Another journey downtown via the whisper stealth of the Metro Rapid Transit trains, a couple of changes and we were in the very unfamiliar territory of Da-an Park and surrounds. Phone GPS working overtime and Chinese street signs read under duress in a faintly misting rain, we gave up and caught a cab through the labyrinthine back alleys and lanes. Eventually after a lot of head scratching, reversing and block circling, we were disgorged at a rather unprepossessing building, looking remarkably similar to all those around.
Inside and up and up to a third floor landing, a few more clues were emerging to what lay ahead. Stylish exposed brick and track lighting, a giant antique Chinese door on the second landing and a jazzy sign, open door and lounge were visible on the third. We were ushered into yet another stairwell from an almost deserted 3rd floor and emerged into a rather strange world of dapper English gentlemen in butler’s suits, a pout of impossibly willowy western beauties being blow dried and made up by twittering little Taiwanese fancy boys and an entourage of bohemian individuals with flowing and layered clothing looking like it had just been thrown on when they emerged for a late morning breakfast, but had obviously been planned and staged for just that effect.
My beautiful wife has been chosen from a large field to play a role in an upcoming advertisement to be filmed for Left Bank Café, a coffee brand here in Taiwan. We were downtown last week for a casting call and she subsequently landed the role and was down again for final fittings, makeup run throughs and a photo session. She is playing a character based on Meryl Streep’s in “The Devil Wears Prada”. She needs to examine the dress of a young model and be particularly disdainful of her choices and be quite haughty. She then becomes convinced of the young woman’s good taste when she spies her drinking said coffee…quite a hoot!
Cass was ushered into an anteroom where she was fussed over at great length: she had her face makeup done by aforementioned fancy boy and her hair was tizzed and teased as much as one inch long hair can be, before being blown dry. She then tried on a range of outfits that had been custom made for her from last weekend’s measurements. After each fitting, she needed to pose for a bank of photographs in various haughty poses! During all this, my obviously annoying presence was ignored as I sat in someone’s office chair and played with my phone (I’m re-reading Catch 22 on it, so I was well entertained)! The amount of people involved was staggering and this is even before the real shooting begins: Makeup people, hairdressers and photographers all flounced in and out; all seemingly with opinions on how sets and actors should look. Our English butler was a delightfully accented genuine Englishman (!) who I had a lovely chat with and found out he lived quite near us in Tienmu. The gorgeous young women were polite but seemed quite keen to get in, do their stuff and get out again: I suppose these professionals are quite used to the festive nature of it all and just want to do their job and be done.
The star of the show for me of course was Cassy. She was quite stunning in all her gear and although it had been made for her, in some ways so had the part: it's a gem. The production group was so impressed with her usual look that they have asked her to wear her own shoes, watch and rings for the final shooting and do her makeup as usual “to save time”. The director appraised her at the end and I was glad that someone let me know who he was….I would have asked him to desist staring at my wife up and down in that manner if I hadn’t known!
The final date for shooting is as yet unconfirmed, but it is more than likely going to be this Friday after school. They are shooting some scenes during the day down at Sun Moon Lake and the studio scenes that Cass is involved in are being filmed in the evening down near the Taipei 101 somewhere. She stipulated that this needed to be done after school hours or on the weekend and she had received special dispensation to do it, as we are forbidden to have any other employer under normal circumstances.
I always am, but I was particularly proud of Cassy this weekend. She handled all this strange stuff as if it was an everyday occurrence and managed all the rather difficult acting quite brilliantly. She is quite excited by the whole experience as well, and we can certainly mark this down as yet another bizarre Taipei moment: who could guess that we would still be getting surprised like this after all this time? The rest of the weekend was rather mundane by comparison, so I’ll not even mention it, except to say we ate out at yet another great discovery in the Zhongxiao Dunhua area. Three lanes behind the main road, we discovered a little café with great food called “Free Style” and it enabled me to stare at my film star wife across the table for an hour or two before she scrubbed off all the “muck” when she got home!
Exciting times!