Anyone here seen it? Apparently the ad is at a star party where there are a lot of reflectors and medium sized dobs. People in my astronomy club are buzzing about its viewing last Saturday.

Yes I noticed the commercial today during the NFC Championship game. I found it interesting that they chose to recognize amateur astronomers considering they are very uncommon. I also found it interesting how they decided to play it during a football game.

If you notice, the star party in the commercial is in the desert. I wonder if they intentionally did this because the Super Bowl is in Arizona in 2 weeks.

Saw it during the game too. As commercials go I thought it was a nice ad. Did seem a little high on the light pollution, compared to star parties I've been to, but that's a minor nitpick.

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The shots are so short, and non-representative, that it's pretty hard to make any kind of judgement. It's just enough to get the idea across.
on YouTube here.

I have more nit's about the style of camping. Why are the kids sleeping in the truck with such a fancy trailer?
Oh yeah, it's a commercial.

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A lot less light pollution than what I'm used to! I did see the light dome over the hill to the south-southeast, but the skylight was blue (well, the moon was out, based on one eyepiece film, assuming all photography was done in one night) but most light pollution I've seen tended toward yellow and white. It looked about like my parent's house in WV (looking anywhere except southward toward Moorefield) or the Mason Dixon star party with Harrisburg over the hill. I've yet to attend a star party at Spruce Knob, and I'm told that's a "real" dark site (lim. magnitude about 6.5 to 7)! I'm going to try to this fall.


Yep, I knew that was the south by southeast because of that big dog in the sky and assuming they didn't play the tape backward, it was rising.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Needs to finish with a meteor impact (topic Meteor).

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I loved their little tag line, it was something along the lines of "the best nights don't end with television." So true.

wow.. a Toyota pickup ad that doesn't involve a giant teeter totter or pulling a cargo container up over the edge of a cliff..

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I received this message from another group:

Someone posted more info about the Toyota commercial on the Talking
Telescopes group:

Members of the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club and The L.A.
> Astronomical Society helped to set up the "Star Party". A large
> contingent from Griffith Observatory was also there. It was a blast
> to do. The large truss Dob was home built by an AVAC member who is
> also shown at the eyepiece with the child.

I don't know what "Talking Telescopes" is.

Todd

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Talking Telescopes is a Yahoo!Group dedicated to discussions about telescopes, hence the name, and other astronomical gear. It's the creation of the well-known author and observer Phil Harrington.

Dave Mitsky

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Perhaps the parents wanted to have a little "alone time"?

Dave Mitsky

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De gustibus non est disputandum.
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The commercial was filmed at a site called Club Ed, near Saddleback Butte State Park, in Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. It was filmed on Saturday, December 15, 2007. The production company was Park Pictures, and the director was Lance Acord. I was in the filming; although my face never made it on camera, one of our telescopes did.

I got into this deal because James Levine, from TypeCasting (at 310 Casting Studios) suddenly appeared one Wednesday evening at the Garvey Ranch Observatory in Monterey Park (east of Los Angeles, see the LAAS resources page), with a little videocam, and proceeded to digitize anyone who was willing. He told me he was looking for "real astronomers" to do a Toyota commercial. I got picked, along with wife Pam, to go to the casting studio for a casting call. I had no idea what they were up to, but had never seen or been involved in anything like this, and went to the casting studio as much out of pure curiosity as anything else. So they stand us up in front of a small room bathed in stage lights & cameras, and a small gaggle of young folk on the comfortable couches start firing questions about astronomy, which I have never been shy about answering. That's when they told me the plan was to film (or "document") a real star party. Right away I figured, since real star parties are dark, how are they going to do that?

We got picked and arrived at Club Ed at noon, and remained there until midnight (they would have worked all night, but the work permits for the kids expire at midnight). We filmed for 10 or 11 hours, starting with the time lapse sequence during the day. That sequence was sudden after-thought from the director, so everybody had to take down the telescopes already set up, and move them of camera, and then casually rebuild everything (they also had me move my conspicuously on camera Ford so they could replace it with a Toyota). Pam & I and our low SkyQuest Dobsonian are at the far right edge of the screen in the time lapse sequence. Once it got dark, they lit up the area with fascinating balloon borne lights I have never see before. Called HMI lights, they are suspended inside a helium balloon strung from a mobile tether, so they can move it around the field. This made it far too light to see anything except the moon & Mars, but the size of the balloon softens the light so it does not cast real shadows, and is easy to live with on the ground, as opposed to the usual television lights that blind you forever.

They did eventually shut of the lights, and we had dark for 20 or 30 minutes before we had to go off to the next scene. It was a "real" star party. most of the production & stage crews knew nothing about astronomy or telescopes, and they all came around to look and ask questions. One of the kids, a girl about 11 years old, was atypical in spending a lot of time at the eyepiece, always wanting to know what she was looking at. My guess is that a few of the people there were hooked.

The star party was followed by a sappy (propane) campfire scene full of people falling over themselves to say we all share the same sky, why can't we all just get along? None of that is in this commercial, but considering this commercial is 30 seconds, and I know we were not filming less than 10 hours (closer to 11, but I can't be sure i remember when we really started filming), there are probably several more commercials where this one came from.

It was an interesting experience. Despite my apprehension about impatient hollywood types, there was none of that to be seen. Everyone, including Lance, was relaxed, and the kids were just kids. Once they found out they were allowed to touch Pam's little 4.5-inch SkyQuest they were all over it, using the TELRAD to point at the sky, or anything else they could see. The one scene in the commercial of a kid looking up from the telescope has the SkyQuest in it. Furthermore, they served lunch & dinner out of a catering truck, and it was top notch food. It did get quite cold that night, and not far off the "set" they had a chuck wagon set up with snacks and very popular hot coffee. It was actually quite comfortable, except for the cold. And, since we both had speaking roles, even though we never made it on camera, we are now eligible to join SAG. I doubt that I will do that; the $2277 "initiation fee" is more than I need to pay, just for the privilege of telling people around here that I am in.

The scene with the kids sleeping in the back of the van absorbed a couple hours of filming time, over & over & etc. In this case the director was intent on whatever it was he wanted, and he worked at it until he got it (or gave up).

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Thanks for the story--I enjoyed it.

Todd

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

All right! Tim!

looking forward to the sequel

$2277 initiation fee? That's close to the median annual acting income for a member of SAG!

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There is a full video of the star party in the commercial on the Toyta website.
See ... http://www.toyota.com/sequoia/demos.html
Select "Experience the Sequoia", which opens a new window with no URL on my computer. Select video 5, "Star Party with the Barzdukas". The video lasts about 5 minutes and looks pretty good to me. Besides, near the end you get to see me talk about looking back in time (I thought the kid I was talking to was a boy until one of her friends corrected me; happily, they left that out).

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