Venezuela

The recent death of President Hugo Chavez got me thinking of the one time I visited Venezuela to shoot a commercial for J&J.

The spot was originally going to be shot in Argentina which has a

wonderful film industry with a lot of talented people. Having awarded

the job to a production company we learned that the only way the spot

could run in Venezuela –which was a big market for my client –was if it was filmed

in Venezuela. President Chavez had decreed it. As we didn’t have the money

to shoot it twice we all upped our sticks and figured out how to produce this

TV commercial there. All kinds of people started appearing. The Argentine production company. 

The creative directors of our agency in Buenos Aires, the creative director of the Caracas agency. 

The local client. And me -the sole global kahuna on deck.

I checked in to my hotel room in Caracas very late and had only just closed my eyes when an alarm clock in the room next to me started beeping and beeping really loudly.

It beeped for 3 hours. I banged on the wall but the room was un occupied. I called reception and no one was there. I looked for a security guard and could find no one. Eventually it stopped. I told reception next morning and they promised to fix it. They never did. And every night of my stay was interrupted at 3am by the beep beep beep.

One night I slept on the bathroom floor with pillows over my head, I was that desperate.

I had a bodyguard escorting me to the locations every day. One day when we didn’t have There was a UN cultural event with African men and woman children in colorful national dress. At the poolside buffet I felt amused and guilty at the sight of a very young very skinny girl with big eyes. She was at the steaks station piling her plate high with beef like cows had just become extinct. It was a huge dish. The advice never to eat anything bigger than your head obviously never reach her.

She demolished that pile of steaks like a grasshopper eats wheat. And I swear she looked like she was eating steak for the first ever in her life. 

The shoot itself went smoothly and the only other thing I recall is walking in through the wrong door at the airport trying to go home. Alarms went off, military police surrounded me AK47’s raised high.

It was a true heart stopping moment. Prior to that the most wow moment was being driven from the airport to downtown Caracas and going over a huge bridge that spanned two mountains. A week after the shoot the bridge collapsed and the time to get from the airport to downtown took 5 hours.