How To Work On A Movie Set
A picture set is a magical place. Well, that is what the people who pass them on the street call up. As someone who has worked very long hours on gear up, I don't want to say the magic disappears — information technology doesn't — but it does clothing very thin after the fourteenth hour of piece of work, on the fourteenth day, of the umpteenth production of a boy-meets-daughter, girl-likes-a-vampire, they-all-road-trip-to-Vegas thought. Nevertheless, most people on set have a passion for their work and wouldn't trade it for any other chore, and I experience the same.
I am writing this post in the spirit of camaraderie, for the people who are interested in working on a film prepare and want to brand their first days as trouble-costless as possible. I know this post may paint a film set as a scary, stressful identify — which information technology is — just information technology is as well a identify where you tin brand instant lifelong friends. There is a bond in going through difficult times together and that leads to many people finding out exactly who yous are, for both skilful and ill, as yous can't hide your true self when you are dead tired.
Also, while many of these rules apply as law on big budget sets, they are a bit more than flexible on smaller upkeep or no-budget sets. I kept the list to viii, merely feel free to let me know what I may have missed!
1. The golden rule: don't exist a jerk
Long hours, tough working conditions, and personality conflicts can pb to people getting agitated and becoming cranky, and while not ideal, it is understandable. It is the person who is on set, constantly barking orders, or for whom nothing is ever good enough or fast enough that people cannot stand working with. They accept the mood of the set and crush it. It can be a director, a producer, a DoP or whatever higher position on set where they have some amount of power. I see this most often though on smaller productions rather than larger ones as the difference in feel levels of coiffure members tin atomic number 82 to slower scene ready ups.
I besides meet brand new directors who try to jam 2 days of shooting into one and expect everyone to make it happen even though they need that sixth take. It tin end with yelling, and no 1 likes working on a set up like that.
If you are on-set and you act like this, you will find it very difficult to detect people who want to work for or with you lot. So don't be a jerk. Just do your job well and if people aren't meeting your expectations, tell their section head, and if that is yous, pull them aside and explain kindly what information technology is you need.
2. Don't interrupt the director, especially when they are working with actors
You will often need an firsthand answer to a question to be able to continue to practise your task. Does the director desire milk or sugar in his java? How many extras should exist in this scene? Nosotros need to lose the helicopter scene, is that OK? All these questions need answers, but they may not always demand to come up from the director. Try asking the 1st Banana Managing director (1st Ad), who is in charge of the logistics of the film, well-nigh questions and yous may go answers that makes asking the director unnecessary.
Sometimes, and especially on much smaller productions, there may not exist a 1st Advertising, or y'all may be a get-go time 1st AD yourself and you are the one needing to know how to answer all these questions and the manager is the merely ane to ask. Unless the question is one of extremely, extreme importance — such as, the police are request for a permit and we don't have ane — don't interrupt the manager while he or she is speaking with the actors.
1 of primary roles of the managing director is working with the actors to become the performances they desire, and the relationship betwixt managing director and actor is extremely important. It is fragile, often emotional, work that requires extreme concentration and a kind of bubble that needs to remain unbroken so that they can do the hard work of getting the functioning to the right place. So, don't be the one to pierce this bubble and incur the wrath of the director. Your options are to try to find someone else who may have your reply, wait until there is a break in the conversation between actor and director, or if it won't be a disastrous idea, make the decision yourself.
3. Share your opinions, only call back to be a squad player
I volition preface this by saying that if you are hired to do an artistic chore, your gustation is a large part of why you were hired and having opinions, even strong ones is warranted, and often wanted. All the same there are people who, when given a solid no from someone higher upwards on the concatenation of command, will non take that as the last word. When they repeatedly bring up the same issue, they are dissentious their own reputation as someone who is not able to piece of work on a squad. The no was given with a reason, be it the time it would take, the budget, the director'south preference, whatever it is, and then once you get a solid "no," motility on, and movement frontward with the team decision.
four. Don't testify upwardly on fourth dimension — show up early
This should be obvious, merely in the film earth, fourth dimension is money, and lots of it. Everyone, I echo, everyone is expected to testify up a bit early. Even if you are on a no-upkeep set, make certain you become into the habit of showing up at least 15 minutes early to grab your coffee and be ready to roll at the call time.
This is non a regular task where you can make up the ten minutes you're belatedly at the end of the day. There is no mercy due to traffic, train delays, weather, or the coming of the apocalypse. There is only this fiscal (likewise artistic) automobile that needs to grind forward. All cylinders need to be firing together in harmony at the start fourth dimension to make the picture show engine run smoothly. If 1 person shows upward belatedly, it tin can have a knock-on effect and wearisome everything down.
