Business screen magazine (1971)

paradox BY STANFORD SOBEL PARADOX: The •'indt-spcnsabk' man" u one person ulonu >vilhou( whom >ou can easily get. RL'cently I did something new for me ... I got sick. I've always been blessed with good health, and e.xcept for an occasional headache or cold, 1 haven't actually been sick in bed since my teenage appendectomy. And suddenly in the middle of my busiest week in the year I found myself laid low by the flu for more than ten days. Dizzy, wan, pale, abdominal distress, aching bones, so weak I could hardly raise my head to cough and sneeze. Now why this recitation of dreary symptomology . . . and from a patient who spends one third of his time writing medical films? Well frankly, because it was all so new to me. Like most healthy people. I always looked upon illness as some mysterious moral weakness which affects other people, who must have done something to deserve the sickness. My own visits to the doctor were for routine physical exams, at the end of which he told me to go out and enjoy life, but first lose twenty-five pounds. Invariably I followed half of his advice. And you can easily tell from my picture above which half of his advice I followed. For no reason very clear to me. this has been the busiest year of my life . . . and it all came due at the same lime. When I accepted the a.ssignments in the first place, they were pretty well spaced out in a perfectly reasonable manner. But then, some projects were delayed, others were moved ahead . . . and some were emergency projects, tossed in at the very last minute. Anyway, all of a sudden, four complete 14 films, three scripts, and four sales convcniions all came due within the same ten week period. In actual fact, I attended two mixes and four interlocks within the same five working days. It was the week following that week in which Father Flu gave me my comeuppance. Being sick in bed is a ver)' humbling experience. The first thing you discover is that the world goes on without you . . . "Indispensable man" though you are to all those producers and clients. How do they manage without you'.* Well, in many ways. A writer friend sits in on an input session in your place and records it all on a tape cassette. A producer presents your script to another client, much to your surprise, since you never thought he could read xilcntly, let alone out loud! (Furthermore, he does a very good job, and sells the script for you, finding many values in it you had not realized were there until he mentioned them to the client.) A quiet, workmanlike, scholarly film editor who had always been very laconic and retiring in your presence, presents an interlock to a client, explaining why things were done the way they were instead of the way originally promised in the script, and also gives "The World Famous Stanford Sobel Pre Interlock Speech Of Explanation Of What 'Vou AreAbout To See And What YouAre 'Not About To See Plus Miscellaneous Apologia", without which no interlock showing is ever really complete. (Obviously, he had heard it so many times before he had memorized it, and all that time I thought he was just shy and retiring.) And then to climax the week a complicated, programmed, multi -media show came off perfectly, even though everything had gone wrong during rehearsals when I was present. My associates called to tell me how well everything had gone as soon as the show was over. Flated. they pointed out to me that when I was home sick in bed, the programmer picked up every signal, the Carousels dissolved on cue, no slides got jammed, the colored lights danced to the proper frequency ranges, the house-lights went down to half and stoppeil without flickering. nobod> fell through an\ screens while snapping on the valences, and .ill four quadriphonic speakers balanced on the first tape. And, they gleefully repeated over th«| sound of my teeth chattering from fever and chills, all this happened so perfectly while I was home in K goofing off! I also learned something about do, tors, today. My doctor is a gov friend. He's young, superbly qualify, deeply concerned with the broader issues of health-care, and good-looking enough that we used him as the lead in a medical film where he played hi« own professional role ... a skilk and knowledgeable internist. He's aU a superb poker player and a regul. member of our group. However, hi. always being called to the phone the middle of the game for consult lions, and it's not unusual for him ; have to leave the game to go over ti^ the hospital, and that happens evert when he's not on call and has soniej one else covering for him. Good friend though he is, I learrii that nobody talks to doctors, althougi sometimes they talk to you. Everyi time I tried to reach him I spoktj either to his answering service, hi^ nurse, or his receptionist. When hi finally called me back directly I askei him who all those people are that hi has to talk to during our f)oker ganv and his answer was crushing . . "Oh, but Stan," he said, "those peopit are really sick!" ■You might think that this traumatic experience changed my life in somr way. I thought at the time that i would myself. But here we are. just . week later, and what has happenc. I'm back to the same kind of schedu' This morning I began with breaki.i with an out-of-town client at his Mar hattan hotel, which meant that I h.i. to leave my house at 6:30 a.m. Tlii we had a mix at 9;00 a.m.. at lit a.m., I went to the office and an swered phone calls and mail, lunched with the TV' Academy people worked on a script from 2-4 p.m worked with an an director and clicn on a storyboard from 4-6 p.m., fin ished at the office at 7:00 p.m.. camt home and had a late dinner, and herii I am writing this colimin at II p.m. I So what did I learn from the ex perience? I learned two things: Num her One: Nobotly is indispensable ex cepi to himself, and Number Two: need a vacation! I also made an im portani resolution . . . I'm going 10 g( on a diet . . . next week. D Stanford Sobel is a hard-working writer, he also writes this column of "Paradox" for each says, who free-lances in New York issue of Business Screen. BUSINESS SCREEr