It’s 1 am and I go to sleep. I wake up at 5 am to start day 4 of a short film I’m shooting (I'm the director of photography.) 5:45 am I’m loading my car with the equipment- over a hundred pounds of camera cases that I have to carry down 3 flights of stairs. 6:10 I’m in Ann Arbor on the road to set but first I have to pick up the assistant director to car pool and a production credit card at another location. 7:12am we arrive on location 12 minutes late. We’re shooting at a jazz club with a lot of lights, camera setups, scenes, live music, and extras (thanks to all the extras for coming out.) All of this leads to a long shooting day. I have a shooting schedule that has the day planned out with estimate times. Unfortunately, our original schedule accounted for optimism (or dementia) and not reality. Optimism schedules our camera wrap for about 11pm and leaving location with cars packed by midnight. But reality put us down for camera wrap sometime around 2 am with cars leaving location around 3. After dropping off my gaffer (car pool switch option) I return home at about 3:45am. Whew… the day is over! …not quite… At this point, I take the opportunity to carry the hundred pounds of camera cases into my apartment- why the hell did I sign a lease on the 3rd floor? It’s 4 am and I’m done…
I would tell you the rest of this story, which moves from logistics to dementia, instead of writing about it but there’s the kicker: It’s 1 am yesterday and I’m going to sleep with a soar throat. I wake up at 5 am yesterday with a horse voice. Optimism schedules my voice for the whole shooting day because communication is essential on a film set. But reality will only allow a few takes of my voice. After lunch, I’m whispering to all the crew as loud as I can. By the end of the night, I am MOS (for non-filmmakers: this means rolling only camera and not sound.)
It’s 4 am and I’m exhausted. I would jump in bed but I have to pee. I’m in the bathroom with my pants unzipped but my feet are sore, my back hurts, and I’m way too tired to stand up… So I have to pee sitting down.
It’s 4:20 am and I’m still sitting on the toilet. I sort of remember peeing but I’m not sure. I stare at the hair brush on the sink. I follow single hairs through the bristles as if I was in an intricate maze. A maze where the walls move if you jump up and down because the floor is a trampoline.
I get out of the maze and then try to figure out which hairs are whose: Kelly’s (my lovely girlfriend) or mine.
It’s 4:24 am and I convince myself that I’ll never have a hair solution. I justify my dismissal with the remembrance of an old Sunday School fact: “God knows every single hair on your head.”
My feet tingle sorely and I look down at the light blue shag rug, which feels extra squishy at the moment. The bathroom lights start a fluorescent like flicker even though they are incandescent. The light creates a texture on the rug that looks like ocean tides. My feet squish into the sand and the water is cold. I kick some sand on the back of the bathroom door when I realize the imperfections of the door's paint. I imagine a very tired painter who has to paint my whole apartment in one day. Struggling with lack of sleep, he paints the bathroom last. Anxious to be done and to rest he uses more and more paint that ultimately drips and bubbles. Whether or not he’ll redo it again is his decision.
It’s 4:28 am and I let out a weak cough which hangs in the air creeping around the bathroom as if it was a smell from a cartoon. I follow the cough to a small cup on the counter with a candle in it. I wonder if I can make fire by rubbing my hands together. I wonder how long it would take the candle to melt and whether or not my throat would feel better if I gargled hot wax.
I shudder from a cold breeze that puts the candle out. My sweatshirt is on but I don’t know how it works. I’m still cold even with that.
It’s 4:34 and I cannot remember how long I’ve been sitting on the toilet. I’m still not sure if I went so I’m not sure if I should wash my hands. Then I realize I’m really sick and need to wash my hands. I wonder if I could gargle the antibacterial soap and kill whatever bacteria that is inflicting this awful amount of pain on me.
It’s 4:35 and I’ve been sitting on the toilet so long I probably have a ring around my bum.
Yes, I do have the toilet ring around my bum.
It’s 4:36 am and I can’t remember if I’ll remember these interesting shots of words so I get up to go get my laptop. I pull my pants up without wiping- hopefully I didn’t forget that I pooped and thus skipped a wipe. Should I go back and do one for safety?
I return to the bathroom with my laptop and sit back on the toilet. I try to recall my thoughts while typing and keeping up with my fast flow of current thoughts. I certainly could have typed this one from my desk… I’m not sure why I came back to the bathroom. I wonder if anyone else is sitting on their toilet with their computer at this exact same moment. I consider signing on AIM to see if anyone is available to video chat and witness my state of exhaustive sleep deprived dementia.
It seems as though a still camera appeared on the bathroom counter. I pick up the camera and try to take a still photo of myself. I push a triangular button to review it and it turned blurry. I thought of taking another one but realized this was the most accurate self portrait and document of my current state.
I start to doze off for a second but wake to myself deficating. Good thing I’ve been sitting on this toilet for nearly an hour. Otherwise, I could have made a real mess.
I continue to type in hope of completing the record….
I’m not able to right this all down before falling asleep. Hopefully my dreams are as interesting as my blurring thoughts.
I proceed off on a tangent and write a quick poem after staring at my computer for a solid five minutes:
Finder the Universe
Floating hands on the keyboard
The Universe at my desk
The digital screen of my eyelids
Drips like plasma
But to touch is to believe
Tangible and reality differ
So can we believe the digital screen?
When I’m dead I’ll leave a screen saver
[I woke up @ 3pm and discovered that I actually did write all of this… I’m not sure what it all means… P.S. My voice is still lost.]
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hi you have an awesome blog ! :)
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