 60kg. To get back to the ‘well built’ figure they wanted, they had him fitted with a bodysuit that was custom made for him.
Then they figured out that he didn’t know how to ride a unicycle.
After watching the video I got the impression that the unicyclist seemed to be on for such a short time any person would have been suitable.
Yeah, but try n tell that to the ‘pony-tails’…