Items such as these frozen fish patties are relatively easy to freeze into an ice block.



In contrast to the rather complicated freeze-in process for the flowers and luge tubing in the last entry, it was easy to freeze a few fish patties into a block for use in a Popeyes commercial that was shot in Lafitte, LA. After harvesting, the block was cut into three smaller blocks, each containing a fish patty.

In a Clinebell ice block machine, the ice forms from the bottom of the tank, up to the surface. So in order to get the fish patties to stay in place, each patty was weighed down with a heavy plumbing part. Once the ice formed up around the edges of the patties and trapped them in place, the galvanized steel pipe caps were removed so that they wouldn’t also be encased in ice. After that, the freezing was allowed to continue until the block was ready for harvest.


the fish patty ice block, ready for its closeup

In hindsight, a couple of problems could have been addressed. First, the patties were breaded and it turned out that a little of the breading came free from the patties while they were immersed in cold water during the freezing process. The breading had a tendency to end up in the nearby ice, diminishing the final presentation somewhat. Perhaps a water-resistant clearcoat could have been sprayed on the patties (since they would never be eaten) so that the breading would stay put. Another solution would be to insert a patty into fully formed ice by taking two flat pieces of ice, cutting out a pocket in one for a patty, then freezing the pieces together with the patty inside. This was actually done as an alternative, but the director of the commercial decided that the Clinebell-machine-frozen patties were better for their purposes. But you should know that the point of the commercial was to say that Popeyes food was better than a frozen fish patty. So, in this case, it wasn’t all bad that there were imperfections in the freezing.


the lead actor, with a couple of stunt doubles, just in case

The other minor fix would have been to make sure that all three patties were in the exact same placement and orientation in the small ice blocks. I was playing around with different presentations, so the three small block each had their patty at a slightly different angle. Well, when it came time to shoot the commercial, that meant that only one of the three small blocks could be used. Otherwise, the patty position would change from shot to shot. Again, this was fine, because it was okay that the ice was taking a beating from a little sunlight. It wasn’t enough to make a noticeable difference.



Finally, it turned out that they needed a few extra people in the background of the commercial, so I ended up being in the shots. Who knows, you might see my arm, my leg, or even my back if you record it and watch very carefully in slow motion. By the way, it’s a little humbling to be upstaged by a 40 lb. chunk of frozen water. You can see below how I was dressed up as a shrimper for the shot. I even got to be on one of the boats. But I won’t be too disappointed if I end up on the cutting room floor.



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Tags: Clinebell ice block machine, freeze-ins, inclusions, tv, commercial, Popeyes