Starting from the beginning.
I started the Chantix program (nicotine free quit smoking medication) on January 16, 2010. The program is 12 weeks, and includes an online program called Get Quit that was vital in my road to being quit for good.
For the first week, you continue smoking as the drug starts to do it's work. Half-way through that first week, cigarettes started tasting really gross- a sign that Chantix was working. I got an automated phone call every night asking how many cigarettes I'd smoked that day. Being able to say "zero" was very motivational for me. It felt good to proudly say that I had gotten through another day without nicotine!
The articles and activities that I received in my email inbox every day kept me focused on why I needed and wanted to quit smoking.
When I made it to the end of those 12 weeks, I felt very confident for the first time in the 12 years that I'd been a smoker, that I had kicked the nasty habit for good. I loved how the new me felt- so healthy and proud that I'd overcome my addiction!
Fast forward to January 16, 2011 my one year anniversary of quitting. A whole year nicotine-free- what an accomplishment. I knew that I had made it.
Around this time, I received a questionnaire from Pfizer, the company that makes Chantix.
They wanted to know if I was still quit, and if I'd be interested in helping others by sharing my story. I wrote "yes" in the blanks and submitted my answers.
Fast forward to May 2013.
I received a phone call from the Snow Company, a recruitment company that works with Pfizer to find ex-smokers for their videos/commercials/print ads. They asked if I was still willing to share my story to help others quit by possibly being in a commercial. I answered some preliminary questions to see if I qualified (they were looking for a specific age range, and they want people who complete the entire 12 weeks program).
After meeting those requirements, I sent in a photo and the recruitment specialist presented me to the folks at Pfizer, and the production company in NYC. After making it through that "round", I was asked to meet the production director via a Skype interview. This is when I realized that this could really happen.
Ashish, the production director, and I had a great chat, and he selected me to move forward with the process.
Next, I had to track down my prescription history to show that I filled all of the Chantix scripts. I also had to provide my medical records to show that I don't suffer from depression and other medical issues.
I was told in the first week of July that the shoot would be in Chicago in the next few weeks, and they wanted to know if I could make the 22nd-26th work for leaving my family.
Things at Nathan's job (Sprint) are insane (putting it mildly) for the next few months, but I figured that between both sets of grandparents, we could figure it out for this once in a lifetime opportunity!
I received a phone call on Thursday, July 11, 2013 from my contact at Snow, and she told me that I had been chosen to do the Chantix commercial, and they wanted my family to come as well. Up to that point, I thought that it would just be me making the trip to Chicago. I was worried that Nathan wouldn't be able to get away for a few days during this vital time at Sprint. However, he spoke with his boss, and was given the green (er... yellow) light to accompany us. What a blessing! I don't thing words can express how thankful I am to Nathan's boss and co-workers for recognizing the importance of his presence with us in Chicago!
So, we had about a week to get some paperwork together and get things packed for the trip. Upon our arrival in Illinois, we'd need to obtain a work permit for each of the kids, so that they could shoot the commercial. Their pediatrician had to write a letter, stating that they have been given physicals in the last year and are healthy. I had to write and sign a letter for them to be able to "work."
During this week, we also started receiving more details for our trip. We were asked our sizes so that the wardrobe crew could start shopping. We learned that there would be a car service picking us up from our humble home in Shawnee, Kansas to take us to the airport. We were booked on Southwest only after discovering that the first class options on the other airlines didn't have the flight times we needed. I've never had the privilege to ride first class- would have been cool thing, but business select on Southwest was plenty of advantage. It was fun to walk up to the priority security line, bypassing the madness of the other line! And aside from the disabled, we were the first on the airplane.
Our experience started on Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Our driver arrived at 1:00pm, loaded our bags, and as soon as Nathan got home from his morning at work, we were on our way. My nerves started to kick in at this point- I realized that we were actually going, and I was worried that I wouldn't be what Pfizer was looking for in their commercial.
The kids thoroughly enjoyed the quick airplane ride- something they never get to do. Here's Addison and I excited for take off:
When we arrived in Chicago, we had an assistant with Chelsea Pictures pick us up in a minivan outfitted with the car seat and booster seats we needed. She drove us to the luxury hotel they had booked for us, The James Hotel on Ontario Street. We were on the top floor in a suite, and man was it SWEET! The kids were in awe of this huge bed that all three of them were to sleep in.
