“adventurous”, “spontaneous” and “wild” are not words that I would readily use to describe myself, but this year looks like the one that’s going to turn me into the “why the hell not?” girl I always secretly wished I could be.
The place: the Lister Building, Jeppe street, downtown Johannesburg. The time: around 18:30 on a Friday night. The event: shooting the Sho’t Left SA Tourism ad with awesomely amazing girl-group The Arrows, on the roof of this 19-storey high building.
It sounds like a lot of fun, right? Well, I suppose it would be to anyone who didn’t have a fear of heights, and who was always up for a party anyway.
I am neither of these things, yet last night was probably one of the most memorable outings of my life.
Granted: navigating the streets of downtown Johannesburg, what with the pedestrians and their devil-may-care attitude and the maniacal taxi drivers, could not have been easy for our ‘accidental chauffeur’ (thanks, Mitch), it was so cold and windy on the roof (the winter wind biting into our skin in the beginning of April like this? “Global warming”, anybody…?), and my awkwardness at the beginning of the night during the photo shoot had me thinking “why did I come here, again?”
But then I thought about how this was literally a once in a lifetime experience: I could say ‘I was in a TV ad with one of the coolest SA bands ever!’ and have that memory forever, so I loosened up a little. I was still a little apprehensive though: all this adventurous-ness was quite a shock to my system, and I actually had a headache from thinking about how epic it all was!
Knowing that each “take” we shot was bringing us one step closer to the amazing finished product made jumping around in the cold for about 30 to 45 minutes, on the top of a building (at least I couldn’t actually see the bottom from where we were standing- there was a wall going around the roof- otherwise it would’ve been the end of me) that much more tolerable, and I found myself actually having a really good time!
The crew were really professional, and Pam and Christy just became my new favourite rock stars.
The signed poster will always be a reminder of The Day I Danced On The Roof Of A Building And Loved Every Minute Of It.
And if it weren’t for Facebook and my crazy friend Pearl, I wouldn’t have had any of this.
[Disclaimer: all-out adventure like this can only happen once in a long time, and then only in small doses- so don’t get your hopes up just yet! ;)]
Nkhensani Manabe 