The gravol emoji

I spent all day on the set of a 30-second commercial for GRAVOL - as the puppeteer.

GRAVOL is launching a new campaign, one that features a green, sickly looking Emoji-type character who pops up and interacts with people. For this first commercial, we were on an airplane (an airplane interior set, that is, housed is a warehouse in Scarborough). One passenger begins to feel uneasy, clearly about to be ill. That's when our Emoji friend appears and reminds her take a GRAVOL to calm her stomach.

This green Emoji was appropriately named "Ralph" and he'll be mostly replaced in post production with computer animated facial features. But the director felt strongly that the cast -- the people sitting on the plane, and the one key passenger who interacts with Ralph -- should be able to see and react to something real.

That's where I came in!

The prop guys built a green sphere about the size of a bowling ball (and almost as heavy!) and had me tucked and crouched out of sight -- sometimes literally flat on the floor under the seats -- so Ralph could pop up, turn his face, pop down again, and so forth.

It was a long, cold, tiring day - but a good reminder of just what a puppeteer can bring to a production, and why I do what I do.