5. Never handle equipment from another section
Y'all may experience like you are helping, but trust me, you are not. Equipment can be dangerous. Leave that calorie-free stand where it is, even if you call up it is in the way or in a dangerous location, and unless yous are in the grip or lighting department, y'all should never touch grip or lighting equipment. It is not only a bad idea because information technology will confuse and irritate them, merely it is also potentially very dangerous. Before y'all touch or move, ask them if they tin can move it. This goes the aforementioned for people from whatever department moving equipment that belongs to whatsoever other section. Lighting should never touch Fine art Department property, Camera Department should never touch Audio Department equipment, and and so forth.
As a bonus side note, there is almost always a craft table. If you see food that is not on that table, MAKE Sure it is not nutrient that is meant to be used in a scene before even thinking most eating it. And when in doubtfulness, never eat food that could exist part of a scene.
half-dozen. Always follow the concatenation of command
Flick sets are rigorously hierarchical and people are expected to strictly follow the concatenation of command. For those who haven't had feel of working on a set before, information technology'south military machine-style in the sense that you lot report to your superior, who in turn reports to their superior. If you take a suggestion or a complaint you directly it to your supervisor who can and then decide to take it further using their sentence.
This basically means if you lot have an issue or annotate about the scenery, let'due south say the background could employ a popular of colour and you retrieve that a brighter lampshade would make a world of departure. In this example, you are a Product Assistant (PA), so you would take that thought to the Key PA who would and then, if they decided it was a positive idea, would have it to the 1st AD, who then could take it to the Art Section. Yep, that is a lot of steps for one comment to reach someone for the ultimate decision, but I think that is the purpose.
This is not a free-range, open-source, loosely-making-a-picture-past-committee system. This is a structured arrangement organized for maximum efficiency. You lot may disagree with it on principle, and in that location are many who do, seeing it as a commercialization of a creative endeavor, but the system does piece of work to put out movies that are extremely circuitous in scope and upkeep. Also, if everyone went to the manager and said, "Hey Ms. Managing director, I have an idea. What if you did the scene this way?" practice you call back that would be a productive system?
7. Don't mumble
If information technology is your starting time time on set y'all are probable at a low-level position, possibly PA, where they will expect you to get coffee and run people effectually town. And you may exist doing this for no money. That tin can be pretty hard to consume, only let me give you lot a piece of communication. Swallow that pride, and don't be the person who complains nigh existence asked to assistance. Just don't be that person. Be the can-practice-attitude person. Film career longevity is congenital on force of will and relationships. Forcefulness of will to exist able to survive the long hours, days, and months. The film relationships are built on being reliable, knowing your job in and out, existence resourceful, and your attitude. I have been employed and employed many people over the years and hired several people simply in one case. Always think, how I should act if I desire to keep working? Everyone has optics on everyone at all times. Be positive, exist good at your job, and exist reliable. That will get y'all noticed and keep yous employed.
As an example, the prototype below is me and my assistant sitting atop a very shaky scaffolding for four-plus hours for a timelapse, so we had to suppress all want to motion and later to shudder from the cold as the scaffolding would shake with the smallest movement. Information technology wasn't fun, simply it needed to go washed. I won't say there was nothing grumbling, but we kept it to a blank minimum.
8. If you don't know, ask someone who does
Ok, exhale deep. You've been asked to get catch the redhead. Don't search the set up for a homo or woman with reddish hair. A redhead is an open-faced tungsten lite up to g watts. Many of them are set in carmine fixtures. Motion picture uses tons of slang terms and many of them are regional. So even if yous learn them in one part of the US they may exist referred to as something else, somewhere else in the The states and then again somewhere else, if you go international.
At that place volition too be a large number of positions in the film industry that you will need to learn. What their function is and how they relate to each other: gaffer, best boy, continuity, DoP. But this will come pretty quickly and you mostly just need to know who your team is at the get-go.
At that place are too tons of film specific tools: c-stands, dollies, jibs, wall spreaders, different types of clamps, apple boxes (several unlike widths of the same wooden box used for sitting on besides as drilling things into), a pancake (that's the smallest apple tree box). So if someone asks you to get a pancake, you know at least where to beginning. This leads me to my main betoken. We have all been in your shoes. The people who now have this vast knowledge had to acquire information technology somewhere, old. They didn't download it Matrix style.
And then when yous are asked for something and have no thought what information technology is, ask them to depict it to you and hopefully you will then be able to notice it. Depending on who you have every bit a department head, they may be friendly and happy to teach you exactly what the thing is. The other option, which I have seen happen many times, is that I ask for a specific thing, assuming the person knows what it is, and then I am waiting for it fashion longer than I expected. I am a chivalrous DoP/Gaffer and if the person has proven themselves so far I will permit them know they can tell me they don't know what something is and I will take the minute to explain what it is and what it does, because I was in their shoes one time, and was given the same lessons.
And and then in the immortal words of the Notorious B.I.G., "if you don't know, now you know."
Source: https://www.adorama.com/alc/8-biggest-mistakes-you-can-make-while-working-on-a-film-set/
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