Driven from Normal .

“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”
A fairly normal saying that seems almost ironic now, I definitely had it the wrong way around anyway.
I had a job, a really good job and it wasn't far off being the one I wanted. A full time race driver was my ultimate goal, but what I was being paid to do was more realistic I guess.
Well, maybe not this particular job, this one hadn’t been normal by any stretch of the imagination. Glancing sideways at my reflection in the mirrored wall beside the bar, I’m really not even sure what normal is anymore?

The week started normal enough, a normal morning, for a normal guy.
The image looking back at me from the mirror looks as far from my normal as you could get.
The weirdest thing, by far, is that all this feels comfortable, well, almost.
Comfortable with a dash of fear, confusion, nervousness and excitement all added to the mixture.

I couldn't help myself and continued to stare at the reflection in the mirror. As much as I tried to keep it discreet, my eyes were drawn back again and again.
Long, honey blonde hair cascading in gentle waves down over my shoulders, shimmering even under the dull mood lighting of the bar. It framed a feminine looking face, subtly enhanced with professionally applied makeup up.
The sparkly black, halter top cocktail dress, cut very low, drawing the attention inwards to perfectly shaped breasts.
The low cut, almost backless dress barely covered my nicely rounded and tight looking bum below.
I glanced downwards to validate if the reflection is real or some strange trick my mind was playing on me.
My smooth tanned legs, adorned with strappy, black high heel sandals confirm the very real situation I was in. Just to further check they’re actually my legs, I wiggle my toes a little. The glossy black nail polish on my pedicured nails moves as expected.

Yeah, that was definitely me looking back!

Two guys hanging around had already offered to buy me drinks, and had tried to get me engaged in a conversation. The corners of my lips shifted slightly as a hint of a smile crept across my face. It's funny that these two guys couldn’t possibly guess that the previous morning I started my job just like any other day. As normal old me, Simon McKenzie.

I am a 23 year old guy working as a precision driver. Maybe not a “normal” job, but it’s not unusual.
I live in my own house with a flatmate that helps cover my mortgage payments.
I grew up racing karts, motorbikes, and pretty much anything else with a motor that went fast. My parents own a motorbike shop. Dad is a pretty clever mechanic. Mum keeps the finances under control, and Dad for that matter.
When I left school I started an apprenticeship with Dad and moved on to looking after the sales and parts side of the business which suited me better.
I had reasonable success with motorsport and through the connections I made, I had ended up getting a few jobs driving vehicles for TV ads.
The last few years had seen the job offers increase so much so, that it was now almost full time.
I still did the occasional day here and there at the bike shop between filming work, but that was more as an excuse to catch up with the “Olds”.

I’m not a stunt driver; I don’t jump cars through burning buildings for blockbuster movies.
A precision driver drives vehicles for TV ads, sometimes for new vehicle testing, and I had even done some snow tyre tests for Northern hemisphere companies using our winter season.

Most of the time it was straight forward TV filming. Technical shots, where the vehicle needed to be perfectly placed on the road, appear to be fast, smooth and in control through corners.
So that’s what I normally do, drive cars for TV ads.
My agent rings me and tells me to be at a location at a certain time, ready for whatever I’m told to do.
Simple!

I landed in Queenstown just after 7:30am on Tuesday morning. Normally I would have driven myself down from Christchurch, but a last minute deal on a cheap flight was too good to pass up. With cheap flights unfortunately come early starts. I'd been up since stupid o'clock and my stomach was already starting to think it was lunch time.

The offerings were sparse at the airport. A dry ham and mustard sandwich that looked like it was old enough to retire with a full pension wasn't going anywhere with me. I opted for a steak and cheese pie and grabbed a massive can of Redbull hoping that would quell a dose of yawns I’d developed on the plane.
Not the ideal pick on the healthy breakfast list, but needs must.

I booked an Uber from outside the terminal and ate the pie while I waited for it to arrive.
The normal crisp alpine nip in the air combined with the energy drink, freshened me up before the car had pulled up. I dusted the pie crumbs off my shirt, loaded myself in and we headed to the hotel that the production company had based themselves out of.

I had booked a room at the same place, hoping it would be easier than running backwards and forwards from another hotel, especially not having my own car on hand to get around. Normally I went for a cheaper option to save money, but the booking sites didn't offer a lot of choice this time of year.

