Subject: [sumo] offtopic: sumo commercial

Mon Aug 18 05:39:57 EDT 2008

Thank you so much, johnofuji for this fantastic account. I can't believe  
they actually lifted them up! 

My son was in Sydney for World Youth Day. I'll have to ask him if he  noticed 
anything strange (when he wakes up today) 

Really fun and informative post.

O

No one puts Asashoryu in the corner.

In a message dated 8/18/2008 12:44:21 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
johnofuji at hotmail.com writes:

Usu
The Lenovo Sumo Commercial was shot over three 12 hour days  in Sydney and 
they contacted me through the Australian Sumo Federation to  assist with the 
mawashi and some of the sumo choreography- if you could call  it that. No CG was 
used so they had to arrange the 40 odd sumo extras involved  to make the 
formations. A massive crane was used to film overhead and also to  suspended the “
heros” as they are called in the air for take-off scene. There  were no safety 
harnesses as they wouldn't fit so a steel frame was built  around them. 

We started at 5am and they blocked off a few streets in  the middle of the 
city. Quite a few visiting pilgrims from World Youth Day  were seen blushing as 
they looked on at this remarkable spectacle. My first  question was the same 
as  Huzayomama and then I realised that it is not  hard at all to find 40 large 
units especially since we overtook the US as the  fattest nation on the 
planet. In fact there seems to be agencies that  specialise in oversized extras 
mostly Tongans, Maoris and Samoans.(I blame  immigration for taking that title 
off the Americans) one guy was a dead ringer  dor George Foreman but bigger and 
there was even an Ugly Betty look alike. The  average weight would have been 
over 160kgs with a couple of them weighing in  at about 240kegs or over 500lbs. 

Sumo wigs are usually a  problem  and sometimes cost $3000 to make with real 
hair and $600 a day  to hire. I usually give up even trying to show them how a 
chon mage should be  as hairdressers always have their own interpretation of 
how what think it  should look. The end result looks more like what would 
happen if cows could  fly. On this occasion the hairdresser managed to find enough 
cheap wigs and  apart from a few of the distant extras she really did make 
silk purses out of  sows ears.

I got hold of all the mawashi I could find in the country  and the other half 
had to be made. The producer wanted the white ones to be  whiter and the 
black ones to be not so black so they don’t absorb too much  light. As it is bad 
luck to wash a mawashi I told them that was as white as  they were going to get 
and convinced them that those suspicious marks were  just clay from the 
dohyo.  Thankfully the wardrobe department bought some  disposable fundoshi/undies 
and made some ingenious elastic slip on mawashi for  the rest of the extras 
because there was no way I could retie them every time  someone felt the call of 
nature. My hands were very sore after having to tie  the mawashi almost 100 
times in 3 days. I made sure I had plenty of  disinfectant on hand. On the 
final day I insisted on no lighting in the change  room they set up in a parking 
lot where they filmed the blue screen flying  shots. Some blokes had bulges on 
their bulges and it was a real challenge to  make sure the wobbly bits didn’t 
reach daylight. One guys hernia lumps were so  strange I thought he had a 
co-joined foetus growing out of his tummy. I was  forced to ignore authenticity 
and had to use a bit of creative mawashi origami  for people like Konishiki 
sized Herb who is first off the bus.

The  catering truck really worked overtime to feed everyone with exotic 
gourmet  food. At meal time many of the sumo extras would just park their chairs 
next  to the smorgasbord to save time getting up for seconds and thirds and 
fourths.  They even had people to bring munchies, pastries, toasted sandwiches and 
hot  soup onto the set to keep up energy levels. There was a first aid 
officer on  hand but I suppose being half naked in the freezing cold meant that a 
bit of  bonding and comraderie inevitably distracted them from sore feet, 
fatigue and  diabetes. At one stage they all performed the maori haka whilst waiting 
for  the cameras to be reset. Whenever they were asked to back it up the 
jokers all  made noises like a truck in reverse.

Anyway It certainly was an experience but I will not be  giving up my day job 
in finance. I got to keep the new mawashi (after I  insisted on having them 
all dry cleaned) so they will be perfect for the  junior sumo team Katrina is 
putting together.   Unfortunately there  was only one possible recruit for the 
team but I'm sure I could lure more of  them if we put on a free hangi.  
I have some pictures to go with it  but sumo forum won't let me post them for 
some reason so if anyone can please  help I can forward them on.
Gotsuandesu
Johnofuji> Message: 6>  Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:36:11 -0400> From: "Emma 
Kolstad Antunes"  <emma at rpg.net>> Subject: [sumo] offtopic: sumo commercial> To: 
 "Sumo Mailing List" <sumo at webtrek.com>> Message-ID:>  
<dfbadead0808161836m8820820yee3b7921c9e68098 at mail.gmail.com>>  Content-Type: text/plain; 
charset=ISO-8859-1> > I've been seeing this  commercial while watching the olympics, and 
it's> fun to imagine sumo  wrestlers flying...> > 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OesLO1hvN6U>  > Enjoy,> mineyama> > >  
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