Communications

How do I communicate?
• Read what you’re given, cover to cover.
• Write down what you are told. Have pen and paper ready at all times.
• Be specific. Avoid using vague words like “there, he , she, thing, this, that.” Always use proper, complete name as in “the camera truck, the key grip, the spring clip on the fourth table from the west.” Effective communication is absolutely essential to efficient production.
• Respond verbally when someone asks you to do something, before you start the task. Like on Star Trek-the captain says, “Ahead, warp factor one,” and the helmsman responds, “Ahead warp factor one.” Goofy? Yes, but then we know we’ve been heard.
• After you have completed any task, tell the person who assigned it to you that it’s done.
• Answer phones when you hear them ringing. If you’re at the production company’s office, answer with the name of the company and give your first name. If you are on stage, at location, etc., answer with “Production,” and give your first name. Always find out who is calling.
• Ask the source directly when you need information: ask the receptionist how the office copier works; ask the homeowner where the nearest hardware store is.
• Know the names of everybody on set. Use your call sheet to become familiar with them. Carry your call sheet with you at all times.
• Be discreet. Try to deliver information only to the person to whom it goes. Ask him/her to step aside and be aware of the volume of your voice, or write it on a small note, fold it and hand it to them.
• Beware of voicing you opinion, especially to the director and the agency personnel. If you don’t like the house we just scouted, and you say so out loud, you’ll be the one driving the van around for another four hours trying to find a better one...Most people won’t be swayed by your opinion but you never know, so play it safe.
• If you have to deliver bad news, don’t hedge around, just get it out, but very discreetly. Maybe the teamsters wouldn’t let you take the dolly out of the camera house or you don’t have enough room in your truck for the 3-piece bedroom set and anyway, it’s 5 o’clock so the freight elevator just closed. Our distress at hearing about this may make it appear that you’re being blamed for something over which you had no control. This is called “killing the messenger” and it is a very old and very nasty habit. If you know you’ve done your very best, try to just let people’s emotional responses roll off you and move on to the next thing on your ever-growing to-do list.
• If we tell you something you already know, please do not be offended. Until they figure out how to link our brains together by cables, we won’t know what you do and do not know.
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• Give away information. Do your job as if you won’t be here to explain yourself later. Write down your research and leave it with us; pack the truck so anybody can find anything on it; label boxes clearly. There is no true power in hoarding information.
• When you have a problem or complaint of any kind, bring it to us. We can solve it easily, but only if we know about it. You will really impress us if you also bring some suggestions about how to solve it, but you won’t impress us if you try to solve it yourself and the solution doesn’t work.
• Please do not fib as a way of being funny. If you were sent out to buy dove gray seamless paper, don’t say you got thunder gray as a “goof”, as this will unnecessarily send us into the problem-solving mode, accompanied in some cases by an adrenaline rush. Life in Production is stressful enough.
• If you need Production to know something important after work hours, do not just leave the information on an answering machine, use cell phones or pagers and keep calling until you reach a human being.
• If you do some research and the producer wants you to present the information to anybody else (especially executive producers, directors and agency personnel) make sure you have told the producer everything privately first. Do not let the producer be surprised by what you say to other people.
• If a director, agency person or client asks you directly to do something for them, always get an OK from the Producer or someone in Production. If the rule is no food in the house, then the client may not be allowed to eat that bagel you’re bringing him. Let the producer decide what is and isn’t OK.
• If you leave paperwork or anything else on someone’s desk, tell them. Don’t assume they’ll find it.
• Don’t assume anything. Check and re-check everything as you work.
• We all make mistakes. Especially in film production, things are happening at such a fast pace, mistakes are bound to happen. The sign of a good production person is not whether or not you make a mistake (although we do try to avoid them altogether) but how you handle it once a mistake is made. It is more important to “own up” if something happens (deal with the butterflies) and see what can be done to correct the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Please send your feedback to: palmerx1964@mac.com