This is our life right now. Real or not real?

Today is our third (or fourth, I really don't know) day in Athens. It's been a whirl wind of sites and museums and getting yelled at in Greek. It's been about 85 degrees everyday in Athens and it's exhausting to shoot in the brutal sun. Our crew have been troopers though, hauling the camera equipment up and down the acropolis to the Parthenon, across the city, in the subway, through museums, etc. Honestly I'm surprised no one has passed out from dehydration yet. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen. But hey, I'm working on my tan and making up for being lazy in LA. The afternoon is my favorite time of day because it's breezy and cools down enough that I am perfectly comfortable sitting outside a cafe, eating gelato, and creeping on passersby with my camera.

It's unbelievable to think of where we've been in the past week and a half. I've seen the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus, the stadiums where the original Olympic Games took place, one of the ancient Roman roads (still in tact) and ran a lap around the Paranthenaic Stadium. As an athlete, the later was a dream come true.

But while the sites have been gorgeous, it's the streets that I find the most beautiful. As I sit and write at a cafe I am watching some local kids play soccer in the street, listening to a political rally happening not too far away, and what I find most intriguing is that at any given moment I can hear roughly five different languages being spoken. Given Greece's currently economic state, I'm reminded that the richness of the culture I am experiencing right now is partly because we are in a touristy part of Athens, and this street doesn't adequately display the people of Athens, but it is beautiful all the same.

Shifting gears a little I realized I haven't explained much about what I am actually doing in Greece or what a typical day looks like for the film crew. I usually start my work for the day the night before, researching the sites we're visiting and figuring out how to shape the interviews. Much of that is done with the help with my professor but the actual interviews he's letting me do alone which is a ton of fun. The crew has a different assigned job each day including lighting, camera, audio, production assistants, and director. On lighter days we only take one camera but on heavier days we take two. We lug the gear to the site, tagging along with the bible class. Once we get there we break away and set up the shot for the first interview. The interviews are stressful as we are on a serious time crunch because we can't start the interviews until our guide has finished talking to the bible class. This usually gives us about a 30-45 minutes to conduct interviews so when you include tear up and tear down it's a very quick turn around. Plus there's only a little pressure when 35 people are waiting for you to finish. While the team is setting up for the interview I bounce back and forth listening to what David, our tour guide that we interview, says to the bible class and making sure everything is going smooth with the camera. Once he's done talking I prep him for the interview and as we finish setting up. Then directly after David we tear down and move to a different shot for Bob Yoder Campus Pastor (BYCP) and repeat the same. It's hectic but exhilarating. Yesterday our team did three interviews on top of the acropolis, next to the Parthenon, in midday heat, in an intense crowd, in about an hour and a half. I was very proud of how well the team worked together.

I had a brief moment where I wished I could be simply touring the Parthenon and taking pictures instead of running around filming but then I realized that I get to help produce a video at the Parthenon which is ten times better than a measly photo. It's all about perspective. As Sammy just told me:

"How amazing is it that we are listening to this [currently olympic games music] and sitting so close to the Parthenon? This should be in a movie or something."