During my early days, I did a once-a-month freelance shoot at a gospel church. If you've ever seen the church scene from "The Blues Brothers" movie, then you know what this church was like...complete with electric guitars, drum kit, the works.
It was a simple two-camera shoot with a camera in the back balcony and a handheld up front for the cutaways. I normally ran the cutaway camera. On this particular morning, I was feeling quite awful due to a nasty bit of the flu. I would have called in sick, but I needed the cash. So I told the director I'd like to run the balcony camera since it was mostly a lock-down wide shot.
It was the middle of winter. Outside it was a crisp 40 degrees. But with 100 people in the church and the steam heat turned on, things got pretty hot in the balcony. I spent most of my time during the service sitting on a metal chair next to my camera, drifting in and out as I listened to the headset. The heat was getting to me. I hadn't eaten anything for the past day. I'd also taken a full dose of flu medicine before the shoot.
As the church service wrapped up, the director asked me to tighten up the wide shot and follow the preacher as he walked over the pews during the final song. So I stood up to get behind the camera and immediately felt light headed. I clicked on the headset to tell the director that I needed to sit down, but I never made it that far. The last thing I remember was seeing the wall of the church dissolve to white.
The next thing I remember is looking up to see a bunch of people staring down at me as I lay flat on my back. I'd passed out, the camera had fallen on top of me, and I'd cut my head. As I got to my feet, I looked down and the entire church was staring back up at me. The preacher sees me and says into the microphone, "Are ya all right brother David?", I waved at him as I put my headset back on and he says, "Praise the Lord! The holy spirit done got our cameraman!"
