a variation on that from 25years ago…I was operating the cameras in our remote studio for a news bulletin, and i’d set up all the cameras correctly.
Service Control came on the talkback from the main studio 40 miles away “Can you check the camera settings?- black levels look off to me”.
I sat back annoyed thinking No…its already perfect.I’m not touching it…just then the newsreader shuffled in her chair, the scopes bounced a little and i heard on the talkback “Perfect!.. Leave it right there.”
Whilst finishing a commercial a few years ago, the creative from the agency said to me “I want it to look how a blind man would see it”
And on a different commercial, I heard the creative (a different one) say to our VFX guy “No, no, that’s wrong. That’s not how I see it in my head”
Just hook the guy up to Elon’s Neuralink. That way everyone can see his “vision”! 
been there…got the t-shirt!
And did it work?
we used to call this ‘demo love’ it happens with voice over and music a lot too when a client has grown accustomed to the temp audio. I’ve been on jobs where the clients want to go back to color grade again to make it look more like the offline…
This is why our offline assitants fight tooth and nail to be on scratch VO. A few (uh…~10) years back, one of them got on a broadcast grocery store spot that versioned into different store versions for markets across the US. It ran for about 2 years and she made about $300K in residuals.
One of our editors became the voice of AMEX and Cadillac for a few years. Or maybe it was visa or Mastercard . . . .
Yeah, KFC and Nintendo Switch for a minute for a few here. About half of the editors were in SAG at one point.
I had a copywriter cast himself for the V.O. and got paid so much he retired from advertising.
A similar but less lucrative thing happened to me. Was one of the most surreal moments in my career.
Me, too. (Not the ‘earned we so much I retired’ bit, just the ‘Got the gig after doing a guide v/o’ bit. Didn’t go on TV, so only got a relatively small amount, but a hell of an hourly rate!
Had a client that insisted on being in the suite for everything, we couldn’t touch anything unless he was there. So first day of ingest for a spot I loaded up the Log based footage (forget what type) and he had one look at it (all washed out of course, pre LUT) and stormed off and had a screaming match with the DOP who had just arrived at reception for half an hour. So whilst this was happening I applied the LUT etc. He then screamed at me for doing stuff whist he wasn’t in the room and for undermining him in his argument with the DOP… Cant win sometimes…
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I have been cast multiple times in TV commercials. As far as I can tell this was because I was the only man in New Zealand who had a mustache in the year 2010, and certain people found it hilarious.
Yo, Pornstache!
The client was serious - Do you have a “make it suck less” button?
Well that ends Friday. Andy wins the forum forever I guess.
Man! I remember very clearly that NZTA spot having quite the cultural impact!
It was directed by Nick Ball, who does superbowl commercials now.
We built the super wide pole-slide shot entirely in Flame. All the shadows and lighting are faked with little blurry triangles screened on and stuff. The bottom right tile is me having a sword battle with the colorist who graded Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I’m also, per Nick’s insistence, in the “beard room” trying on a fake beard, because, you know: funny mustache man.
