Dazza Pictures

During the course of the week I fell sick, assisted in a shoot at the airport, sprained an ankle and pee-ed on a fly.

I woke on Monday morning with sore throat that no amount of Vitamin C effervescent drinks, Zinc capsules and ‘LEMSIP’ could save me from crashing. I ended that very evening with a full-on viral flu/throat infection. Another round of anti-biotics and what-noughts from the Doc’s knocked me out that night and the following Tuesday with a butt-load of photos I have yet to deliver. This was when I semi-regretted agreeing to assist Ming a week before for a 2 day shoot starting the next day. Call-time was scheduled at 630am Wednesday and here I was on a Tuesday afternoon hallucinating, as I saw flying cars drive around my ceiling lights. “Woah! There goes a pumpkin-flavoured Hummer with chicken wings flapping. That’s quite eco-green no?”

Miraculously, I managed to wake that morning and make my way around that day with the condition I was in. Even the rain-machine the production team had called in couldn’t take me down. Eventually, we got the stills for the first day with Ming happy but drenched from the fake rain, the video crew carried on through the night with more CUs and pickups. Poor them.

Day Two had the whole production delayed for 2 hours with security clearance issues at Terminal 3. By the time the first scene was lit, I was thinking about what to order for afternoon tea. “Mmmm, maybe kaya toast and a kopi kao.” With the time between shots where we weren’t needed, Ming and I recce-ed T3 for shots with our armed and uniformed airport security guard tagging along. Apart from being the hired nanny, he actually helped as a stand-in poser. Oh, they get great staff discounts at the eateries BTW.

Somewhere along our waiting, recce-missions and moving lights during our 5 minute stills photo window, I sprained my ankle out of sheer boredom I might add. Well, just for the fun of it. T3 on the inside is really quite big and just walking from the last gate to the immigration check-in will make any NS men curse for reminding them of how unfit they are for IPPT. This was when I made my way to the porcelain throne and pee-ed on a fly.

You know, one the biggest cork-tease is being around the departure lounge not as a traveler but a ‘visitor’ with a 24hr clearance pass. I’m not sure how airport staff resist the urge to just buy a plane ticket to anywhere and hop onto an available flight. Well, not counting air bus drivers, waiters and waitresses, wait Flight Crew, I mean. This reminds me, why I need to take a flight out soon, to just get out. To smell again the autumn air in Melbourne or to get a tan somewhere else. Just to be away for awhile, perhaps to clear my head of ammonia drenched flies and of falling sick every 8 weeks. Something perhaps I should’ve done a long time ago.

More waiting, setting up, taking down, moving locations and us as extras, eventually led us to wrap at half-past midnight. We left the video crew who were still doing more CUs and pickups. Poor them, poor us, poor tired everyone.

Or maybe, they actually had tickets for flights out that morning…