the axe effect

Sometimes, I think the thing I excel at is axing my own foot. Then I don't stop there, the toes are all chopped up too. Gross? Yeah, I know. But that's how it feels right now. I did a bit of chopping unknowingly. And now that I've realized - I'm sort of..chopped up?

I won't quote personal life examples - you wouldn't believe me. So we'll stick to work, for now. And in this mission to be a part of an 'honest' campaign - we pitched for some pro bono work. I thought it would be good to do that..you know..help out..and sell something REAL as opposed to sugar-coated lies.

It's been a nightmare. What I didn't realize was that the client feels that since it's all for free - they can eat up as much of your time and resources. So the last few months have been outstanding when it comes to 'wasted time'. Yesterday, while standing under the blazing sun for hours and feeling my brains slowly getting fried - I realized I'd done it to myself again. I'd walked into this with my eyes open. We were shooting the tv commercial and the director (not of our liking) was seriously lame. They kept taking this one shot that wasn't set up right - hence the repeated execution kept coming out wrong. Colleague and I were trying not to pull out the grass beneath our feet and start chewing it. Really. We were two mad people standing in the middle of this park with trillions of crotch-scratching bystanders watching with open mouths and a director that couldn't direct his hand to hit his own face if he tried.

I tried to 'suggest' to the director that perhaps we should MOVE some things - re-arrange. And he gave me this look and dismissed me with a wave of his hand and mumbled something about moving the entire set-up instead of moving one person to just fix the problem. So we keep standing as the crew starts to move the lights, set the reflectors blah blah. And unfortunately, none of us have that kind of relationship with God that we could ask Him to 'hold the light'..so the sun MOVED. *gasp* How could it?? The sun?! It MOVED?? Disaster.

I just sat down on the grass. I kept thinking maybe we could try eating some as I thought about that Wimbledon tagline last year "This year, men and women will get high on grass." Hrm. Then, as I randomly looked around, I saw a group of three guys sitting in a not-so-hidden corner and rolling a joint. Riiiight. Then I saw couples walking hand in hand. It was...interesting. Who says we're not a liberal nation? Did YOU know that people happily walk around in parks holding hands? Did you know that they openly sit huddled together on benches? Did you?? I didn't. I took some pictures too. Evidence. We're a sorted nation. We're twisted too but clearly, we're not shy.

*sigh*

And we sat on and on. The fact that the sun moved was a huge issue. Then since the sun had moved anyway, director decided to take an extra-long prayer break. By now, I was seriously considering eating the grass. When he returned, we started the whole thing all over again. I think the bystanders thought the shoot would get exciting. It never did. It's a boring ad. We just kept throwing paper planes and shooting those against the sky.. *shrug* This is one tv commercial we won't tell people we made. Seriously.

And so, my brains are fried and I've chopped my foot off. I'm hobbling. And people at work are blaming me because they're all traumatized because "YOU said you wanted to do something NICE! Look what that brought on!"

This gives the line 'the axe effect' an entirely new meaning now doesn't it...

Oops.

24/07/07; 11:30am