“Nice” I said to myself as we pulled up outside the foyer of the Crowne Plaza. Much better than the motels I'd stayed in for the last few jobs.
I grabbed my suitcase out the boot, thanked the driver and headed into the reception desk to check in.
The place was alright, probably real flash in its day, but it would do.

I noticed a sign outside one of the three conference rooms, opposite the restaurant and bar that said “Mitsubishi \ Kantar Media”; I guess that’s where the production company is basing themselves.

Once I was checked in, the clerk handed over the room key card, along with a large white envelope with my name on it. There was the same “Kantar” logo in the top corner as on the sign outside the door.
I opened it in the lift on the way up to my room.
It contained the usual welcome spiel from the Ad Company, a feel good brochure from Mitsubishi and some pamphlets from the hotel.
Then sure enough, right at the bottom there was a note saying to make my way to the ground floor conference centre. That was where I could collect the filming schedule etc.

I dropped my bag in the room, used the toilet then headed back down in the lift to the conference room. It was a huge room, it had some equipment, airfreight type metal boxes, some rigging gear and apart from two desks not a lot else.

The only person around was the lady at the first desk, she smiled and asked how she could help.
Eventually I was all sorted; the filming schedule booklet said I would be collected by one of the production runners at 9:00am from the Foyer. That gave me about twenty five minutes to shoot back upstairs to my room and get changed into my work clothes.

I normally just wore plain black pants and a plain black, long sleeved jumper with a turtle neck type collar.
I learned from the first shoot I had done, that wearing a light coloured tee shirt that was very visible in the first few takes wasn’t the done thing. That director made it very clear he wasn’t happy having to reshoot without the tee shirt showing.
I now know that the driver of the car should disappear and let the focus be on the vehicle.

I also wore my Puma Speedcat shoes, also in black; they looked and felt like a motorsport boot but just in a road version. Perfect for getting a better pedal feel while driving.
I chucked some other gear into my backpack and headed down to wait for my ride.

While I sat waiting I had a quick flick through the filming schedule and the personal list, no one I knew by the looks of it.
I didn’t recognize the names of the Director or the “talent\model”. I did recall some of the crew and transport driver’s names from other jobs, but couldn’t put a face to them.

I was getting my phone out to google stalk the model to see if she was hot or not, when my ride arrived. The driver was a local guy I assumed around my age called Liam. He was very tall and skinny and kind of moved like a large bird with his neck bent. He had the typical alpine resort look about him, unkempt hair, stubble on his face and the untanned panda eyes from wearing sunglasses all day, every day.

The drive to the set, based on Queenstown Hill to the North of town, took around fifteen minutes so we had time for a brief chat on the way.
He seemed like a good bugger, he’d moved down here for the winter a few years ago and just stayed on.
A keen snowboarder who paid his way by working on the ski fields. After the first season, he made the call to stay on rather than heading back to the North Island and had been here ever since. Covering the off season living costs by whatever work he could find, including casual work as a production runner.
The laid back lifestyle here has a strong pull and can be a hard mistress to leave, he told me with a very serious tone.
He sounded a bit like a salty old sea dog when he said it and I battled to contain a laugh.

Changing the subject, I asked if the model working on the shoot was hot, he grinned, nodded and said,
“Shit yes! A bit stuck up though…”
He continued on saying that he had heard she had been fired yesterday, something about a fairly racist tweet about the Director he thought. .

He said they had filmed all of her close up shots earlier in the week anyway, and it was just a few frames of the car driving that needed to be done now.
Quizzing him about what the car was like turned out to be a wasted exercise. Liam said he didn’t really know a lot about cars but it was “a small SUV looking thing”.

The script and storyboard that I had, explained the idea of the ad.
Basically a young woman, at a cocktail party who has enough of the crowd and leaves early.
Driving her new “Mitsubishi Eclipse” to get away from it all.
Pretty standard stuff. It looked like a few around town \ city shots, with a few wide country road shots.
Nothing fast or exciting like the farm Ute or off road four wheel drive ads where you get to push the vehicle for a spectacular shot.
Boring, but the money is good so I’d smile and do what they tell me to do.

Arriving on set, the normal chaos was everywhere you looked.
Lots of busy people, not really doing a lot except trying to justify the job they had.
I met with the first assistant director, Mark, an Aussie that seemed to know his stuff.
He took me over to the vehicles and told me I could have a practise drive while they finished setting up the first shot.
There were always two identical cars on a shoot like this one. Just in case of something going wrong. One was used for any rough stuff, the other was usually kept for close ups and still photography.

