Visas - the bane of my existence

America - the land of opportunity. I remember seeing something (perhaps on 'Stephen Fry In America') that said that America had some huge stretches of unprotected border and was surprisingly easy to enter. Pah! America is the land of no opportunities, the land surrounded by huge walls constructed of ridiculous protocol and beaurocracy.
I'm ranting because for the past three weeks I've been attempting to secure temporary work visas to go shoot a commercial in the US. (Please note I'm not trying to secure visas for the purposes of drug smuggling, terrorism or any other unsavoury activities.) Upon asking around the office about where to start I was met with sighs and tales of woe about how no one had ever been able to get a temporary work visa in time and they would always either lose the job or go shoot it somewhere else.
But ever the optimist I soldiered on. There must be a way! How naive I was. I called a couple of visa consultants for advice on which visa we should be applying for. With one type of temporary work visa you need to go through a US lawyer and get a petition from the US saying they want you, you also need to have a degree in the specific area relating to what you're doing there. With another type of visa you don't need any of that stuff but what you're shooting has to be news or informational. Already tiny 'problem' flags are going up in my mind.
I was advised to send an email to the embassy outlining what we were doing. They would then reply telling me which visas would be most suitable to apply for. Great. So I sent the email. No response. Hmmm that's weird. I'll call them up to see what's going on. Oh I can't speak to anyone at the actual embassy? I have to speak to some chump in a call centre in Scotland? "Hi Scotland! So what's going on with my email? Oh you can't access the database? So what kind of visa should I be applying for? Oh I see you don't know anything. I should send a new email with a new reference number?" And so it begins again. I've now been through this cycle 4 times.
Why America? Why won't you reply to my emails? Why don't you want us? We're good people really. Please let us in! *silence*
So the moral of the story is: don't bother in the first place. Seriously. You'll never get that time back.