turkey juice

i've worked with people from both sides of the united states, and have done a car commercial with some fancy dutch director, but turkey was a new one. we did a two-day commercial at the u of u huntsman center--kind of like the marriott center but covered in red and it leaves you feeling.... uncomfortable. the concept was to have memot okur, the turkish guy on the utah jazz, playing basketball against himself. he then proceeds to thoroughly school himself, and after knocking himself to the ground during shot, pulls him up and into himself again. he drinks 'dimes' fruit juice and feels happy. that meant a body double and a lot of place-marking, dots on the double's face [for motion-tracking and digital replacement], and even a green screen at the end.
getting the crew list was fun, because it was once again the usual group of guys i work with, and having a crew you know really makes a lot of the difference. the director and other ad guys were from turkey, which is really an interesting language, and i found myself looking up the country on wikipedia on my day off; interesting place. the dp was from new york but spoke turkish, as well as french, russian, and japanese, and thought it was neat that i did too [just japanese]. that was nice, because it gave me some brownie points, and eased the pressure off me when things got busy. the turkish guys were friendly and cool, and even though they spoke english, m&m's are also a universal language.

all during the shoot, i was curious to try some of this turkish fruit juice [apple, grape, peach, and pommegranate], but despite there being several cartons sitting on the craft services table, they were for the commercial and so were off limits. when we wrapped, however, they let us take some. i was thrilled and grabbed four. on one side everything is written in turkish, and on the other side is the english translation. alongside being toted with 'no sugar added', another spot on the carton says 'with cell'. i don't even know what that's trying to say. but the juice is good.

this is not one of my better posts. i need to write when i'm feeling it, not when it's convenient.