I chatted with Maryland residents Kristina Terao and Mercy Luhanga about their experience filming the Verizon Google Pixel 2 Commercial.

 

Kristina Terao

Talk about your childhood, where you grew up, etc.

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. I graduated from the University of Hawaii with my bachelors in electrical engineering. I moved to Baltimore for a summer internship with Verizon and realized how much I liked the east coast, so I accepted a position in Newport News, Virginia as a full-time engineer for Verizon. I moved back to Maryland last year to work in the regional engineering office.

What is your current position and what education did you need to obtain it?

I am a Traffic Engineer, which entails monitoring cell site performance and capacity, and studying usage trends. I am in charge of selecting the best solutions to enable the network to perform at its best. To obtain this position, I needed my bachelors in electrical engineering from the University of Hawaii. Because it’s not common to have recent college graduates hired as full-time engineers, my internship experience helped me obtain the position.

What are a few aspects of your job?

I believe one of the most difficult aspects of my job is determining the best method of serving customers when we only have limited information. All of my decisions are based on info, so when we have very little information to work off of, it makes decision making pretty difficult. Maintaining a constantly evolving network by learning new information every day may seem difficult to some, but I really enjoy the challenge.

What was it like filming the Verizon commercial?

I was pretty nervous filming the commercial because I did not have any previous acting experience. My friends and I love watching Silicon Valley, so I was even more nervous when Thomas showed up to film, but he was very accommodating and great to work with. I really enjoyed filming with not only my fellow Verizon engineers, but also the Google engineers who were very fun to work with.

I did not realize it would take an entire day to film a 30 second commercial. There were so many intricacies involved in filming that I was unaware of. For instance, lighting, and continuity of the placement of objects and people when refilming from another angle.

What has been the response from family and friends so far?

My friends, family, and coworkers were extremely excited once I told them I was selected to be appear in a Verizon commercial. Everyone tells me they saw me on TV the other night and what I great job I had done. My dad and boyfriend are embarrassingly proud. They’ll pull up my commercial on their phones and show it to strangers.

If you could be in more commercials, would you do it?

I really enjoyed the experience and I would definitely accept if I was offered a role in another Verizon commercial.

Mercy Luhanga

Talk about your childhood, where you grew up, etc.

I grew up in Malawi (my home country). We left Malawi when I was in elementary school and moved to Botswana where I completed the rest of my schooling (high school and undergrad). I’ve always had an interest in math and science. We grew up in an environment where we were encouraged to be what we wanted to be. Although, I do remember my father always saying we needed at least one teaching subject, because we could always find a job as a teacher!

What is your current position and what education did you need to obtain it?

I am a Senior Radio Frequency Engineer. I have an undergraduate in mathematics and a Master of Science in Computer Science. Any technical degree with a background in mathematics and physics would make one successful in this field.

What are a few aspects of your job?

For this particular position, I do a lot of project management. It involves communicating with different teams, both technical and non- technical. This requires soft skills, which for a typical techie is something that we have to make a conscious effort to work on.

What was it like filming the Verizon commercial?

It was a lot of fun! A welcome departure from the norm. It was very eye opening too! I didn’t know that so much effort and time and so many people were involved in putting together a commercial that would air for less than a minute!

What has been the response from family and friends so far?

Excitement! My cousin in Canada shared the commercial on his Facebook page. Friends have been sharing screen shots they have taken of the commercial, one of my friends even sent me a video of it playing! Coworkers are calling both Kristina and I TV stars – it’s kind of a running joke at work now! My 3-year-old yelled, “Mummy that’s you!” when I first played it for her. Both her and I saw it for the first time on TV this Monday!

If you could be in more commercials, would you do it?

Sure! But I wouldn’t quit my day job, I love what I do!