Shortly after arriving, I received a text from my contact with Chelsea Pictures, asking me to come down to their office on the 3rd floor to get our per Diem for our stay. $600 was given for our family to enjoy the city! To say that we were being spoiled is putting it mildly. I met a handful of people involved in the commercial- all from Chelsea Pictures- they were from LA. The other companies involved were Y&R, the advertising agency, and Snow, the recruiting company I had mentioned above.
We set off in the big city around 7pm to find a place to get some dinner. We ended up at Rock Bottom Brewery- the first place we found without a wait. By this time, we were all starved.
Riley and I enjoyed some steak- he has mature taste buds, and he cleaned his plate, and then finished Chase's pizza.
The weather in Chicago was perfect- middle to upper 70's, dropping down to a need-your-jacket temperature in the evening. We were told that the week before had been very hot, so we were thankful for this break from the heat.
After dinner, we took a short walk to the river and down Michigan Avenue. The streets were bustling with people, and we all felt revived after our delicious meal and walk.
If you haven't been to Chicago, please put it on your list of places to see. Nathan and I lived there for 2 years before having children, and I've had a fondness for the city ever since. Here are some pics we took by the river:
We tucked our giggly wiggly children into that big awesome bed, and settled ourselves down with a few drinks from the hotel bar. Sweet sleeping angels:
The next day, Wednesday, July 24, 2013, we took the kids across the street to Starbucks for breakfast. The poor locals that pop in to get a quick coffee on their way to work had to wait as our hungry family of five ordered half of the menu! We then went a few doors down to Trader Joe's to stock up on some snackies for our room. The weather was once again totally perfect- I was feeling euphoric walking the streets of my favorite city, on an all expenses paid vacation because of something I was able to accomplish.
Chase helping me get things ready for our wardrobe selection meeting:
At 10:00am, we had a meeting with the wardrobe people to pick our outfits for the next day. I thought that it would just be a few people in the room, but when the door opened, I was flooded with a conference table of people, all excited to meet me and my family. There was 2 racks of clothes and shoes. Randy, the other person selected was there with his wife, so we enjoyed comparing stories. He is a police officer and had smoked for 32 years. He had been quit for 2 years. I learned at this meeting that Randy and I were selected out of 400 people that were interviewed!
Leslie, our wardrobe lady, had us try on some outfits so that everyone else could weigh in on what they liked. She put me in a flowered button down short sleeved shirt with a collar- so NOT me, and I was very uncomfortable. As she was snapping pictures of this outfit, Ashish, the production director who I had done the Skype interview with, walked in. I was thrilled to see a familiar face and to meet him in person. He is such a cool guy- made me feel very comfortable with the whole thing. He asked me how I felt about the outfit, and I told him that I honestly don't wear shirts like that because I never feel comfortable in them. He didn't like the shirt either, and chose a coral colored shirt from J. Crew. They paired it with a pair of green cargo pants and brown shoes I had brought from home. They don't typically like to use all brand new items because they want it to look real. So, Riley ended up in an outfit brought from home, Addison got all new stuff, Chase used shorts from home and a shirt Leslie had picked, and Nathan got all new stuff, too. After many pictures of our wardrobe, and meeting tons of people involved in the production, we took off to get those Illinois work permits the kids required to participate in the commercial. Carli was my representative from Snow assisting us with various things, including these permits. We enjoyed having her around. Really everybody involved was so nice, and welcoming, making us feel at ease and excited for the big day!
The ladies at the office didn't seem to think we needed those work permits- they said they were ready for their lunch break... We got the permits anyways, and came to find that of course we did need them.
We had a big gap of time before the Pfizer crew arrived, so we took the kids to Millennium park to check out "the bean" and the water fountains. This was some much needed down time for us. Once again, the weather was ideal, so we enjoyed the splendor of the city that afternoon.
After grabbing a few hours of nap time, we ventured back out to Navy Pier (my personal favorite in Chicago). We enjoyed a funnel cake, and let the kids pick a souvenir in one of the shops. We took a 30 minute ride on the Sea Dog, a boat that goes fast on the lake, pointing out the history of the buildings that make Chicago so magnificent.
Here we are on the Sea Dog:
After our adventures, the nice people from Pfizer took a bunch of us out for dinner. Among the group were my new friends, Carli and Ashish. We had a wonderful time getting to know each other, and even though we were eating late and had been busy all day, the kids were angels. I swear, I don't know how I got so lucky. Of course, they have their moments, but I am amazed that they knew that it was important for them to have good behavior at this table of important people! To reward them for making us so proud, we ventured out for another walk by the river- we are lucky that we were staying so close to it!
