First, I’ll say that I write under a nom de plume, to guard my mother from posts about my father and sister who no longer want me in their lives.

That said, I was a union scenic painter for the film industry, before I got too sick to work. We would work eight to twelve hours a day. As the shoot crew came on, the hours stayed basically the same, although it would move from five to six or seven days a week.

If it was a local shoot, those hours did not include commuting, which could be an hour each way, if the shoot (e.g. The Village) was on location. Some locations are hard, psychologically.

One prison film I worked on was filmed in a dank prison, long closed down. I look back at my photos, and see that I captured the ray of light coming in a cell from the narrow slit above. Time and time and time again.

We had to spray the cell blocks with oil paint, so we wore respirators and sweated. I got a chemical burn in one room and had too run down the cell block to central and up another to our “shop”. A bathroom. No nurse nearby.

By the time I was the on-camera/stand-by scenic on Q-Tip’s prison musical, Prison Song, I was happy to be there. When you are part of shoot-crew, there is an understanding you know what you’re doing. I didn’t, in some ways, but where it counted, I did.

Shoot crew has no concept of time. This is where money floods. Time is of the essence, so we work insane hours. The location will no longer be available after “X” day, the actors are booked, the permits are running out, Hertzog is not the director, extras are inmates/day-players/money burned with little return, which is why inflatables and CGI are used.

So we were shooting in an occupied prison seventeen hours a day. It took me half an hour to get there. 99% boredom and 1% pure adrenaline. After the final shoot, I loaded up my pup-truck with my kit. Drove home, fishtailing a bit because of a light rain.

Unloaded my kit to my house and drove around the block to find parking. Drove into a utility pole, turning. The pole was bent and some guy dragged me out as the electric lines sent sparks down. The truck was totaled.

I had a bruise on my shin. Two districts of cops arrived. I showed them my documents. They asked if I could have fallen asleep at the wheel.

I don’t know. I do know that I was working a job protected by my unions, IATSE and USA829. The unions may be able to protect the work environment, but they cannot help us when we leave exhausted. And that applies to every part of personal life.

FYI, I hold 12-Step meetings in the Philadelphia prison system. Many people who are part of our Prison Committee have been trying to get Prison Badges for years. It took me three months. As I tell them, I was cleared for the films, to bring in mad property, like razors. No one died.

But me? I did a bit.