Commercial TV Debut

A few weeks ago at work I was sitting in the office when my boss got a phone call from the marketing department.  I happened to be the only other PT in the office and was minding my own business when suddenly I realized that I had just been volunteered to participate in the filming of a commercial.  On a few occasions before I had been talked into doing a few TV spots and we had filmed some commercials in the clinic so it wasn't a big deal.
We realized that it was going to be a big deal when on the day we were filming the commercial the crew showed up four hours early to set up the equipment.  There were a few cameras, lighting, and a clothing rack for wardrobe changes.  There were seven or eight actors and a production crew of about 10.  Of course all of this was taking place in our main therapy gym right in the middle of our work day.  All the overhead lights were turned off to provide better lighting for the filming leaving us to work in the dark.  The main camera was then stationed in front of the door to our office so we had to interrupt filming anytime we had to get to our desks.  During the morning they were shooting clips of the actors doing various exercises.  We tried to provide some professional consulting on the correct technique for exercises in between our real patients.  All together it was a fairly chaotic morning.
After lunch I was called back for hair and make-up.  Did I mention there was a make-up and hairstylist as well? Finally it was time for my moment in the spot light.  My role was to be the PT working with a patient after knee surgery on step ups.  Even though I was never the lead in the school musical I figured I had the acting talent to be a physical therapist-- after all that is my day job.  However, this seemed to take more "takes" than I thought.  I was instructed to look at my patient, to stand closer, to assist them up on the step, and most importantly to smile.  None of this do I do in my really job.  I am usually watching the patient's feet or standing back looking at their overall movements.  After all it is PT and our goal is for the patient not to need our help.  The actor who was my patient did a good job of walking me through everything involved in the filming and still shots they were trying to achieve.  It took 20 minutes to get about 2 or 3 seconds of thrilling box step up footage.  My next role was to assist a patient actor with walking on a treadmill for some still photography shots.  This meant adjusting the lighting and moving the treadmill to have less cluttter in the background.  My last job, and probably my favorite, was sitting in the background of a shot as an extra with another actress.  When they filmed the shots earlier in the morning someone was working in the background so they needed us to recreate this to make the shots match.  I sat on a stool while the actress kicked her leg out every once in a while.  In the meantime I had a great time talking to her.  She got involved in being an actress when she went with her daughter who was interested in modeling to see an agent.  The agent told her she had a "very commercial face" and should consider acting.  In the past year she has been in a commercial for a private jet service, training videos for Wal-Mart, and a few public service announcements.  All the actors drove in from Tulsa to do the

Random generic people

filming for the day.  I did find it intriguing that each actor looked "generic".   With my commercial acting debut complete I had a chance to sit back and watch the rest of the filming.  It was interesting to see how they considered the lighting, the background, the camera angle, and what the people in the shot will be doing.  For each clip that would only be a few seconds took about 30 minutes to set up and 20 minutes to film.  We also didn't have any speaking lines so I can't imagine how long it takes to film a full length commercial let alone a TV show.
While my moment in the limelight as a star physical therapist was interesting and gave me a new perspective on film, we were all glad to have our clinic return to normal without the camera or the lights and to do business as usual.