As I was getting in, adjusting the seat and mirrors, Mark jumped in the passenger's seat for a yarn while I drove round the set area, familiarizing myself with the car.
The usual Kiwi\Aussie banter started and shortly after, we were both having a good laugh at each other's expense.

Turns out he had worked on a few well known, big motion pictures. Advertisements weren't normally his thing, but the chance to work with this Director was too good to turn down.
I quizzed him about who the director actually was, he explained he was a pretty big deal in the Asian movie market, but had been recently making waves in Hollywood.
He had directed a lot of Jackie Chan’s movies and had agreed to direct this project for Mitsubishi as part of a deal getting funding on his next movie.

Without actually saying it, Mark hinted he was “A bit of a Scone-doer” (NZ slang for a person who loses his temper easily, normally at trivial things).
The “Talent” having been sacked was also confirmed, apparently she was let go after she called him out on social media for being an arsehole.

The first shot was a helicopter flyover as I drove along a farm track. The stunning Central Otago Mountains made for an impressive backdrop to the shot of the car racing across a small cliff face in front of the frame, then I had to stop at the end and they’d film the reverse trip.

There was a crackle from Mark’s radio saying to proceed to “Ones”, meaning the starting point of the shot.
Mark said he was going to lie in the back seat floor area out of sight, to relay the Director's instructions.
The car was weighed down with heavy lead blocks. These made the suspension sit better as well as making the car move and roll around more during filming.
It always made the cars slightly harder to drive and less responsive, but for Mark it made it far more uncomfortable laying over them.

We managed a few straightforward test passes to let the pilot practise his moves and ensure the angles worked with the camera. With everything set, I checked to make sure Mark was ok before lining up for the first proper filmed run.
The nerves build when you hear the signal to go, no one wants to make a cockup and even less when there are a lot of people watching.
Add a short tempered Director to the mix and it's as nerve wracking as starting a proper race in a race car.
You have to keep yourself in check, and ensure mistakes don’t happen. You're now solely responsible for not getting a scratch on a vehicle that possibly isn't even full production yet. If it is, they are all probably still on the other side of the world.

I’ve done a few filming projects using a chopper but it’s always awesome having it swoop around the car. The rotor wash pushes you around quite a bit, which adds a little excitement and really gets the adrenaline pumping.

After two passes Mark’s radio crackled and he was told to tell me not to smile. They could see my teeth in the shot…. Opps….
After another four or five passes up and back, the chopper needed to land to reload the film stock and the Director wanted to check the footage he had so far.

There’s always lots of waiting around on set. Between setting uptakes, resets, rigging cameras and management types having meetings about meetings.
Normal conversations during a job, well, for me anyway, is pretty much solely found with the vehicle support crew.
The vehicle groomers, detailers, the truck drivers and even the Japanese Mitsubishi technician are mostly on the same page, and normally we can have a laugh to pass the time. .
We often end up all sitting together, making jokes about the artsy-fartsy film crew.

Half an hour or so of more sitting around was interrupted with Mark approaching where I had been waiting. I had been requested by the Director to change my top and wear a wig.
The shots they had were all close and they could easily tell it was a guy in a black turtleneck driving, which did not match the story line.
No big deal, I’ve had to wear some odd things in the past to better match the actors. I headed off to the wardrobe and makeup tent with a clipboard carrying runner, ushering me along.

Megan, the head costumer, met me and told me to whip my top off as she held a black sparkly one to replace it.
I pulled it over my head; it was more of a singlet I thought at first, but without the shoulder bit.
Instead it had a single loop around the back of the neck. A halter top I found out later.
As I settled it into place, It dawned on me how low cut it was, if I had boobs they’d be half hanging out the middle, and probably the other half out each side.
Megan pulled it down over my hips, smoothing it out over my pants. It was when she zipped up the back I realised that it was actually a short dress.

“Near enough!” she said in her British accent.
“Luckily you’re not a big guy or I'd need to alter this, and that would take forever. Do you want to leave your trousers on or take them off? It looks a bit uncomfortable all bunched up under there like that?” she said in one breath, leaving no chance for my answer.

