One very, very long day

I had a quick trip to NYC last Thursday to do a video shoot for one of our corporate clients. I love to travel and don't mind quick trips but this one left me dragging!

My day went like this:

Up at 4am and at the airport by 5am to catch a 6am flight. We arrive in NYC around 7:30 and grab a cab into the city. The $80 cab ride takes about an hour.

I'm traveling light....only a video camera, tripod, monitor, tapes and batteries. I've hired a local grip to supply the audio and light package. Still, I've got about 50lbs of gear to lug around.

We arrive in lower Manhatten and my day of shooting begins. We're shooting in an office building so I grab some exterior shots before moving inside. Our contact has provided us with an unused conference room to shoot our interviews. Naturally, the room is way too noisy due to the A/C so we begin our search for a quiet office to film in. We finally find one that will work and set up to shoot an interview with the main subject. Oh, I should mention that this is a marketing video. The company we're filming uses our clients products and loves them so we're simply shooting customer testimonials.

We finish shooting his interview and I proceed to shoot other footage to support the interview. This includes shots of people using the product and we shoot another quick interview with a co-worker.

Lunch time arrives and we head across the street to look for a place to eat. We stumble on a nice Italian place that, at first glance, looks like a small family place. Once inside, the hostess takes us downstairs where we're greeted by waiters in tuxedos and shown to a table. This place is obviously a bit larger, and more expensive, than we thought! The meal turns out to be wonderful and the bill reflects the quality. $135 for three people. Oh well, it's New York, what do you expect?

Back to work. I finish shooting all the B-roll footage that I can think of. By now, it's around 3:30. Our flight doesn't leave for home until 9:30. We decide to wander over to the World Trade center site and pay our respects. It's very moving to stand there and image all the horror that happened on 9/11.

We walk back and gather up our gear. We say our goodbyes to the customer and my grip. My client and I grab a taxi back to the airport to see if we can get an earlier flight.

At the airport, we find that there are no other flights so we settle in for a long, long wait. Around 7:00 we grab a bite to eat. Did I mention that restaurants are not cheap in NYC, especially in the airport? After eating, we make our way to our departure gate for our 9:30 flight only to be told that our flight is going to be delayed. By this time, I'm feeling pretty tired. I just want to get home. We settle in to wait and I try reading my book that I brought along, only to find myself nodding off.

Finally, around 10:45 our flight arrives and we board. I've never been able to sleep well on airplanes but I manage to nod off a bit on the 1.5 hour flight home.

On the ground in Raleigh finally and it's after midnight. By now, I've been awake for over 20 hours. Our luggage takes forever to arrive but it's finally on the conveyer. I drop my client off at his car back at my office and head for home. My head hits the pillow around 2:00 and by 2:02 I'm fast asleep.

All in all, it was a good day but damn! I'm glad I don't work like this all the time!!