Production horror stories—when shoots go frighteningly wrong

Halloween revelers might be fearful of things that go bump in the night, but for agency creatives the real terror lies in things that go bump on the set. Every creative has at least one story about a shoot that went horrifically wrong due to talent issues, prop malfunctions, weather fiascos, last-minute changes and a myriad of other issues. Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards Final deadline approaching for annual program Enter here Here, we present some spine-chilling stories from creatives who, like Michael Myers in “Halloween,” managed to rise up despite some seemingly deadly circumstances. Brett Alexander, senior VP, managing director, head of production, The Martin Agency We were making a spot where the only characters were a single species of trained animal. We went through an exhaustive research and pre-production process to be sure these animals would be friendly to one another and are natural to communal societies—are OK being around one another in multiples for extended lengths of time, etc. The scene takes place at night, so we arrive at the backlot around 11 p.m., check in with everyone and all seems to be good. The stars of the spot are there in separate areas a decent distance from each other—we’ll get to that—but according to the animal trainer, things are great … whew! About 12 a.m., we’re ready to start filming and call for our hero talent—the animals. Again, the whole concept relies on the animals being together … as a group … in close contact. But for some reason, no one is bringing the animals. Instead, there’s a small talking circle of production folks and the trainer forming. Finally the director leaves the camera and joins the circle. This convo goes on for about 10 minutes—it seemed like an hour—when I hear the director, who has a naturally loud, bellowing voice anyway, yell … so you’re telling me the [expletive] animals we’ve been training for weeks hate each other and if we put them together on-set will literally eat each other’s face off!? So here we are. It’s 1 a.m. on a Hollywood backlot with a large production 100% relying on animals that hate each other and will eat each other’s faces off if they’re in close proximity. We went with plan B, which we made up on the spot and shot each animal individually, for multiple shots, then “fixed it in post,” ha. In the end, no one ever knew. Cheri Anderson, head of production, Joan Creative and managing director, Joan Studios We had just shot six days straight, with two of the four spots slated for the Super Bowl. We were, of course, up against a tight timeline, needing to get the film for the Super Bowl spots immediately processed and to our editor. I recall getting a frantic phone call from my line producer. She was trying to remain calm but I could hear the edge in her voice. The vehicle rushing our film to the processing facility had been in an accident on the 405. The courier service used also happened to be transporting medical supplies. Unfortunately, at least one of our mags was found among the debris strewn on the side of the freeway, covered in blood from the medical supplies. The good news: no one was hurt. The bad news, we had to reshoot. But just one scene. Michael Ashley, group creative director, Luquire I did an overnight shoot for a global bank in a rainforest outside Kuala Lumpur once. I got back to the hotel early in the morning exhausted and crashed. After a couple hours of sleep, I was awakened by housekeeping knocking on the door and entering my room to clean it. The housekeeping lady started screaming and ran out of the room and down the hall. Security and medical personnel showed up a couple minutes later frantically yelling in Malay because, unbeknownst to me, my clothes and bed were completely covered in blood and the source looked like a half-dozen small bullet holes spread across my abdomen and upper legs. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be thirsty leeches that had crawled under my clothing during the shoot, and then dropped off on the trek out of the rainforest, turning me into a walking blood sprinkler a few hours later after the leech coagulants wore off. Paul Caiozzo, chief creative officer, Supernatural Our Kayak alligator shoot was pretty cursed. We were shooting on location and torrential rain destroyed the set, costumes and actors mid-shoot. Our director was directing from his hotel room the entire time because he got COVID when we arrived, and once he recovered he was hit with a nasty stomach virus. On top of that, the client and agency team on-site, including myself, somehow ended up with the same nasty virus as the director. I even ended up in the hospital upon returning home from the shoot, where I was treated to my first colonoscopy because of it—I am fine, don’t worry. Looking back, it turned out great. It just reminds me how much fun this job can be, and how talented our production partners are. Danny Gonzalez, founder and co-chief creative officer, Bandits & Friends We were on a small desert island off the coast of Puerto Rico, shooting an epic tale about