Ice Age Generation AD, in the Corner of the TV. #11 "Impossible Location Shoot! 10 Toads, a 1 Million Yen Ferrari, and a 30,000 Yen (Out-of-Pocket) Hostess"
My days as an AD.
There were meetings that started late at night for no reason.
Starting at 26:00.
That's 2:00 AM.
From there, about seven hours until morning.
But, especially in those kinds of meetings,
nothing ever got decided.
No interesting ideas came up either.
Everyone was just smoking with sleepy faces.
Occasionally, someone would say,
"Got anything?"
and say it.
No, isn't this a meeting to think about that?
I used to think.
I think the directors probably thought,
"Me, having a meeting from late at night"
was cool or something.
They were narcissists.
And what's more,
it was always after those kinds of meetings that
Sudden ideas come flying in.
It was 1:00 AM one night.
I got a call from the director.
"For the punishment game in tomorrow's shoot"
"get about 10 toads ready."
The shoot was scheduled to start at 10:00 AM the next day.
It was too sudden.
I mean,
how am I supposed to gather 10 toads?
I wish they wouldn't ask for things like it's a convenience store.
For a moment,
"Am I supposed to go to the rice paddies in Chiba now...?"
I thought.
But as an AD,
"It's impossible"
there was an atmosphere where you couldn't say that.
So I,
called ADs at various production companies.
Even if you call at 1:00 AM, they answer normally; that's what an AD is.
Then, miraculously,
Recently, there was an AD who did a location shoot at a reptile shop.
I asked for the shop owner's mobile number,
and called at 7:00 AM.
Then,
"We have them."
was the reply.
Are you serious?
I rushed to the shop to pick them up.
But what was there,
was not the toad I knew.
It was some kind of,
excessively colorful,
foreign frog that definitely looked poisonous.
But there was no time left.
I took it and headed to the location site.
Then the director,
said this first thing:
"What is this gross-colored frog!"
"I told you to get a toad!"
Well, I wouldn't know.
But in the end,
the location shoot was carried out with those 'mysterious foreign frogs'.
That was the kind of world television was.
Thinking about it now,
the impossible demands weren't limited to just toads.
One day,
'Find a 1 million yen Ferrari'
was the kind of thing the director told me.
First of all,
I didn't even know if such a thing existed.
But since I was an AD, I had to look for it.
I called used car dealerships one after another.
'Do you have a 1 million yen Ferrari?'
I think now,
that might have been rude.
As expected,
I was laughed at by most of the shops.
However,
one shop was different.
They were incredibly angry.
"Are you kidding me!"
"Are you looking down on me!"
He was so angry that it came through even over the phone.
And for some reason,
I ended up having to go apologize with the director.
I believe the location was somewhere in the Yokohama area.
When we got to the shop,
the president was still angry.
Honestly, I thought to myself,
is it really worth getting that angry over?
But,
I apologized anyway.
Then the president said,
"Then use one of my girls on the show."
It seems they were also running something like a talent agency.
In the end,
a woman from that agency ended up appearing on the show,
and for some reason, the matter was settled amicably.
In the TV industry,
sometimes there are solutions that just don't make sense.
Things like this also happened.
Another day.
For a hostess,
there was a project to hear behind-the-scenes stories about celebrities.
I was looking for a woman who might be willing to appear.
Then, one hostess asked me,
'So, how much do I get if I appear?'
I thought it was a reasonable question.
I checked with the director above me.
And what came back was,
'There's no way we can pay a fee.'
That was it.
Furthermore,
'Just do something about it,'
I was told.
It was as if,
'We're letting you appear on TV'
was their stance.
No,
we are the ones asking for the favor.
It's because of this kind of stance that TV is disliked.
Recently, there was a broadcast writer who wrote something like, 'Why aren't TV people valued in the job market?' but,
well, of course they aren't valued.
Back to the story. The location shoot date for the hostess's celebrity reveal
was already set.
So I,
took 30,000 yen out of my own wallet.
This was back in the era of the 150,000 yen AD salary.
It hurt quite a bit.
But,
'Please accept this.'
I had no choice but to say that.
The hostess was genuinely happy.
I don't think,
she realized that a raggedy AD was paying for it
out of his own pocket.
After the broadcast, there was a bit of an incident. On the show, we didn't reveal the names of the celebrities being exposed. Instead, we only gave hints like 'popular actor' or 'big-name musician.' In that episode, we gave the hint 'high-pitched vocalist.' Then, after the broadcast, it seems a call came in from a certain agency. 'The person himself watched the broadcast, and that high-pitched vocalist is our so-and-so, right?' Apparently, they were quite angry. Then the producer explained, 'Oh, no, no. That's a different high-pitched vocalist, Mr. X.' The other party seemed to be convinced, saying, 'Oh, I see, is that so?' Thinking about it now, I feel like nothing was really solved. But, TV back then was a bit more easygoing for both performers and staff than it is now. I think, perhaps, everyone wasn't as angry as they are today.
Thinking about it now,
ADs back then,
rather than being production staff,
might have been the 'cushioning material' of the TV industry.
The unreasonable demands from above, and
Standing between the reality of the set,
I was the one who had to make everything work.
And,
the more an AD is able to make things work,
the harder it becomes to quit, I think.
But I was gradually starting to hate it...
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#12 "Why I couldn't walk on the track side anymore and borrowed 50,000 yen from a consumer finance company"
My mind and body were at their limit.
I couldn't walk on the track side of the station platform anymore,
and for the first time, I borrowed 50,000 yen from a consumer finance company.
Even so, I wanted to show my family that I was doing my best in Tokyo.
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