Tim Saccardo is a comedy writer and director, born and raised in Middletown, Rhode Island. He is currently an Associate Producer on TBS's 10 Items or Less and a writer for The Huffington Post's comedy/news site www.236.com and their Wikipedia parody site www.Dickipedia.org. Tim has written and directed several videos for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre's site www.UCBcomedy.com, one of which won him a Stony Award for Best Web Video from High Times Magazine. He also performs sketch and improv comedy regularly at Hollywood's UCB Theatre and Improv Olympic West.

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Production Blog, Week Four
There are no sick days in television. You just can’t wake up one morning feeling a little under the weather, call into set and say you think you might stay home for the day. On a film set, everybody has a very specific job to do, and nobody can really “cover” for somebody who doesn’t show up at the last minute. A production manager can’t fill in for a boom operator, a grip can’t fill in for a set dresser, and nobody can fill in for a Teamster unless they want to end up in a concrete bridge pylon somewhere with Jimmy Hoffa. So, in short, you can’t get sick.

If you can’t be on set to do your job, somebody else with the same qualifications needs to be hired to replace you for the day. And that process takes a little time and preparation. You might be able to replace a camera operator the night before a shoot, but you can’t just start calling random cameramen at 6am and ask if they can drive to Reseda in the next ten minutes. So you just can’t get sick.

Even if a qualified replacement is able to be found, it still throws a wrench in the whole production because each television show is a completely different organism that functions in its own idiosyncratic way. Being an 2nd Assistant Director on The Office is a lot different than being a 2nd Assistant Director on How I Met Your Mother. And as for 10 Items or Less, as I’ve mentioned before, we’re a completely different beast than any other television show that has ever existed. Our crew has all learned to work together within a very specific/clinically insane system, and as the season moves forward, we gain momentum, getting better and better at it. Throwing somebody new into the mix for even a day or two can kill that momentum. So even if you do give enough warning to find a replacement, you still can’t get sick.

That goes double for actors. A camera assistant can suck it up and pull focus with a runny nose. Grips and electrics can summon all their inner strength and rig a lighting set up with a stomach flu. A Sound Mixer could probably even adjust audio levels while vomiting if they were tough enough. But an actor’s face is on camera, so they can’t get away with glassy eyes and fever sweat beading up on their forehead. Sure, we have amazing makeup artists who do their best to cover up those symptoms, but they can’t put pancake powder on an actor’s throat to disguise a raw, raspy voice. And there’s not enough blush in the world to make a woozy, flu-infected actress not look like she’s about to fall over. When an actor is too sick to work, we simply can’t shoot the scenes they’re in. We just can’t. Which means we have to either rewrite them or reschedule them to another day, both of which send ripple throughout an entire production. Ripples that cost time and money. So actors, especially, can’t get sick.

This goes doubletriplequadruple for one particular 10 Items actor, the star of our show, Mr. John Lehr. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that John appears in 95% of our scenes and is integrally involved in 100% of our storylines. You can’t write Leslie Pool out of a scene, and there is no amount of rescheduling that can create an entire day where he doesn’t need to be on camera. John Lehr can not get sick. But usually once a season, he does.

So what do we do that one time John gets sick? We improvise. Maybe we move the toughest Leslie scene of the day so its right after lunch so John can try to grab a nap before it. And maybe Leslie isn’t standing up in that scene anymore. Maybe he’s sitting behind his desk instead. And maybe Leslie doesn’t talk as much in that scene anymore. Maybe he’s listening to other characters talk and occasionally commenting. Luckily for us, John somehow always manages to summon the energy to still be funny even if he’s been up all night vomiting. He’s a pro.

When somebody in the 10 Items or Less family gets sick, we always find a way to deal with it, but its still preferable that we all keep healthy. Which means a steady intake of Emergen-C, Airbourne, Zicam, and dozens of other brand name vitamin supplements and cold suppressants. It means going to bed an hour after getting home to squeeze in 6 hours of sleep before getting up for work the next morning. It means trying to eat healthy despite all the pop tarts and “fun size” candy bars available for grazing at craft service all day long. And it means wrapping up this blog so I can run to another room before I let out this sneeze I’m holding back, and try to avoid infecting everybody sitting around me. I’m pretty sure I’m getting sick.


The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer/speaker and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.”