GREAT EATS HAWAII: THE MOST COMFORTABLE MAN IN THE WORLD

THE MOST COMFORTABLE MAN IN THE WORLD

FILMING NEW FUJITSU TELEVISION COMMERCIAL

Readers of this blog may have noticed that I have a small roll in creating commercials for Fujitsu Air Conditioning in Hawaii. While my Daughter has starred in all but one of the commercials for over ten years, this time we changed it up and made me the star of this spot. While I am no actor and do not like to see myself on the screen, this spot came to me and I just had to do it for fun. Life is short and I wanted to be part of something that I thought would be entertaining and very funny. The premise for this commercial came from a popular beer commercial where a distinguished man (who is way better looking than me) looks into the camera and says "I don't always drink beer". The rest of that ad is advertising history. While we will not make history with our spot, we do hope to make people laugh while making people remember our brand. I came up with the basic idea for this ad and then handed it over to Greg Davis at KHON. Greg has done many Fujitsu commercials for us and he always knows how to deliver a great final product. Greg and myself had the daunting task of trying to find two gorgeous woman for the two most important scenes of the commercial. I turned to Dawn Larson of Larson Talent in Honolulu and she arranged to have around nine girls come down to KHON to audition for the spot. It was pure hell sitting in a room at the television station and interviewing all the girls who all showed up looking spectacular. After the interviews it was my job to choose the two girls for the spot. I gave Greg my three finalists and between the two of us we came up with Nicole and Rianne. While both are beautiful, it was their personalities that really made an impact and got them the gigs over the other candidates. With Nicole and Rianne booked, I had to make a decision on whether I should cast myself as The Coolest Man in the World. I know that I cannot act, look fat on camera and hate seeing myself on t.v. I really thought of bringing in a real actor or local personality to complete the cast. Something inside me said just do it and have as much fun as you can while not taking yourself seriously. I dropped 15 pounds in two months and let my beard grow for seven days before the shoot. We gathered up the costumes at the Diamond Head Theatre Costume Department where they rent costumes for any occasion. The staff at Diamond Head Theatre were great. We told them that we needed Indiana Jones, Aviator and Mountain Climber costumes and they had just about everything with the exception of a cold weather parka for the mountain climbing scene. Brigette Abott from KHON put out an email to all KHON employees looking for a cold weather jacket. Fellow KHON employee Cathy Muneno who is married to Native Hawaiian Navigator Nainoa Thompson helped out by bringing Nainoa's jackets. I am a big fan of Nainoa and was excited and honored to be able to wear a jacket of his that probably sailed on the Hokule'a. We shot three scenes in the studio with a green screen. The green screen will allow the Director and Editor to add digital images behind the live scene in post production. We have volcano erupting, mountain climbing and aviator scenes plus the final scene where the only dialog in the spot is spoken. After a few hours of filming with the green screen at the studios we made our way to Waikiki to film the final shot at Chuck's Cellar. Chuck's was kind enough to allow us to shoot in a booth while the restaurant was closed. All of the drinks on the table are non alcoholic as the restaurant cannot pour any alcohol before they open at 5:30 pm. They were props only so that was fine. It took dozens of takes to get the two lines down. I flubbed them up so many times. My terrible acting skills made it difficult to deliver the lines as intended. John Veneri coached me and at one time I had wished he was doing the scene instead of me. We forged on and finished the spot with me delivering the final line "Stay cool my friends". Don't want to give away too much. You will have to wait a few weeks to see the final commercial. My sincere thanks to the crew at KHON who were talented, professional and fun! Thanks to Nicole and Rianne who made my day very enjoyable. I am very blessed to have had the opportunity to do this.
Stay tuned for the spot. Hope it brings everyone a good laugh.
View all of our Fujitsu television commercials at www.ilovemyfujitsu.com