Ashish found it totally necessary to eat deep dish pizza and then a deep dish sundae. Whatever, we weren't paying. Dinner:
The BIG Day, Thursday, July 25, 2013
I only had about 10 days to mentally prepare myself to be in the limelight, and I had no clue what to expect, but I woke up (super early) on this day feeling mostly excited, with a tiny bit of nervousness. I met Carli downstairs to meet the assistant who gave us a ride to the shoot. Our first stop was the crew parking lot, which was a church down the street from "my house". There was a long table set up with lots of breakfast fixings, and most importantly coffee. I wasn't able to eat like I should have because there was a strange man walking his dog through the parking lot, asking a lot of questions and saying some inappropriate things (i.e., when the assistant explained to him what Chantix was, he said, "oh for all of those people with no will power to quit on their own? I quit cold turkey"). I tried to ignore him, but he was a bit hard to push aside, and with no coffee in my system, I was only half awake. So, I took my coffee and was driven to the set. I wish I had a better picture to show how quaint this neighborhood was. We took a left on Elm and there were trucks lining the street, and there were people everywhere- carrying props, cameras, and everything else required for the set.
The house they picked was perfect- if only it really were mine! Here it is:
This is when I realized how much work has gone into this one day of filming, and that these people were all here for me- to hear my story of how I gave up cigarettes. Next stop: the hair, makeup, and wardrobe trailer. During this time, the door to the trailer was open, and I noticed two ladies sitting outside on their porch, coffee in hand, trying to get a glimpse into the trailer. I later found out that letters had been put on doors to notify the neighbors that there would be a commercial being shot in a house on the block on that day, but they had no idea who was in it, so they all thought it was an actress. The owner, Leslie, was surprised to hear that I was just a regular stay-home-mom from Kansas! Here I am getting all beautified:
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| Jenny and Sandy |
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| Jenny, Niki (Pfizer) and Carli (Snow) |
After putting on the chosen wardrobe, I was given another coffee and was able to watch the house being transformed and meet some people on set. The owners were so excited to meet me, and hear my story.
Here I am with Leslie (on the right) and her sister:
They liked that I was a real person who had quit smoking, and were intrigued about how Chantix works. Brian, my trustworthy assistant for the day, took me inside to show me how things were going. I couldn't believe how many people were in that house!
How cool to be able to experience this. A celebrity for a day, given the VIP treatment. I was asked about 10 times if I wanted something from Starbucks. Looking back on it, I should have been drinking way more skinny vanilla lattes than I did!
The Pfizer ladies came and asked that I rest for a few minutes before filming- they didn't want me chatting so much, I guess. I sat for about 1 minute, and they called me in to start the 3 hour interview. Here's where I started sweating. I sat in the chair with 6 cameras in my face, and a microphone above my head. There was 6 people behind those cameras. Ashish sat across from me, out of the view of the camera, and I was to focus on his face and act natural. He had me do some breathing exercises before we began. I felt a lot of pairs of eyes on me- here's what my view looked like (took this picture while a neighbor was weed-eating and we had to wait until he was done):
Ashish's chair is the one in front of the blond girl, Esther. She was taking notes as I answered questions and she would tap Ashish on the shoulder and hand him additional questions to ask me. This is how it went for about 2 1/2 hours: Ashish would ask me a question and I would answer the question by repeating what he asked because in the commercial, you won't hear his voice, just my answer. I forgot to do this a few times, so he would repeat the question with a smirk, so I knew I goofed. He was very patient with me. And if I needed to think about how to answer a question, it was no big deal. They can edit. However, Ashish was not patient with the many noise interruptions we had. First there was the neighbor starting up his weed eater, next was an airplane overhead, after that there was construction, someone cleared their throat, a cell phone wasn't silenced, the cicadas got loud, and finally, my stomach growled the loudest growls ever heard (Brian ran in with candy bars to curb my appetite). So, there was a lot of starting and stopping, which messed up our flowing conversation. We'd have to come back to subjects frequently.
