Part of the office is sub-let to Intavision, a company owned Mr Jiang. He sits opposite me and for some time has been promising me a starring role in a commercial his company was making. So when the time came for a screen test I was quite excited. The customer seemed happy with my look and decided I was suitable to be their “scientist” showing the benefits of their new LED light bulb.
Wednesday came and I rushed back from Shanghai for “hair”. This was very disappointing because all the man did was wash and blow dry my hair for half an hour. Eventually I told him to stop drying it as it was becoming boring and start cutting it. He didn’t so I told him I was leaving. The next day I had make-up at 7:30am at my desk. The girl was so small she was the height as me when I was sitting down. After caking me with foundation, mascara, eye liner, eye shadow, razor blading my eye brows, I was ready to go to the studio. At the studio I was put into a shirt which belonged to one of the Mr Jiang’s boys and sewn into a lab coat a couple of sizes to large.
The studio was small room down some narrow lanes off Beijing Xi Lu. It had a huge blue drape hanging at the back, in front of which I had to stand for 5 hours doing various things with my hand, looking serious and pretending to focus on a light bulb which would later be super-imposed onto my hand.
By 12:30pm I was pretty fed up doing the shots over and over, my back was screaming and I was ready to stop. £60 for 5 hours boring work which left my back in considerable pain will not be enough to tempt me next time.
But for now I am the face of SSL LED light bulbs!