Bedridden

I got struck down.

While I hitherto managed to pull through every cold since the beginning of the course (and there have been some in that British weather, let me tell you!), this time I was not too lucky.

I already wrote in my last post that I felt a bit sickly and during the course of the weekend, that feeling quickly developed into a fully fledged flu with high fever. beginning pneumonia, and severe muscle ache. As I was so ill that I was unable to even sit upright for more than half an hour, I called in sick at college, and hoped that the Grim Reaper would kindly spare me the rest. He didn't.

Our crew received the deadline extension on Monday and immediately rescheduled the final shoot for Thursday. I was still feeling unwell but since the fever has finally begun to sink, I was positive that I would be back on my feet for the remaining eight shots.

As I had to accept yesterday evening, I was wrong.

The fever didn't break and I was still very wobbly on my feet, so I decided to tell the other's that I won't be able to make it and started delegating the task and preparing paperwork.

Since Has has been doing a great job on the pop promo, I immediately had him in mind for taking my role and when he accepted, I prepared all the relevant documentation for him to have a look through: the storyboard, the shot list (aka emergency call sheet), screenshots of the material I shot so far and the camera settings that I used for that particular location (which was 1080/25p. an f. of 2.4 and no white balance whatsoever, since I liked the atmosphere the light produced on location - and on camera - and any previous experiments with white balancing repeatedly put me off and seemed so much less in terms of visual quality that I decided to let it be and experiment with no white balance for a change).

To give you a better idea, here are my rushes for the project so far. These are, mostly, without sound, since our client wanted the project to mainly have soundtrack instead of dialogue:

Despite my sickness, these preparations made and the shooting day being rescued, I still have an extremely bad conscience. I don't particularly like to give away my responsibilities, as I take them very seriously and don't like to 'pawn off' my work to others. However, it still is a valuable lesson in communication, ego-management and responsibility.

For there will always be a fair possibility that a film project is challenged by crew members falling ill. And while some people are often able to pull through despite a minor cold, sometimes you just have to take responsibility in a different way and accept the boundaries your health sets you. That also entails proper communication as well as preparation in advance so that the whole crew is one the same page as you and still prepared.

Which makes me reevaluate the actual documentation we have to put in. While it is easy to be quickly annoyed by the amount of paperwork and lose sight of why it is so important, I was able to experience its value first hand when I fell ill:

Having done my paperwork and scanned it as quickly as possible, whenever possible, meant for me that I only needed to compile the files and send them off to our producer and Has. This entire endeavour took less than ten minutes and it still allowed the others to have full insight into what I have been doing on set and made that entire business of finding a replacement for me almost ridiculously easy.

And while my crew has already finished today's shoot a couple of hours ago, I am now lying in my bed, this time taking responsibility for my health.