“No, my pants are fine!” I finally got out as she continued to fuss around.
I didn’t really want to be hanging out on set all afternoon in a short dress. At least it sort of looked like a singlet top, or that’s what I was telling myself anyway.

The next job was the wig, Anna, was the lady in charge of that.
She sat me down in a chair, fitted a wig cap over my hair to which she then attached a long honey blonde wig.
It was parted in the middle and after she fidgeted around with some glue stuff along the hairline on my forehead, it looked like my hair.
“Shit!.. That looks unreal… I expected a cheap party thing like you get for a fancy dress party” I exclaimed as Anna showed me the mirror.
“Not likely, with the production budget they have” she laughed
“It’s nothing the but best round here”

I made my way back to the car to continue waiting for the next call.
Turns out, how I now looked was a huge source of entertainment for the car crew.
One of the older truck drivers must have been close to having a stroke from laughing so hard.

Mark walked towards me and laughed as well
“Nice cleavage! And the wispy chest hair is a nice touch as well” he said.
“Hey, my eyes are up here,” I replied.

Another small group of people also headed over to where we stood. I froze a little as I worked out it was the Director, with a group of assistants.
He looked me over, laughed and said something in Cantonese
An assistant with him translated,
“He thinks you look much better and won't ruin the shot now”
I laughed and said thanks.
He spoke again as he was turning to walk away and translator relayed
“He hopes you won’t be as much of a Primadonna as the last model was”

With that, the walkie-talkie chatter increased and everyone was getting ready to go again.
We must have done another five or so runs over the road before the chopper signaled a need to reload. It was just after 12:30 and a call was made to break for lunch.

The on-site catering truck was very full on.
There were more specialty diet items on the menu than I had ever seen.
Every crew member seemed to have a quirky allergy or be on some new trendy, fad diet.
A fairly run of the mill Chicken roll and a fruit salad thing in a large cup sounded good enough for me.

Even then, I was informed that it would be served on gluten free, recycled, free range, organic paper plate, or something like that. I switched off halfway through the explanation.
Hard to say really, if the guilt free packaging added anything to the meal, but as much as I tried, the flimsy plate buckled in my lap, knocking the free-range fruit salad cup all over my pants.
Bloody great!

A super sticky mess all over my work pants, that wouldn't be an easy clean up out here.
Megan must have seen me do it and yelled out from the other side of the catering area.
The chuckling from the car crew stopped when Megan yelled,
“You didn’t just ruin that dress then did you?”

Everyone else within a 100km radius turned and looked at me.
“Nope, managed to catch it all in my pants” I said with a very red face, standing to show her.

She came over and told me to get them off before any ended up on the dress.
I tried to explain they were the only pants I had, but she had already started removing them.
“Too bad, I’m not watching an expensive dress get soaked in food because you're shy” she growled,

“Sorry” I responded, stepping out of my shoes then out of the ruined pants.

“I’ll get these sorted for you, don’t panic” Megan said in a calmer tone.
“You’ve actually got bloody good legs under those trousers, a lot of girls would be very happy looking that good in a dress” she giggled.

I was feeling very embarrassed and self-conscious walking back to the cars for another round of filming, and it wasn't made any better with the lack of compassion from the car crew. The wolf whistles weren't as funny being the receiver as it was for the smart arses doing it.

I got over that fairly quickly as my attention turned back to the job.
It was no different to driving in shorts if I’m honest.
The next few passes with the helicopter were much of a muchness, I was told to go faster, then slightly slower, then twenty percent faster, again.
The helicopter banked away after the last run and headed back to the temporary helipad.
I assumed just to reload, but Mark said that was it! They’re happy with the footage.

Time to reset for the next frame set up. We waited back at "Ones" to hear about our next location but there seemed to be another delay… typical!
I hope it’s nothing to do with me again I thought.
That was interrupted when Mark was called to a meeting with senior crew, production, legal and the client representatives.

There were ten bigwigs or so huddled in a tight group discussing something major with an outer ring of assistants lurking around the edges.
From what I could tell from where I was standing, it looked important.
Hilarious, with the rapid questions being fired off to the assistants who were trying to give an instant answer.

Someone would talk, with full waving arms etc., with everyone else nodding. An assistant would move in, then be shooed away by someone else, who would then start talking, waving arms etc., while everyone else nodded.
This went on for ages.

