Vacation Can't Come Soon Enough!

So this morning I get a call from the PAD (I'm still not even sure what this stands for, Photo Assignment Desk maybe? Photo Assignment Director? Whatever, it's the person who schedules all of the day's assignments) telling me that my 2:00 sports portrait and 7:00 high school play have been reassigned to other photographers because I would be doing video of the very same high school play.

The play is controversial, and has been for some time. When the school's drama club took their plans for the play to their principal, they were shot down immediately, on the grounds that the play was too racy. They, and the community, made a big first amendment stink (and rightly so), and so their play finally opened tonight.

It's not like we haven't had months of notice on this... I can't figure out why the photo department only found out this morning at around 10am that we'd need to shoot a video of this. That meant going there on the night of the play and interviewing cast and crew and faculty advisers, something that would have been much better accomplished in the days leading up to opening night. But here I was, showing up backstage an hour and a half before curtain and the director gave me himself and three of his student thespians to interview. Very accommodating.

I had to leave at intermission so that the video could be finished by midnight... Deadlines and all... My problem, and I didn't realize this until I'd started editing, is that none of the actors I'd interviewed had any sort of significant role in the first half of the play! So now I'm stuck with interviews of kids I have no "action" shots of.

This is how it ended up:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071101/VIDEO01/71101066

Tomorrow's my last day of work before heading out on a much needed vacation. We're going to visit my brother, and it couldn't have come at a better time. I was already anticipating a let-down following Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and the Breeders' Cup, but to add video on top of it, well, that's really just adding insult to injury. Like I said, this vacation couldn't have come at a better time.

Be back soon. Be good while I'm gone!