Jon Clarke, The Face of Beer

A couple of days previously, word got around the hostel that someone was looking for white faced extras for a beer commercial, salary tag $100. Naturally my ears pricked up and before too long I was standing infront of a camera in a fairly hilarious screen test being told by recruiter Dulce ("sweet" in Spanish, doubtless her birth name) to smile, look angry, excited and the fairly shallow range of emotions no doubt needed to persuade the commercial watching public that beer was the right choice.

Success beckoned me toward my second Latin American TV appearence (hopefully this time not requiring me to be dressed as a woman) and a couple of days later we were herded into a minibus and shot up to San Salvador with the promise of other, more lucrative jobs after this one ringing in our ears; finally, some money coming in.We were ejected, nine confused White faces in all, into the national football stadium and placed in the stands to await our filming slot where we were mixed with a range of other faces from sources other than the beach to create a splendid "racial rainbow". Somewhat accustomed to the extensive waiting due to some TV work in the UK, I accepted the fairly glacial pace at which the other scenes were being filmed in sequence, all rather strangely with green screen backing, this mitigating the need to be in a football stadium. Further distraction was provided by lunch surplus, a well proven measure to neutralize me in almost any situation, and a couple of our number being comically daubed with thick face paints by makeup.

Night fell and still no promise of filming, when the national football squad turned up for training for the upcoming international against Costa Rica. When all the excitement had died down, which included our resident Argentinian invading the pitch and persuading the national coach to cross him a ball so that he could score a goal, we were cast out of the stadium so as no to betray the tactics to any Costa Ricans, delaying any filming for another two hours. Luckily, dinner was provided, and temporary peace ensued.Let back into a pitch black stadium at 11 at night, the crew and a selection of the native cast disappeared to the parking lot to film scenes, once again infront of a green screen (begging two questions; firstly, why did they not cut costs and shoot the whole thing this way and, secondly, what prevented them from filming in the carpark while the training was going on?) as we sat in darkness, waiting unattended, doubts beginning to creep into collective minds as to the possibility of anything happening.

Surely enough, after two and a half hours in solitary stadium confinement, an underling arrived to deliver some bad news. "We can't film your sections tonight," she briskly explained, "you'll have to come back tomorrow and do it then. We'll pick you up at eight."A fairly predictable backlash erupted from the assembled extras, some of whom had been sporting now very itchy face paint for about seven hours and others who had life commitments for the following day. This augmented considerably when told, in addition, that we would not be paid anything extra for the subsequent day (of mystery duration) and they would not pay us anything until completion of the commercial until tomorrow. So evolved a mighty struggle between the underling, constantly on and off their mobile phones to higher powers, proposing a series of roundly rejected alternatives until finally, after an hour and a half of negotiation that included sitting on the bonnet of the underling's car so that she couldn't drive off and refusing to get in the minibus which subsequently and dramatically did a u-turn to leave and then stopped, an agreement was forged that we would be paid $50 for a full day's work the next day and would recieve our pay for the day before leaving on the condition that we promised to return. As this was the only way to recieve money and it was now three o' clock in the morning, all and sundry agreed, pocketing the cash and internally vowing never to work with El Salvadorian production again.

Dulce was dealt an unpleasant hand the next morning when everyone except Yuji, the resident Japanese of the hostel (who is, with all due respect, a complete law into himself), refused to return on the basis that we had been kept up until 4am, had been bullied into an agreement to do a full day's work for half price and had argued bitterly to get paid. As I watched my TV career drag itself into the distance (my face had not been committed to a single frame) along with any possibility of future work, I couldn't help feeling slightly guilty about my dishonesty, until subsequent research revealed that our El Salvadorian counterparts would not recieve payment for months (if at all), furthering justification that an outright lie of returning was adeqate measure given the circumstances.

El Tunco, El Salvador
7th Sept 2009