At one point, I noticed someone point over at me and everyone turned and stared for a few seconds then carried on talking.
Gez, I hope it’s not about me… I wondered then dismissed that and figured it was probably just the car they’re pointing and talking about.

After a few moments one of the Clip board carries ran over and asked me to join the meeting.
Nervously I approached the group that was still in full swing talking,

“Turn around for us.” one of them said.
I did a turn, now very conscious that I was standing in front of a group of executives from the ad agency and crew wearing a short black cocktail dress and long blond wig.
In fact my undies and shoes are the only things that were still mine.

“Well, at this stage we don’t have a lot of other options I guess, make it happen, and don’t make me regret this!” an older gentleman with an American accent said.
There was more scurrying from the assistants and Mark, Megan and Anne all walked closer to me.

“How’s your day going?” Mark grinned.
“What have I done?” I said, now very worried that until now I haven’t been fired from a project and this maybe what was about to go down.
Racking my brain trying to think of what I might have done wrong came up with nothing.

“Hahaha, not what you’ve done, but what you’re going to do, would be more like it” Anna smirked.

Mark explained that the director wanted to reshoot the last scene with the car parking on the edge of a large cliff, the girl getting out and staring out into the nothing, while the shot pans out. But he wanted it all in a single, seamless take.

The problem was, the model had gone and they couldn’t get a replacement before the production schedule ran out.
The crew and director all had other contracts and needed this to finish on time to avoid a massive budget blow out.

Expensive penalty payments from missing the next project were also a very real concern.
Mark then went on to explain the shot was a wide angle finish rather than a close up so they only needed a double
At that point, I was still unsure how any of that could involve me?

Apparently both Anna and Megan suggested using me as the double.
I could drive, was already wearing the dress and wig, and from a distance looked just girly enough that they reckon they could get away with it…
With a little bit of work…

“What exactly do you mean with a little work?” I asked.
“Obviously, we’ll need to do something with your body shape and get you some boobs and a butt, de-hair those legs, you know, that sort of thing” Anna mumbled while looking me over again.

“Those shoes won’t work either, what size are you?” Megan said.
“Ahh, a nine…. Mens nine!” I blurted out.

“Right, I’ll sort that! And what size cup are we thinking Anna?” Megan said as she frantically took notes in a small note pad that had appeared in her hand.

“I only have C’s left I think and the same in the hip pads” Anna said also taking down notes.

“That will be perfect, I’ll alter the dress to suit and we can adjust it later if needed” “Right, I’m off, plenty to do, see you later on” continued Megan.

I must have been shocked looking. Anna placed her hand on my shoulder and said “Don’t worry, just trust us, you’ll look fantastic, I’m 100% sure of it” and with that she headed away as well.
Stopping to say, “Mark can you get him to my studio in, say, about an hour and a half”

Mark gave a thumbs up then turned to me and said “You alright mate?”

“I have no idea what’s going on, why me? Is there not a hundred girls in Queenstown that could do this?" was my reply.

"Mate, that all takes time that we haven't got"

As he finished, a taller lady in a suit appeared from nowhere and shoved a phone to my face.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hey Bud, it's Chalky, man have you hit the big time pay day here” my very excited agent yelled in my ear.

“I sensed the desperation and went for the throat! They want to use you as a body double for some guy that got the sack” he said.

“No, they want me to body double for the female model that got the sack!” I grunted back.

“Mate when I show you the figures they’re offering to pay you won’t give a rats arse what they want you to do” he replied, and I could hear the giggling in his voice as he carried on.

“It’s a huge deal that will be fantastic for you! It won’t go far off clearing your mortgage. Just do what they want! And part of the contract says it is down to a mutually agreeable outcome for all parties, so don’t cock this up and be difficult. Trust me on this Mate, it’s just a job, a very, very good job, talk soon…”

And with that he hung up rather abruptly.

“All okay?” the tall lady in the suit asked.

“I guess so?” was my non-convincing reply.

“Good-good, I’ll get the contract finished now and get you to sign it when we speak to you again back at the Hotel”
And with that she disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.

“Right-o Cobber, I’ll get one of the runners to get you back into town and drop you over to Anna’s studio. Have fun mate” Mark said, turning to walk away and talking on the radio.

A few moments later Liam appeared with my backpack and asked if that was everything as he held it up to show me.
“Yep, thanks, that’s everything, I did have some dignity when I got here this morning, but it’s gone now” I said, still a bit bewildered.