The first day saw us have to be at Love Street for half seven. In the morning. Hmmm. Even better, it seemed we'd all gathered on the wrong side of the stadium and had to walk all the way around to where the "wardrobe" was. Fortunately there was also a catering van (complete with out of date tax disc) and we all tucked in to a nice roll and sausage. After that, it was on to a clapped out bus for an hour or so before we were needed for filming.
The script of the advert was this: Two guys are sitting in the Northbank watching the game. One team is about to take a throw in, when a policeman walking behind grabs the ball from the player, pushes him over and then runs about on the pitch. Some streakers then appear, and chase the policeman all around the pitch before hauling him down and taking his clothes off. A big fat bloke comes and jumps on the pile, before the ref sends them off. As they are walking off the pitch, one of the guys says to the other something like "Thatt's incredible". His mate has been busy drinking his bottle (nice realism there, as bottles are of course more than welcome at all senior football grounds!) and not paying attention to what was going on, and responds saying "Phenomenal" when looking at his bottle of Irn Bru. Surely a simple thing to shoot, we'd all be away home in a few hours?
Erm, not quite. For starters, it took about 12 takes for the ten second clip where the two guys exchanged their only lines. Why we had to keep going I'll never know, as most of the takes seemed fine. Even better, the guy drinking the bottle didn't even like Irn Bru! All the time the banter was flying around, with a Saints fan called Hammy providing most of it.
Eventually the director was happy with what he'd seen and filmed other sequences, which included crowd shots reacting to things. We all had to pretend that what we were reacting to was going on (goals, streakers etc), but it wasn't really.
After what seemed like ages, but was only three hours, we were allowed to disappear for lunch. That was my last action on the Saturday, as I had to disappear for the game. Some Saints fans were getting filmed during the game, whilst some were in the Partick end dressed up as Thistle fans! Fortrunately no trouble occured. If you were at the game, you'll know that at half time there was some filming of the copper nicking the ball and running around. Again, from where I was sitting, the first take looked fine, but it seemed more were needed.
Sunday saw an even earlier start, as we had to be at the ground for seven! I can safely say that's the earliest I have ever been at Love Street, and over the course of the day we sat in every stand. Sadly, we didn't get breakfast on the Sunday, as apparently there wasn't enough food to go round (though there was obviously enough for some very privileged people to take three rolls). This was more than enough for Hammy, and after making the person who was ticking our names off each morning think his name was Val Kilmer, he disappeared. A shame, as we could have done with his jokes that day.
Each day saw us graced with a celebrity, as the bloke who played Victor in Take The High Road (not that I watched that nonsense, someone else asked) was part of the production team. Unsurprisingly, he got slagged at every opportunity.
Sunday saw the arrival of some Partick Thistle fans, and after the result on Saturday they got rightly slagged. We even managed to take over their bus to sit in; ah, the joy of being top of the league!
After being there for over an hour, we finally made our way into Love Street. The Partick fans were none too happy about having to wear Saints scarves (well, they were actually Pollock scarves). There was some more filming of reaction scenes, then refilming of the scenes with the copper nicking the ball. Then the good bit; the streakers!
Sadly, there were only six streakers, and of them only two were female. One was a minger, but the other was a good looker though she acted like a total prima donna the whole time (as did most of the crew who thought they were so cool being in showbusiness). The four blokes who were in it also looked a bit strange, with one guy closely resembling Jesus and a 1970s Billy Connolly. Fortunately for us, their bits were covered, but unfortunately so were the women's.
Unsurprisingly, the streaker action was filmed a lot more than anything else, and from a variety of angles. I can think of at least two good reasons for that..... This stage also saw the filming of the streakers pulling down the policeman, and of course there were the usual comments and cheers from the supporters during this. Before this, there'd been some recording of chants around the word phenomenal. Thank god those were only for radio and not for TV.
After that it was lunch time again, and if no breakfast was bad, this was even worse. On Saturday we'd all got hot food, stuff like steak pie and fish! Sunday saw us having packed lunches and a cup of soup, whilst the crew tucked into steak and pasta stuff. A wee suggestion to the catering staff: if you served normal stuff like burgers and hot dogs, it would cost less and you'd be able to supply more. Simple!
After lunch it was back into the Reid Kerr Stand again to see some bloke bounce off a trampoline and jump onto a pile of mats, which will be edited to see the people. All very nice, but I can't help thinking that the folk on the pitch were in a completely different position to they that which they were in before lunch!
With more piling on top of the policeman, and man on man and girl on girl action, came the worst bit of the day. We had to move to the Caley Stand and become Thistle fans! Fortunately I managed to avoid getting one of the scarves of doom, and after we'd sat in that stand getting soaked for 20 minutes without being filmed we were moved to the Main Stand. Once again we weren't filmed, and it took them half an hour to tell us that we were meant to be in the top section so that we didn't get wet. Cheers lads!
Finally, after about 90 minutes of sitting around not being filmed, the superstars of the production crew decided that we really were needed and decided to move us back to the North Bank for more filming. This time it was for the emergence of the Jesus lookalike from the fans. Once would have been enough for this, but we needed about five takes, the last one ending in a huge cheer as the guy fell on his arse as he got to the steps!
That was it for me and a few other folk. There was more filming of crowd folk, including the decent looking female streaker emerging from the crowd. For some reason they only wanted women sitting around her, can't imagine why. Perhaps a wee call to the equal opportunities commission is in order. Surprisingly, some luvvie/gay sounding extra who'd acted like he was a big star all day was the first man to be allowed in with the women.
So that was it. A total of 14 hours over two days for £120, an advert and a soaking. It was a good laugh, but as it went on the crew acted more and more like big shots and seemed more unorganised. And even worse, no freebies!
Would I do it again? Better phone my agent. I'll be in my trailer.