I booked and filmed a commercial spot on November 21st last year. The spot was for the NHL Winter Classic on TNT and it aired this month on January 2nd.
The Audition
The audition was for Old Man Winter. There were 5 versions of Old Man Winter and everyone auditioned for all of them. There was little direction for the audition, so I originally thought that one actor would play all five versions in different clothing.
I got the email a couple days after I turned in my self tape. The email was from my agent confirming I was available for the callback. About 15 minutes later, they sent me another email saying “Hey! I know he has a callback but they’d also like to put him on RFR for NHL winter classic!”
If you don’t know, Right of First Refusal (RFR) means a casting director wants to secure you for a role but hasn’t finalized the booking, asking you to contact them before accepting another conflicting job so they have the “first dibs” to book you.
The casting company, Big Picture Casting had me come into their office and do an in person callback. This was the second audition I did for this casting company and it was the second time I got a callback. The first was a Ford commercial that I didn’t book. You can read about that experience here.
It took about a week after the callback before I finally got the email that I booked the job, Inuit Old Man Winter.
The Shoot
The shoot was located at The World Congress Center in Atlanta and was one of the most fun shoots I’ve done. The staff treated us really well, the other actors playing the other versions of Old Man Winter were nice and I had worked with the actor who played the Miami Guy on a previous project. Oh, and the food was great.
The Old Man Winter part of the shoot was about 8 hours with Miami Guy staying longer to film the beginning of the spot.
I think the spot turned out great. You can see it below.
Simon Shih 