piña colada-flavored gum. The island was so small that everyone had to be helicoptered in. And, I quickly realized, the island was also so small that it had no bathrooms. So, I trekked over to the far side of the island, dug a hole, and tried to forget that my clients were just a couple hundred yards away. Suddenly the wind started whipping around me like a sandstorm. The ground shook and the noise was deafening. For some reason, the helicopter was hovering right over me and refused to move. The reason, I later realized, was that I’d created my makeshift bathroom on the only spot on the island that the helicopter could land. But that’s show biz. Jed Grossman, chief creative officer, VCCP U.S. It was a dark and stormy Miami night. I was six months out of college, working as an art director at CP+B. My partner and I finally had the opportunity to share some of our ideas for a very large client meeting (for a tiny car), and I had been feverishly making all of our Photoshop comps. I’d been creating and designing everything from multiple print campaigns, TV frames and even a concept for a book. After a very long week, I was running on pure creative adrenaline as I worked late into the night getting everything just right. My final step was to organize my files on the server and send everything to print—all familiar and all standard operating procedure. What happened next I can only attribute to a spooky possession or a sporadic zombified state. For a reason I still can’t explain, I took our entire body of work and dragged it to the Trash and proceeded to delete. With a blink, I instantly snapped out of it and realized what I had done; I stared at my screen in pure disbelief as panic washed over me. Not knowing what to do next, I paced around my office until the nausea subsided. I had to try and fix my mistake. I took a deep breath, sat back down and started plugging away. Somehow I managed to recreate my week’s work before sunrise. Most of that work died in the meeting, but one small idea didn’t. And every time I revisit that piece of work, I think back to that terrifying stormy night. Margaret Johnson, partner and chief creative officer, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners I was sitting in a small Italian village with Herb Ritts and Elizabeth Taylor. OK, I was actually on the Universal back lot in LA shooting an Elizabeth Arden spot for a fragrance called Forever Elizabeth. But I was with Herb Ritts and Liz Taylor. The spot we were shooting was about a young boy who stumbles upon an outdoor screening of “A Place in the Sun” and is immediately lovestruck by young Elizabeth Taylor, who is kissing Montgomery Clift in the film while the boy stands in front of the screen, slack-jawed. When it came time to shoot the ending, the plan was to reveal modern-day Dame Elizabeth standing at the back of the moviegoing crowd looking on approvingly, having gone unnoticed by the crowd. Liz was about 70 years old at the time and was a little wobbly, so we cast an extra to keep her steady and play her “date.” She was accustomed to getting what she wanted. But she had made lots of interesting requests going into this shoot that didn’t happen: Riding in on a white horse (too dangerous), having Andrea Bocelli sing live on set (scheduling issues), etc. So casting a young, handsome twentysomething extra as her date seemed fair enough. Suddenly, Liz called out, “Herb, it’s time to shoot my ending.” Herb and I looked at each other, confused. But having worked with her many times, Herb rolled his eyes, shrugged and said, “Rolling?” And with that she raised her hand in the air and proclaimed, “Forever!” She then grabbed the extra by the back of the head, closed her eyes and started pulling his face toward hers. The expression on Herb’s face and the extra’s face were one and the same: pure, unadulterated horror. Jay Kamath, co-founder and chief creative officer, Haymaker For our latest round of work for Greenlight, we were shooting in Toronto and cast an actor as an affable grandfather for our Greenlight family. He was perfect. Everything was great. Until 18 hours before we rolled camera he let us know he’d been featured in another fintech spot recently. For Greenlight’s main competitor. Which his agent “forgot” to tell us about. A scramble to find our backup grandpas from our callbacks ensued. We found our primary backup grandpa. He was located in New York City. But every single flight on every carrier from New York to Toronto that would get backup grandpa to set in time was booked. So we got creative and hired a limousine to drive our backup grandpa 10 hours from New York to Toronto to get to set on time. Back up grandpa ascended and became primary grandpa. He was great. The spot turned out great. And we lovingly refer to this episode as #GrandpaGate. (Primary backup Grandpa is also a sick name for a band.) Peter Knierim, creative director, Human Thanks to a “modern" budget, we were shooting an outdoor summer scene in Toronto. In February. But the shoot gods were shining down on us. We were supposed to have a clear week. Until Tuesday. We show up at the location and realize all