I have searched and searched for images to go along with this post, and after a great deal of looking, I have been unable to locate anything. Which is a shame, because I think seeing the original designs would have helped with this, but no matter, for this post, I quickly scribbled up something to help.
This story goes back to my time working in Los Angeles. We were hired to work on a PSA commercial focused on improving health. Please remember this: this is supposed to be about improving people's health. Another detail to remember is that the two people making all the decisions on the production side of things are British. Picture what they say with the appropriate accent. It is part of the adventure.
The big, amazing, new idea they had to help improve health was so new and so amazing that it took hours for them to try to explain it to me clearly so that I could understand and design it. The best I can explain it is that they wanted us to physically make "fat socks"... but not like that. Imagine someone is carrying more body weight than they want, and they "pull" the unwanted fat off themselves like clothes, but it's flesh and hollow. Just the outer ring or skin of fat... because that is how our bodies TOTALLY work and all our body fat is along the surface. Feast your eyes upon this very quick sketch.
Getting an idea for what kind of monstrosity they wanted us to make? Well, to get to this point, the point where I finally made something similar to what I have posted above, it took hours. Hours with two British men and the shop supervisor sitting behind me as I sat at my computer and worked. And they did helpful things like be super impatient, repeat the SAME not-explanation over and over like it was going to change anything, and the cherry on top, after EVERY mark I made, every choice I made, after I did ANYTHING... the peanut gallery responded in their accent with:
"THAT BIT AIN'T RIGHT"
For HOURS. And I am not being hyperbolic or exaggerating. It was maddening. Nothing I did was right, and they most definitely could not tell me what to do differently or what they wanted. It was "fat sock" and "that bit ain't right," and that is all I had to work off of. Even today, "that bit ain't right" is seared into my memory. Well, after a Sisyphean design session, we had something, and the two not-at-all-helpful men left. Long story short, the things we made were horrible. They made no sense, looked dumb, and no one understood what they were or what they were doing at the shoot. It was bad, bad, bad. To be honest, I have no idea if the PSA ever got made, completed, or aired, but I cannot imagine for a second anyone watching it would understand it or take away from it that they should eat healthy and exercise... or something, whatever it was they were trying to depict.
And as a side note, humans carry extra body fat for MANY different reasons, many of which are outside the control of the individual. So the idea that body weight was something that could simply be removed by sliding the fat off always felt callous, disconnected, and cruel. But hey, what do I know? OH YEAH! I know THAT BIT AIN'T RIGHT! You know what I am saying?! They knew best, and the fact that they were unable to quickly and easily explain their big idea to anyone else never registered as an issue. Good ole LA!
That's all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here Wednesday! Until then...
