Pepsi, the Beijing Olympics, and Me

Beijing is supposedly freezing cold in the winter, and I finally got to find out for myself when I arrived last week to shoot a television commercial for Pepsi cola.  I've been here for about a week, and it's been one cool experience.

Pepsi is making sure everyone here knows who's the better and coolest cola just in time for Chinese New Years AND the Beijing Olympics 2008.  This television commercial focuses on three world champion athletes from China in badminton, figure skating, and gymnastics.  Here's a banner for the upcoming campaign:

I think you'll be seeing these things everywhere in China...whether you like it or not.  Besides the three world champion sportsmen, there's two dudes and two girls.  I'm one of these four people who get everyone all excited about Pepsi and the arrival of Chinese New Year and the Beijing Olympics.  Here we are:

From Left to Right...Jeff is an upcoming singer in the same management company as Peter Ho, Isabelle is a rising singer from Universal Records with a voice similar to Faye Wong, Sunny is a highly sought-after model from Shanghai, and I'm "the other dude."

Now, the reason I've been freezing my butt off in Beijing for almost a week is that we arrived early to spend three intensive days learning this tightly-choreographed street dance routine for the commercial.  And believe me...it was tough.  Here's some shots from the shoot with Yang Yang, former World and Olympic figure skating champion:

Fortunately for me, we ended up NOT having to do much "serious" dancing because we had somereal dealstreet dancers from Beijing and also flown in from Hong Kong to hook us up.  Honestly, I never knew much about the hip hop street dancing scene in China, but Beijing was popping off with the crazy talent I saw.  Awesome.  In fact, I'll be back here later this month to shoot a music video for this project.  And who knows...maybe I'll get the chance to show off the few moves I picked up along the way     I'll just have to wait and see along with everyone else.  In the meantime, look out for the new Pepsi commercial in China and Hong Kong if you aren't tuned into AXN and happen to be in the area.

I'll plan to post up some more pictures from this gig once I get a better internet connection cuz the one from my hotel room here is slower than a snail! 

In the meantime, don't forget to catch the third episode ofThe Amazing Race Asiatomorrow night cuz this one's a keeper...and a weeper.  The amount of drama and turmoil is chilling, and it's one of the longest times I've sat, stood, or almost fell asleep at the pit stop waiting for teams to arrive in both seasons!