our crew was in parkas. A freak snowstorm was on its way, and before my first frozen teardrop could fall, the first snowflake beat it to the ground. As my partner and I talked about rewriting the scene as a snowball fight, the crew continued to set up as planned. There wasn't a shovel in sight. I was full of admiration for Canadian optimism, but as a couple inches quickly piled up, I would’ve started to sweat had I not been freezing my snowballs off. At this point we’re talking about scrubbing the day’s shoot, but the Canadians still didn’t seem concerned. Then we saw it. Maybe you’ve seen a Canadian snow vacuum before, but it was new to me. And it worked like a charm. Our short nightmare, and the green grass, were saved by an earth Zamboni. Rob Lambrechts, chief creative officer, Pereira O'Dell Doesn’t matter if it’s a big production, a small one, if you have all the time in the world or no time at all—things will go completely haywire at some point. Sometimes talent tests positive for COVID the night before the shoot, sometimes the art department forgets to buy Christmas lights for a holiday spot, sometimes you shoot in Mexico and on the last night everyone in the cast, crew, and agency gets deathly ill and you end up presenting a rough cut to the client from a hotel room in the Mexico City St. Regis with the account person audibly throwing up in the bathroom. But when you throw celebrities into the mix, hypothetically anything is possible. Like say hypothetically getting an A-list actor signed onto a project, then hypothetically them backing out a few days before the shoot that was designed specifically for them. Then hypothetically them getting talked back into it and then not knowing if said actor was even going to show up. Then they hypothetically show up looking hung over and clearly not having read the script. Then hypothetically they demand a particular stylist for an eye-popping fee and then hypothetically they dress with all the style of Dillard’s catalogue. Then hypothetically the insanely highly paid actor leaves the shoot three hours early on the second day because they were asked to reread a line. Hypothetically, that could keep someone up at night. Octavio Luna, senior content producer, The Martin Agency We had a big-name sports celebrity locked for a partnership spot we were shooting in California. It was a massive effort from the client to secure this person, and tons of money was involved. The whole production schedule and location of the shoot was surrounding this person’s needs. The morning of our shoot day, the celebrity called in sick … and it was during the second wave of COVID. I had to bring everybody, from clients to partners, into the hotel and get a conference room—which naturally became a war room—where we were trying to determine what to do. Hint: if our star were COVID-19 positive, then insurance would not reimburse any expense due from no-show sickness. As we continued waiting to get a response from their team as to whether the person had COVID or not, we had to prepare for the worst—the celebrity being COVID-19 positive, insurance not reimbursing, then we needed to make the best of what we have. We never found out the celebrity's test status, but halfway through our shoot, our creative team wrote 19,867,356,482,598 iterations of the script without the person in, and we used a body double as an actor. We had a solid script, and with three hours delayed, we just rolled the camera and braced for impact. Towards the end of the day, it was confirmed the star was COVID negative, so knowing insurance would reimburse our shoot, we canned the spot we just shot never to be seen at all. Kevin Mulroy, partner and executive creative director, Mischief Early in my career, I was a fresh-faced lad working on a seafood-centric fast food commercial, the only mandates for which were a sunny locale (to cue freshness), and 15 seconds of food footage (to cue freshness). Fast forward to a week-long boondoggle in Mexico, where we had to capture three lines of dialogue and one stunt in which a character leaps from the top deck of a cruise ship to (presumably) swim to shore and retrieve this (presumably) fresh fish sandwich. Since we couldn’t secure an actual cruise ship, we settled for a decommissioned ferry with a single functioning toilet, and since we couldn’t wait for good weather, we settled for the high seas in the Gulf of Mexico. Our collective bowels quivered the moment we stepped onto the ferry, thanks to the curious decision to park all the production semis on one side of the ship’s below-deck parking garage. Once we launched our vessel, the water wasn’t so much choppy as it was roll-y, which caused the ship— already pitched at a 45-degree angle—to crash from left to right, rather than forward and backward. I can’t remember who was the first to break the puke seal, but what began as a faucet leak quickly devolved into a chain reaction of rejected craft services, from the clients, to the agency, to the director, to the crew. The lead actor, apparently concerned for the Gulf’s fragile marine ecosystem, decided to Linda Blair the only functioning toilet