Comments

ushere wrote on 8/26/2015, 6:37 PM
excellent article mike, thanks.

in my experience it only takes one mistake on set to seriously put you in your place forever ;-)
stbo wrote on 8/27/2015, 2:55 PM
Wow - take this article and apply it to any job - in any walk of life. the world would be a whole better place. To me, it can be summarised in one word - Respect.
Serena Steuart wrote on 8/28/2015, 6:50 AM
Good one. I think only once did I comment that a job wasn't teaching me. But it was, as I realised later.
rmack350 wrote on 8/28/2015, 7:33 PM
It *may* apply to every workplace, but I don't think people can maintain an on-set ethic on a daily basis. I know when I moved from freelance grip-electric work to a day job I was very frustrated with the people I encountered. A production crew is willing to be wrung a lot dryer than people in it for the long haul.

The thing about job-to-job production work is, for most of us, every day is a first day on the job. You want to be good, you want to make an impression, and normally you haven't had enough time to start seeing it as raking leaves in a perpetual autumn. You want to excel, and if you've got experience that's what you do. It also helps that the people on the crew are constantly shifting from job to job. You get lots of variety in production. It's a good job for creative problem solvers with short (but not tiny) attention spans. It's a lousy job for people who don't notice details.

<Edit>I didn't really explain what frustrated me about people with regular jobs. It's hard for me to put my finger on it but I think production people have more of a "Can do!" attitude. And the workplace politics are different when you know you'll move on to another gig soon, and you're going to get hired tomorrow based on your reputation today. There's certainly butt-covering, but you don't have to do it for decades, only days.

Rob
ushere wrote on 8/28/2015, 9:24 PM
nicely put rob...

my three stints in full-time studio employment left their mark.

1. bbc - i was very young but eager to learn. i was well taught in a very narrow framework but union type demarcation lines limited my horizons. i might add i'm all for unions though. (about 18 months)

2. cannon films - the exact opposite of the bbc. i was constantly being thrown in at the deep end in every aspect of production and exhausted trying to keep my head above water. (4 years - though it felt like 20)

3. high end production facility - great environment for learning both the latest equipment and the actual 'business' of the industry, meeting people, making a huge variety of contacts, but endless in house politics and training wannabes with no intelligence finally got to me. (4 years also)

however, running my own facility / house and employing a variety of every changing freelancers had me getting up with the (great) feeling that every day was a new day on the set ;-) (25 years and still counting)