Australian Creative cover story sneak peek extract

A subdural empyema and induced coma; an amputation; broken teeth; a near fatal explosion. Sonia Caeiro discovers the not-so-average month in the life of a new production company and how it almost all fell apart.

Your brain stops working. You can see and hear, but you cannot speak, or remember your name or what a glass of orange juice is. You can't write as the impulses translating data to thought, thought to speech, govern the ability to write them down. You have woken from a coma and brain surgery, dazed and immobilised, terrified. As the creative director of the newest post house in town, you have no words, no pictures and from the grey cloud of unconsciousness you come out fighting, but know not what you're fighting for, or against. All Garry Jacques knew, was that he'd had a very bad headache.

On a crispy blue winter Sydney day, the Heckler office is not unlike most busy production companies. The phones buzz merrily and the creatives are strapped to their screens. The flowers and object d’art are elegant and the place is cool. There is just one major difference here – the abiding memory of the nightmare that sang the shop's death knell before it had barely opened its doors.

"We were killing it," says executive producer Will Alexander. "But we almost killed ourselves, literally."

Australian Creative's last story on Heckler was a year ago – the all-star team drawn from some of the best houses in town, celebrating the opening, their win of the Gruen Transfer pitch and everything looking bright. Within a few weeks, not only was the future wearing shades, it needed them for the anguish the chain of events brought about.

In mid December a prolonged headache became a series of seizures and the next thing Jacques knew was that he was waking up to a room of machines, strapped to a bed, heavily sedated with a brain he did not recognise.

On Christmas Eve head of 2D Jamie Watson took a hit in an unfortunate fall, badly cracking his front teeth. He spent Christmas Day battered, bruised and mildly sorry for himself.

On Boxing Day head of 3D Mick Watson created havoc in his quiet suburban street when the fire department in full siren-pealing glory and the Hazard Material team came barrelling through the domestic enclave after a near fatal chlorine bomb explosion at his home.

Just days later on New Year's Eve an almost tragic lawnmower accident left Alexander at St Vincent’s emergency room having a toe amputated as he too joined the ranks of the fallen.

Almost all of them crossed paths in the hospital hallways. It would have looked like a sore and sorry bunch from above, and no doubt managing director Leo Zamboni was left wondering if he had a business at all.

So it was on the January 4 this year, with no staff, no people power and little furniture bar a couch and a laptop, that Alexander half stumbled into the creaky lift to Heckler HQ. He stared around the empty room. His team had been felled like an old growth forest, his close friend and colleague had almost died and his foot hurt like hell. Delirious with morphine, his prevailing sense of urgency was to drum up the work. There was nothing left to do but to simply pick up the phone.

The battle for survival was on and what happened next was nothing short of extraordinary. In the sparse Surry Hills digs the phone began to ring. Many of the calls were to express concern and offer help in the wake of Jacques’ illness. Some came from competitors. Others were from clients.
"A lot of people wanted us to fail," says Alexander. "But you know, there was and is still a lot of love out there."

Preliminary conversations for this story yielded many "it's not brain surgery" and "best foot forward" jokes. There is an easy self-effacement with which Jacques and Alexander unravel the details of the drama. They frequently speak as if they were one person, an overlapping torrent of wisecracks. Jacques glosses over much of it, with a pun and expressive hand gesture – the thick northern English accent sometimes so deadpan you have to check twice.

You don’t have to dig too deeply however to get an inkling of the true distress and its implications in the months that followed.

This is the introduction to this issue's cover story. To read the full story see the latest Australian Creative.