I wasn't expecting this, but emotions came to the surface, and I made the ugly crying face as I tried to hold back the tears. Some of the questions he asked that struck me were: "did you think of yourself as a bad mom when you smoked?", "how satisfied are you with your life right now as a non-smoker? What is your husband like? Your kids?", "how do you think your kids would feel if you were still smoking?", and "who is proud of you for quitting smoking?" I've never been to a therapist before, but I can imagine that this is what it must be like. A lot of things were brought to my attention as I really dug deep and talked about my experience in detail for the first time, and how smoking made me feel- not just the shortness of breath or stinky clothes, but how it made me feel as a mom of young kids. Ashish commented that he could tell that I love being a mom, that I am a good mom, and that my kids adore me, but I am too hard on myself. Then he asked me about our adoption... yep, I cried a lot that day. My make-up lady, Sandy, was called in numerous times to fix my teary face. She was awesome! Here's what it looked like on the camera side looking at me:
The kids were picked up by the assistant at 10:15am and went to the trailer for their make-up, hair and wardrobe changes. It sounds like Nathan was stuck in that trailer with the kids for over an hour (he's a trooper) before the interview wrapped up and they called them into the house. After talking about my family for last few hours, I couldn't wait to see them, and experience the rest of the day with them by my side. The living room in the background was made to look like my house would look- there were toys on the floor, and pictures of us on the table (they had me bring some from our house). With me sitting in the chair I was interviewed in, they had the kids and Nathan playing in the background while they took a still video.
Julie, the marketing director for Chantix, came in and told me that her and a handful of other people had been watching the interview from a tent set up in the backyard (I had no idea about this), and her feedback was that I did quite well, and that she loved my emotion. I felt better after talking to her about my interview.
After the interview (I was so ready for that to be over), in came the professional photographer- a REAL professional photographer. He was taking my portrait for the print ad. I had no clue that was part of the process. Looks like my face will be in a few magazines along with the commercial! Phillip was his name- he kept saying, "that's great, beautiful smile, you're a natural"... I am no Cindy Crawford, but I felt like it for just a few minutes, minus the bathing suit.
By this time, I was famished and in desperate need of a potty break. The senior producer, Fred, came in and demanded I be given a break. Ahhh I love you, Fred! Oh but wait, you can't eat yet, here comes Leslie with a spare shirt for me to change into to keep my coral shirt clean. There's only one bathroom for all of these people and I can't change or empty my bladder!
For a good hour, we had some time to kill as the set was changed from the living room to the kitchen where we would be shooting some scenes for the commercial (you know the end of the commercial where they say, "discontinue use if any of these symptoms occur... possible side effects are..."). During that break, we enjoyed a beverage on the front lawn (per my request as my reward after the looong interview, someone found me a rum and coke). And the kids spent some time relaxing before their big job started.
Finally, we were called inside to start shooting the last portion of the commercial. They had set up the kitchen to look like we were getting dinner ready. First, the five of us were around a coffee table in the sitting room of the kitchen doing activities together. Ashish was directing us what to do- "okay, now look at what Riley is drawing and pat him on the head", "how about share a smile with Nathan and then say something to Chase."
Nathan gets up from the table and heads into the kitchen to make dinner. They had grilled cheese on the stove and he was putting peanut butter on celery sticks. He was so natural about it, while I was over with the kids laughing. He said, "honey, dinner is almost ready!" and I got up to set the table while the kids stayed with their activities. While I'm setting the table I am smiling and looking up lovingly at Nathan. Then I go over and say something to him and we share a sweet smile. Then I call the kids into dinner and they come running in. I pick up Chase and put him in a highchair and scoot him up to the table. Nathan comes over and hands me a plate of sandwiches. We pass the food along, sharing sweet smiles with the kids and each other. The kids seemed oblivious to what was going on, even though there were cameras and a ton of people in the room. They never asked why we never actually ate the grilled cheese sandwiches. It took 4 takes to get what they wanted. After consulting with the folks outside and taking more pictures of me (this time sitting at the kitchen table), they declared, "It's a wrap!" Those were sweet words to hear. In all, I was there for 9.5 hours, the kids for 6.5. We got a lot of compliments about how well behaved our kids were during the day. Fred said, "you guys are great parents!" Once again, these kids came through for us, and we knew that they deserved some rewards that night.
I requested a picture with the entire crew. My wish was their command for that day, so here ya go:
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| Ashish, me and Chase |
This experience was so humbling and exciting. I'm so thankful that they chose me out of 400 people, and still confused as to why. It was awesome to me that my family got to experience it with me- I don't think I could come home and try to explain it to them.
If you read this, wow. I wrote it for myself. So I can remember this day as time goes on and other experiences take up my memory space. The glory goes to God, as He is the one who set me up for this journey- from beginning to end.