seat, and inexplicably, the only functioning sink and mirror. Luckily, we were able to color correct the green out of his face in post (to cue freshness). Judi Nierman, senior VP, executive producer, McCann New York For many years, Lubriderm had the “See you later, alligator” campaign. We always shot with live alligators. On each shoot, the handler would do a safety speech and say, “It’s a wild animal. If it gets loose, just stand in place and we will contain him/her.” We were going about our business on the shoot day and we were doing a crane shot—back in the day when the DP sat at the front of the crane and the grip held the weighted back part to move the DP up and down. The DP was on the ground and the alligator got loose and was charging him—they run about 25 mph. Every single crew member started yelling and ran away! One person had the wherewithal to pull the back of the crane down. The DP went up in the air and the alligator—open-mouthed, I might add—missed him by a hair. Phil Osborne VP of production, Ruckus We had a multi-day production for a client and we needed to source a number of high-value collectible items. We found a gentleman who had a substantial collection and arranged to meet at his home. After a number of conversations we made a financial offer to use his impressive collection and for his time to be on set to handle the items. He declined the financial offer in lieu of being mentioned and thanked on social media. The brand agreed and we drafted the agreement. The first day on set was great, he was very helpful and energetic. That evening we had planned on having dinner with our client to discuss business, so we connected him with the team to make sure he was taken care of that evening. I received a text shortly after we departed the set when he informed us that he was leaving with his collection and that he was deeply offended that he was not invited to dinner. That of course would have ruined the shoot, so we essentially begged him to stay. He agreed in exchange for time with the client, as what he really wanted was access to the client and discounts to their platform. We worked it out, and he reluctantly stayed but wreaked havoc on set, tried to visually direct in numerous instances and threatened repeatedly to leave. Needless to say it was a nightmare. Lesson learned—when someone does not accept a financial agreement, they still want something to satisfy the ego. Brandon Rochon, executive VP, head of creative, Atlanta-based agency Hothouse I had just taken over a huge technology client and we were doing an enormous launch of a product at CES. So in November, we started shooting a big campaign with a huge superstar. We went across the globe shooting this epic film. Shooting in multiple countries about the client’s new amazing technology. We had created a beautiful concept around sharing—sharing culture, sharing emotions, sharing food, sharing games—showcasing all these different ways of how people share worldwide and how sharing makes us all human. Then, it is New Year's Day, the entire campaign is edited, done and ready to go. I am sitting in bed and I get a call from the producer doing the post production and he asks me if I have seen the news. Our celeb talent has been arrested! I start frantically scrolling through the news, and then the client calls me—from the airport on the way from Asia to CES in Las Vegas. Of course, there is only one solution: pull the entire campaign. We had three days to rethink, recreate and re-shoot an entirely new storyline. We launched at CES, the campaign went viral and the client was happy. But the stress was next level. Tiffany Rolfe, chief creative officer, R/GA Imagine you just wrapped a challenging two-week shoot in Spain, where you had to complete a very technical car shoot. You had to close down busy streets and you needed to simulate a rainy day with rain machines. And then it rained on your biggest shoot day. But you don’t want real rain because you need to have control over the rain. So, you have to call an official rain day. Oh, the irony. Finally a dry day arrives so you can capture just the shot you need: a Mini convertible driving fast enough to get the perfect shot, where rain glides over the top of the windshield without getting the driver wet. You finish the shoot and you celebrate the martini shot with the cast and crew and board your plane the next morning. So tired, you sleep the whole flight. But then you land, and your phone has blown up with messages telling you that everything you just experienced doesn’t exist: the film had been “loose in the camera” and nothing could be saved. You were told that you needed to turn around immediately, fly back and do it all over again from the beginning as if it all—the rain delay, the rain machine, the perfect shot—never happened. You ask yourself … was what you just experienced real, or was it just a dream? Are you here in this world, or do you live instead in … Production Twilight Zone? 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Production horror stories—when shoots go frighteningly wrong

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