My Not So Glamorous (Work) Life

For the last couple of days I’ve been supervising a video shoot for a client hospital in Massachusetts. We do this kind of thing all the time. We fly into a market with our video crew, spend an afternoon setting up for the shoot, and then spend several days shooting 10 to 12 physicians per day. I typically conduct the physician on-camera interviews because I enjoy the interaction with the physicians – and I love the challenge involved in getting them to relax on camera, allowing their personalities to shine in a way that will make them relatable and interesting. While we have the doctors captive, we also shoot still photography that can be used in promotional materials and in digital applications. Here’s an example of the type of videos we’re producing:

After leaving home at 5am on Tuesday to catch an early flight, we arrived at the client’s facility at 1pm and began setting up for the shoot. The crew and my team left the hospital at 10pm Tuesday night and we had a very late dinner. The security people at the hospital promised to meet us at 5am the following day to let us back into the facility where we would be shooting. Everything was proceeding according to schedule. (Famous last words.)

Wednesday morning arrived with a 4:30am wake-up call. After a quick stop at Starbucks, the crew headed to the hospital to prepare for our first physician of the day who was scheduled to arrive for hair and makeup at 6am. When we arrived at the facility, the building was open but the rooms with our equipment were locked and there was no security person to be found. It was nearly 6am before we found a security person who could unlock the rooms.

That meant that we were starting the day at least 40 minutes behind schedule and we had doctors stacked up. Waiting. Anxious. Not a good start.

By 6:40 am we were shooting our first physician of the day. (Our second physician had already arrived and number three was on the way.) That’s when the craziness started. Typically, there’s not a lot of noise at 6:30 in the morning. However, because it had been raining for days, the landscaping crew was getting an early start to try to catch up on lawn maintenance. We had loud mowers and trimmers running right outside the room where we were shooting. The noise made it impossible to film, and we attempted to have the workers go elsewhere for the day. However, they weren’t sensitive to our plight and continued on with the mowing. So, we were forced to shut down for another 20 minutes, putting us further behind schedule. Meanwhile, more physicians were arriving for the dreaded video session. (This is not something most physicians look forward to.)

At 8am we were hard at work interviewing our third physician of the day when we suddenly heard the sound of heavy machinery. We stopped what we were doing and looked out the window. There it was. A big yellow backhoe digging a huge hole in the yard of our building. They chose this moment in time to dig this hole! We managed to get the operator of the backhoe to stop what he was doing and agree to come back later in the day when we were on break. Then we resumed work recording the physician videos. About an hour later we were interrupted yet again, this time by a large dump truck that was there to deliver a truck load of gravel to be used by the guys with the backhoe. Throughout the morning the interruptions continued. But we carried on.

And that’s the way our day unfolded. In the end, we captured some great video footage and took some amazing still photos. We recorded ten physicians and one patient between 6:40am and 7:30pm when we finally wrapped for the night. Then I raced off to have dinner with a client. I finally made it back to my hotel by 10pm.

My hope is that we’ll get off to a much smoother start on Thursday morning. We’ve got eleven physicians and two patients scheduled for the day. After a total of 10 hours of sleep across the last three nights, I can’t wait! My enthusiasm has not waned. Bring on the physicians.

Here are some shots that I took with my iPhone during the shoot: