Smoke Got in My Eyes

I had a shoot on Sunday that involved close to 150 extras and actors. While kinda fun, it left me suffering from excessive smoke inhalation.

I was standing right in front of where the smoke machines were, and once they were turned on, I simply could not breathe. It wouldn't have been half as bad if they'd just stuck to the machines, but because they didn't have enough of them they had to use smoke produced from burning joss sticks. Now these were the real killer. Their smoke is so noxious and thick, it's almost like tear gas. Your eyes start to water, and your lungs choke, shrivel up and die.

It's not that I didn't know what to do in the event of smoke - you drop to the ground, where there is always a tiny layer of fresh air. Unfortunately I was holding a camera and shooting the damn scene, so I didn't have that option. In fact, half the time my camera was shaking because I was coughing so damn much.

I was coughing so much, I couldn't even smoke a regular cigarette. It was like my lungs were screaming, "We've had enough smoke to kill a baby elephant, and you're still forcing us to take more? No fucking way!"

So now I've been suffering from respiratory problems for the past two days. Which kinda sucks because I'm going to karaoke today. Let's see how it turns out.

War of the Worlds premiere tonight. Woohoo.