DMC recently premiered our Most Interesting Engineer in the World video series. It's a fun way to demonstrate our dedication to being the most interesting engineers you know, in addition to being smart people who offer expert solutions.
For the fourth video in the series, the man behind the Most Interesting Engineer gave us a behind-the-scenes account of the video shoot.
A couple of months ago, Frank and Jessica arrived at my desk with the proposition that I would play the role of “The Most Interesting Engineer in the World,” a nerdy parody of the popular Dos Equis commercials. I’m not in the habit of saying no to Frank, so of course I agreed. I had absolutely no acting experience and am not sure I’m all that interesting. It was explained to me, however, that having a beard and an accent would suffice to fake it. The professional film crew may not have agreed with the above statement. When it comes to casting, I imagine that engineers are not often top of the list. Somehow, they managed to pull it off and the clips came out great, which is only testament to their awesome editing skills!
Day 1:
As per the original commercials, I was to have a female entourage throughout my “interesting” activities. As most engineers will understand, I’m not all that used to having women pay attention to me and I’ll admit to having to fight some back school-boy awkwardness at first.
The first day’s interesting activities included:
- “Winning” an arm wrestling competition against Mark Mann, who would clearly crush me in real life
- Destroying Jon Carson at Bags on the roof deck (this part was clearly legitimate)
- Being directed to give my best James Bond look while upside down on some abdominal exercise machine with far too much blood in my head
- Scowling at my colleagues for not being able to perform rudimentary calculus
My final act was to recite a couple of lines I’d been given to the effect of “I don’t always use outside engineering resources, but when I do I prefer a certified Siemens solution partner. Stay competitive, my friends”. Not quite as catchy as the original. I recited these over and over again with various company names inserted into the mix. About halfway through, Frank quite seriously asked me, “Could you try to sound a bit more British?” Now, I am British and while I’m certainly losing the accent as the years spent in the U.S. go by, I’d like to think I can still pull it out of the bag from time to time. Apparently not and as Frank put it “It’s just not very authentic”. Cheers, Frank.
Day 2:
This shoot began on Frank’s boat. The second day’s activities included:
- Fake fishing (not as awesome as the time we actually caught fish)
- Posing with a DMC coffee mug on the bow of the boat against the Chicago skyline
- Driving Frank’s (assuredly expensive) boat much faster than someone who’s never driven a boat before should
- Oh yes, getting pulled over by the coast guard
The coast guard incident was great. Not only did I have a beer in my hand (Dos Equis, of course) while operating the boat, but I couldn't find where neutral was on the twin screw controls in order to come to a complete stop. To be fair, I’d heard the term “twin screw” for the first time about an hour earlier but I’m not sure they were massively impressed by my boat handling skills. Pro tip: When you tell the Coast Guard you’re making a film on a boat with two models and a guy wearing a Captain’s hat, it’s possibly wise to be more specific. I imagine that a nerdy-engineer commercial was not the first thing that came to their minds. Ahem. Not to worry, they checked the boat's lake-worthy-ness and we were on our way with some great footage!
Later in the day we spent time at the beach. You know, just a typical day at DMC. I was also given the seemingly simple task of opening a bottle of champagne to spray around in celebration of some undetermined event. Much to everyone’s dismay, however, while being very interesting, my character didn't appear to have much grip strength. Thus, tail between my legs, I had to ask Frank to open it for me. He’s half my size, but was able to open in immediately. I swear I loosened it for him.
A few more minor scenes went by and it was all over and back to work. It was a very fun couple of days and I’d like to thank Jessica, Frank and the film crew for putting up with me! The only down side to all of it was that people back in England got hold of the videos (I blame my mother, who likes to catch up on the latest DMC blog entries, for spreading the news!). Sigh, how embarrassing. We hope you enjoy the videos!
Other videos in the series: View Part I View Part II View Part III