Lights...Camera...Action...!!!

I've always believed that when you decide to do something and fully put it out into the universe (perhaps via a blog site!), then it tends to take on a life of it's own and the experience can lead you in many directions. That was the case for me this weekend when I was given the opportunity to be in a commercial being made for the Ottawa Hospital Foundation. I've never enjoyed being on film and I usually avoid it like the plague but, in this case, I thought it was best to bite the bullet and see where this would go!!

The commercial was being filmed for the Ottawa Hospital Foundation, who is the charitable partner for the National Capital Race Weekend (all funds raised that weekend are given to the Foundation). The idea was to have a race in the hospital hence, filming took place in the Emergency Room, the O.R. and through various wings of the departments. It was pretty wild and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product!! The initial plan was to have me be the pace bunny for the race (since I am pacing the actual race as well) but, it was later decided to change it because they felt that the average public may not know the significance of the pace rabbit. Hence, I was asked to be one of five doctors who joins the "race" with the other runners! Yeah for me...I got to wear scrubs!!!

My day began at 5am and was on set by 6:30am for make-up and wardrobe. There were thirty of us all together (not including the film crew and production team) and I didn't get home until well after 5pm. It wasn't uncommon to see many of us curled up in a hospital bed somewhere catching a cat nap throughout the day!! Our lovely make-up lady followed us around everywhere to ensure that we looked our best (while still looking like runners!) and we had to share our time between the production team, the CBC and the Ottawa Citizen.

I was later asked to do a photo shoot for the poster that is to be distributed in the next couple of weeks. That was a bit unexpected but, just one more thing to add to the list of things that I've never done before!!! I won't know for awhile yet if I will even been seen in the commercial because, with thirty of us, it's likely that we won't all be seen in the final thirty second shot. At the very least though, I will know how long it took us to get that final thirty second shot...TOO LONG!!!!

We had a terrific time and was ready for a good night sleep after nearly eleven hours of filming!! The challenge of filming in a hospital is that it's still business as usual regardless of what other things are going on. We spent the better part of the morning filming in the ER, which meant that when an ambulance would show up with a trauma patient...we had to bring everything to a halt and start over again when the coast was clear again! I'll admit, that was a bit weird...running up and down the halls surrounded by patients...but, us actors gotta do what we gotta do!!!

Check out some pictures from the filming on my running blog. I may not make the final cut but, atleast I have pictures to prove I was there!!!!