Friday Photo

There’s nothing Directors of Photography hate more than an unlit, and therefore uninteresting wall. Hence the lights hanging over the edge of the roof aiming down. When lit, they’ll make streaks of light on the wall, thus rendering it much more visually interesting than a dark wall in the background.

Filed under: Photos, Work

The more you train, the more you sleep

Time flies – in less than a week, it’ll be a year since I had foot surgery.

Improvements have been small and incremental, as opposed to my sister’s (who’s had the same surgery) painful cracking and spontaneous restoration of range of motion.

Since I haven’t been able to hit it hard (so to speak) at the gym for the past year, I’ve decided to use this hiatus period to do just that.

Work out like hell so when beach season does come around, I’ll be ready.

Actually, that’s a lie – at this point in my life, I’m way past worrying about my weight or what other people think of me (this week. Check back later for changes), so I’m just concentrating on re-gaining the fitness level I had before the surgery.

Currently, that means four days a week of heavy weights (but not as heavy as pulling cable), six days of cardio (two 40 mile bike rides per week, two 1000 meter swims per week, and two hour-long sessions on the elliptical trainer at the gym, since I can’t run any more), and massive napping.

My current workout schedule has me going to bed at an hour that would cause most septuagenarians to point and laugh, but it’s temporary until I adjust to the schedule, and then I’ll be, well, not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but at least not going to bed with the sun.

At least I don’t feel guilty about indulging in the occasional fatty snack or glass of wine.

Filed under: Non-Work

The one where I emerge with my sanity (mostly) intact.

Nothing in the world feels so good as the cessation of something really maddening. The sky is bluer than usual (except today – it’s raining in Los Angeles), the flowers are particularly colorful and life is truly sweet.

Needless to say, the medication finally got on top of things and I’m no longer itching, oozing, or peeling. Two more glass shards later and it looks like the entire episode is behind me (although I’m not certain enough to stop taking the pills).

Even the prospect of spending an afternoon alternately swearing at and attempting to fix the leaky bathroom sink can’t make me feel bad.

And now, since work’s completely dead, I have plenty of time to fix the sink, and everything else around the house that needs fixing. I would call around to see if anyone’s hiring, but most of the people who hire me are posting links on Facebook, so there’s no need for me to do anything other than send a message and say hi. Hello, unemployment.

Normally, this would be the time of year when the features would start up, but all of those have gone out-of-town, so now I’m dead in the water. I’m sure I’ll start panicking about it later, but right now I’m just so glad to feel normal again that I don’t have a care in the world.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Just try concentrating with itchy eyelids.

This past week, I’ve been unable to do anything even remotely related to thinking. About anything, but have especially been unable to sit in front of a computer while my face itches and try to write something other than a string of really choice obscenities.

I haven’t been out much, as said itching has caused my behavior towards other people to become truly deplorable. Also, I now look like a lizard.

No, I’m not green, but the skin around my eyes and on my neck is flaking off and it looks really, really gross and frightens small children (which is actually kind of fun).

After several more visits to the doctor (who has, to date, pulled seven bits of glass from under my eye), I’m now on a medication combo that actually seems to be working so hopefully I’ll be back to normal very soon.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Ow. My eye. Again.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the hanging lamps over the set exploded – well, the lamp didn’t explode, the globe inside the lamp exploded. This happens sometimes. Movie lights use globes (a fancy word for lightbulb) that burn at very high temperatures. Touching the glass of the globe with one’s bare hands results in a weak spot in said glass that after being at a high temperature will turn a funny color, swell up, and eventually… kapow.

This particular lamp was a Source Four, which, due to the way they’re constructed, are particularly prone to blowing globes at the worst possible moment (although they don’t usually completely disintegrate. Normally they just turn a funny color and stop working). Lucky for us, this one exploded when no one was in the set so the only person affected by the shower of glass raining down onto a very expensive sofa was the guy who had to vacuum it up.

And me. After several futile attempts to remove the remnants of said globe, I gave up and took the entire lamp down, lowered it to the ground, taped the hell out of it to stop it from leaking any more glass, sent it back to the rental house and then went on about my day.

Turns out, I managed to get several very small bits of glass (each about the size of a grain of sand) embedded in the skin just under my right eye. I don’t know if there were bits of glass flying about, or if I touched some and then rubbed my face, or there was blowback from when I tried to tug the fixture loose.

The eye started to get all red and puffy and when I ran my finger over the skin, I could feel the little bits of glass, but couldn’t manage to dislodge them. The doctor managed to get two of them out, and then told me that the rest of them would just have to work their way out and to come back when my eye got all sharp and pointy again.

Which is what I did – a few more office visits, a few more glass bits removed. I figured it would all just sort itself out in a non-dramatic way.

Then, Sunday, I broke out in hives. The first one was right under the eye where the glass shards had been. Then, yesterday, I had what looked like spectacles made of hives surrounding both eyes. If you’ve never had the bad luck to have hives break out all around your eyes, I can assure you it really. fucking. sucks. Luckily, it’s also easily hide-able with big sunglasses.

Then, this morning, I got a patch of hives right on the front of my throat – where an Adam’s apple would be were I male. So now, wearing my big glasses and a scarf around my neck, I went back to the doctor where he gave me some steroid cream to smear on my face and told me he thought I was having an allergic reaction to something in the glass shards (remember, it’s not normal glass), and until they finished working their way out, there wasn’t really anything he could do.

Bastard. Tell me something I couldn’t have figured out on my own.

Guess the steroids are working. I’m much angrier already and my eyelids are suspiciously muscular*.

At least the eye hives are much less noticable tonight. Since I have to work tomorrow, we’ll just have to hope that they stay that way.

*Yes, I do know the difference between anabolic and corticosteroids. Sometimes you have to work for the joke.

Filed under: hazardous, mishaps, Work

Friday Photo

Last night, we were shooting in the front yard of an absolutely gorgeous Craftsman home, which had, of course, been meticulously restored (and filled with beautiful antique furniture) by the very nice owners. Even though we weren’t shooting inside, we still had to put lights into the house in order to illuminate the windows.

Why they let us inside the place was beyond me. To protect the original woodwork (breathtaking, of course) and floors from us, everything was draped in bubble wrap.

Which is good – it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Filed under: locations, Photos, Work