You might have seen the new McDonalds advert for their Wrap.  One of the ads features a five ball Trick shot (If you haven’t seen it, scroll down the page).  You might wonder how these things come together, sometimes – so do I!  So this article is like the DVD special featurette – the making of the one-handed five ball pool ad.

About a month ago I got a phone call – someone needed a pool player/actor for an advert, would I be interested?  Of course.  So I head down to an advertising agency in the west-end where they are holding the auditions.

While I am waiting to be seen, I read the brief for the advert, and discover it involves a spot of one-handed pool playing.  That is good news –  I have done lots of this at exhibitions.

I am ushered before a panel (think X-Factor, but in an office).   It’s then that I am given the full story.  McDonalds are launching a Wrap, and there will be a series of adverts to promote the new product.  The concept is that the Wrap is too good to put down.  So there will be a collection of ads featuring people doing stuff one-handed (oh behave!).  In the other hand will be the too tasty to put down wrap.  There will be one-handed pianists, one handed golfers, one handed waiters, and one handed basket ball players, etc.

For the pool advert, they want to film it in a way to challenge the audience to guess how many balls the player can pot with a one handed shot.  So the question is,  “How many balls can you pot with a one handed shot?”.

 Without hesitation, I reply “Six, if the table is ok.”

“Well, we have a table downstairs so come and show us”

I begin to regret my confident reply.

I am led through a few offices to a pool table situated in the corner of a large open plan office. When our party arrives, the table is in use – 4pm on a Friday, and people have stopped work to play pool in the corner of the office – good place to work!

So after the game has finished I screw my cue together and examine the table.  It’s red & it’s very furry.  I looks like it has been washed and blow dried.  I don’t know if it’s level, but at this stage I don’t think it will make much difference.

As I set up the balls for the six-in-one shot a small crowd gathers and someone whips out a video camera to capture the evidence.  Although it’s not the sort of shot I would play in an exhibition (It takes too long to set up)  I have played the 6-in-1 shot loads of times, but never one-handed – so this will be interesting….

I chalk up, lay the cue on the table surround and concentrate on getting a good contact on the cue ball.  The result. 4 balls in pockets – one big miss, and one stuck in the jaws.

I am slightly disappointed, but too my relief everyone else seems quite impressed.  In fact they are very enthusiastic –“That’s great, we don’t want you to pot everything – we want the viewer to have to guess how many are going in”  – I would prefer to pot them all!

After shooting bit more video of me holding a mock up of the wrap and chalking my cue one-handed (no mean feat).  I head off and wait to hear if I have got the job.

The following Wednesday and I get a call confirming that I have got the job – hurray!   I schedule in a spot of practice for the day before the shoot and spent an hour working out how the shot would work in practice.  I always remember reading Steve Mizerak’s account of how filming the Miller Lite “Just Showin’ Off”  advert went.  That advert culminated in another 6-in-1 shot, the one where most of the balls are arranged around the middle pocket.  It took him the best part of a day, and he had two hands to use!

The six ball version I was going to try is an easier shot, but it would be on an English Pool Table with much tighter pockets – I wasn’t even sure I could better the four balls I managed at the casting.

The first thing to do was to decide exactly where the balls needed to be set.  In the past I had set the shot up about 8 inches before the middle pockets.  If I was going to find some consistency with this shot, I would need to know precisely where to set it up for each attempt.  I decided to go with the mid joint on my cue.  I laid the cue on the table with the butt against the cushion parallel to the centre line. and set the cue ball in position. I also made the decision to use an American cue for the shot – If I was playing one handed, then the big tip would help me to get a better contact.

During an American Pool exhibition, a member of the audience may even play this shot.  On the English pool table, the pockets are so much tighter.  So the set up needs to be more accurate, and it has to be struck accurately too!   

Setting up the balls to the centre pockets is fairly straight forward, rest them on the cue ball pointing at the middle of each of the pockets.  The balls to the corners are more of a challenge.  On an American table, there is a big margin for error because of the size of the pockets; the British table has less wiggle room.  The balls to the corners don’t actually aim at the pockets; they actually need to aim at a point inside at the jaw.  How far off the pockets depends on a couple of factors – the speed of the cloth and how hard you play the shot.  In addition to that, every table will have it’s own special rolls which will complicate matters; this shot uses all of the table and that is unlikely to be totally level all over

After an hour of setting it up and practicing playing the shot one handed, I was getting five balls most of the time, a couple of times I got all six.  I didn’t think I was going to get any better, so called it a day.

On the day of the shoot, I thought it was important to get there early.  The location was the North Harrow Snooker Centre.  The crew were shooting the other Wrap adverts that day: Basketball  & Golf.  So I was the last job of the day.  This meant the whole thing was under some time pressures, the club would start to get busy about 7pm, so we needed to be done by then.

I got there at 4pm and immediately set to work.  First task was to get the balls set up and see what the table was like.   As expected, the pool table was like any other in regular use in a busy club.  The cloth was a bit slower than I would have liked, and the pocket rubbers were a bit worn.  I had the luxury of several attempts while the crew arrived and began setting up around me.  I was getting on quite well – regularly knocking in 5 or 6 balls one handed for about 45 minutes.

It then became apparent that I was setting the shot up at the wrong end of the table!  They would be shooting with me at the other end..!!   I had about 10 minutes left before they needed to light the table, so I didn’t have long to try out the shot reversed.  This time, playing with the nap, the whole shot changed. There were a couple of pockets that refused to play the game in this direction.  The table had a couple of rolls which kept the balls out every time, a small amount of panic started to rise as the clock was ticking.  I kept note of how far out the balls missed were, and tried to make the necessary adjustment to the set-up.   Slowly I things started to come together and I was making 5 or 6 balls once again.  One of the balls had to be set up so far off the pocket, I was amazed that it found it’s way in!

Then it was wardrobe time.   There was a large selection of very colourful shirts and waistcoats, as you would expect in a McDonalds advert.  I was put in an orange shirt with my blue waistcoat.  Nice.

Jeffery the Ref in action

Once everything was set up, it came time to shoot.  I set up the balls for the first shot, and was presented with my Wrap to hold. Charlie, the director, then talked me through the action.  I needed to start by chalking the cue, walk into position, (missing Jeffery the referee) rest my cue on the table and play the shot.  I then needed to rise, walk out of the frame in one direction, before walking back through the picture to exit screen left – and just as I disappeared out of shot I needed to go to bite the wrap.

That sounds pretty simple, except throughout the whole process I had to gaze loving lovingly at the wrap in my hand.  We tried a couple of takes where I wasn’t even looking at the shot which resulted in horrendous miscues, so in the end we got it down to a glance when the cue gets into position and a glance when I play the shot.  I am not even looking to see if the balls go in!

So after a few rehearsals where we ironed out all the major problems of choreography, we started shooting.  The main advert took only a few takes to get right, most of the problems came with the timing of biting the wrap at the end…  It’s difficult to see where you are going while gazing lovingly at lunch.

I really wanted them to use the take where I potted six, but the ad agency favoured the uncertainty of the five ball finish to fit in with the other ads and the ‘guess how many’ theme – and my Wrap lovin’ was better on one of the five ball takes anyway!  See for yourself: