The Making of a New Walkers Crisp Advert

During the summer I had the opportunity of hearing about a new advert being filmed in Rochester High Street for the new Walkers Crisps featuring Gary Lineker.

I started to watch the film crew getting organised in the local High Street and a coach load of young people/actors organising themselves with umbrellas and practising dancing up and down the street with their brollies high in the air.

A water machine was pushed into position (the finished advert shows it as a rainy day) and local shopkeepers closed their doors in anticipation of the rain flooding in (of course it was a very fine summer day in reality).

One take after the other, the stand-in for Gary Lineker sat, stood and jumped in the air while the ‘rain’ poured down on him. The camera crews, bystanders and young people who were part of the filming, cowered under brollies protecting themselves from the falling rain that was shooting out from the water machine above their heads. The camera crew nestled in under a heavy tarpaulin.

The afternoon merged into early evening and still the stand-in went from one take to another. As soon as the ‘takes’ were shot, the make up team descended on the stand-in and remade him up, using a drier to dry off his hair. Then he was off again ready for another take. It was so interesting, and all the time we were told that Gary Lineker would soon be making an appearance - which he did later that evening.

It was more than an interesting experience: simply watching how machines, crew and actors maneuvered themselves into the making of the advert.

However, since watching the finished advert on the television, I am absolutely amazed at how little the amount of filming I watched was used. In fact, other than Gary Lineker jumping up on his seat and jumping in the air, the finished advert shows him jumping in the air and falling down into a field of potatoes! There were no other actors from that afternoon on show, or any other happenings of the afternoon in the finished advert.

Goodness knows how much the whole of the making of that advert cost, what I saw, and what was the finished product. The whole experience was quite something and quite awesome as to how everything came together As I saw it. But as for the finished advert? Not quite as it seemed, but nevertheless another interesting look at professional filming.

Wendy