Continued Reflections of a Production Coordinator

I returned the following week, eager to show that I was willing to do whatever was necessary to contribute to the crew. Set up? Sure ! I’ll carry the carpets and run the cables! Oh, that isn’t how you like the cables ran, I’m so sorry. We’re live? What do you need ran to the floor? Absolutely! I’ll be there in a second. That wasn’t fast enough? So sorry, won’t happen again. Wrap? What can I bring back into the storage room? Oh, things should be brought back in a specific order? Into the room where everything is kind of just shoved until next week? Ok, my bad, won’t happen again.

There was no talk about the 3 kinds of people after wrap.

The following week I attempted to fix all my apparent errors from the week prior. Mr. Director found something new I was doing incorrectly, or not up to par. “But is this the first set you’ve been on?” “Yes, I’m in school for tv production now. I just started. I haven’t been on set up until I started here.” “What are the even teaching you there? You can’t wrap cables, you’re slow running things to the floor, what have you even been learning?” “Not a heck of a lot just yet. We’re in the third week of the program?”

“So what do you want to do? What position is it you want to learn?” I didn’t have an answer, again, I had been enrolled in the course for three weeks. “Ultimately, I’d like to be a production manager…” He cut me off immediately, “No here, why are you here? Are you here to waste my time and watch, or do you want to learn something and contribute here? You know there are three kinds of people in the world, (I’m paraphrasing). There are the leaders, the people that will go out and get things done. They don’t need to be told twice. There are the followers, they follow the leaders and do as their told. Then there are the watchers who just stand there with their hands in their pockets and watch the world go by. Which are you?” “Well I’d like to think I’m a follower, but I’d like to work my way to being a leader.” “No you’re not, you’re watching the world go by. Everyone else is doing things and you’re just watching things happen when you’re here!” “I don’t think that’s fair or true, I’ve been trying to be as helpful as I can without stepping on anyone’s toes.” The chatter in the room goes quiet and the rest of the crew stares on, knowing that I’ve apparently just lit a fuse.

“Step on people’s toes! Take their job! Show me you’re hungry and want to do something. Otherwise, what the fuck are you doing here?!” I froze. I didn’t realize what I had said to upset him. “Next week you better come in and have an idea of who you’re shadowing, otherwise you’re done. You hear me? You come here to waste people’s times?” “No, sure, you’re right. If it’s ok I’d like to be the A2 as we don’t have anyone actually doing that right now, the floor director is just doing both jobs.” “Don’t ask! Take it! You’re A2 next week. I don’t know how you’re going to do it since you’ve obviously learned nothing at school, but let’s see!”

My grandfather picked me up after the show, “Nonno, I don’t know if I want to keep coming. I keep getting yelled at, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” “I no want you to make me look bad. I talk to them for you, you have to keep coming.” Even with this broken English he was stern.

I returned the following week eager to prove myself, the only problem being, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Setting up the audio snake and plugging in the corresponding cables was easy enough as everything was colour coded, but I had never mic’d someone. The male host INSISTED the mic pack go on his belt (a big no-no. When the host sat down he’d sit on the pack, and it would cause some major interference). The female host, the director’s wife, was not wearing an outfit that could easily be mic’d and had nowhere to hang the pack off of. “Hey, so sorry where do you usually have this hanging when you’re not wearing a jacket or something with pockets?” “Oh just hook it onto my bra, I’ll feed it under my shirt and you can just clip it onto my shirt.” Done, no problem. I even looped it so that the cable wasn’t visible.

“Who the fuck mic’d up the hosts?” “I did.” “And who the fuck showed you how to mic someone?” “No one, I put it where they told me to.” “No! You’re in charge of the fucking mics! You tell them where it goes! They don’t tell you anything!” I got called into the control room during a commercial break where the director showed me where to put the mic on the male host, fair enough. It should have been put in his jacket pocket, my bad, but the placement of the mic itself was fine.

He struggled with his wife’s mic, worse than I did, “Why the fuck did you wear this? I’ve told you before to wear a blazer or something.” He left the mic where it was. “So did I put her mic on properly?” Obviously, the wrong question. “Did you come here to argue, or to fuckin learn something?” “I’m just asking if where I put it was ok?” “No it’s not ok, but with the shit she’s wearing there’s nowhere else to put it!” The crew in the control room shook their head stopping me from pushing further. I mic’d guests. Wrong. I wrapped cables. Wrong. I put away mics. Wrong.

I don’t even remember what was said. I just remember a barrage of cursing and yelling. I was evidently too stupid to work in this industry. What was I doing? How did I think I’d ever accomplish anything in the film and tv world? How dare I bring down the quality of this program?! Before I knew it, I was standing there continuing to be bombarded, while I shook, and blood streamed down from my nose. Did you know high stress and anxiety can cause a nosebleed? I sure didn’t.

I guess this was a right of passage, because the rest of the crew began talking to me regularly, even messaging outside of work. He seemed to ease up on me for a bit at least, but that didn’t stop him from attacking everyone else, and he’d always end it with, “Alex, don’t have a nosebleed, ok?” like it was the funniest thing ever. I watched him scream at the crew, single people out, bring his partner to tears (more times than I can count over the years), but still I stayed.

I remember being forced to do camera one week, “I’m not sure I can, I can’t really see out of my right eye and I can’t adjust the eyepiece enough so that I can see out of it with my left.” “You’ll be fine it’s easy!” I think I was pulled off that camera within my first two shots. “Where the fuck did they teach you do work a camera!” “The cameras I use have thew viewfinder screen. I can’t see out of my right eye. I did say that before I took the camera. I could’ve done the stationary camera as there’s a monitor.” “You’ll do whatever position I tell you to do. You don’t tell me where you’ll go, I tell you where to go.”

We lost the ‘privilege’ to have our phones with us during the shift as they were a distraction. We weren’t allowed to speak to each other unless it was work related as we were always distracted. I got put on the audio board on a day we had a live band. I had been pretty comfortable with the board, but the band insisted on feeding us a mix. The director was unaware that this was the case, and kept yelling at me to adjust levels. “I can’t, they’re feeding us a mix!” “Well, who fucking told them that they could do that?!” “You did. I asked you if it was ok, because that’s what they wanted to do, and you said it was fine.” “I definitely fucking didn’t!” I shut my eyes, trying to make it to the end of the song. “What Alex? Are you going to have a nosebleed? Is your nose going to fucking start bleeding? You better not bleed all over my equipment!” I bolted to the bathroom and came back with blood-soaked toilet paper packed into my nostrils. He began laughing into the headset, “Alex’s nose is bleeding! This is what the industry is like Alex! If you can’t take it, you need to rethink being here!”

Lisa, our AD, decided that was the day she was going to give her notice. It was one of the few times I saw someone be able to leave amicably. I went home that day and decided that it wasn’t for me. I apologized to my grandfather, called the director and told him he was right, and that maybe I wasn’t cut out for working in TV. “So you’re just going to fuck me? Lisa’s leaving so now you decided to screw me and also leave? You’re making this personal Alex. You take things too seriously. We’re a family there. Family’s have disagreements. You need to learn to not take things so personally or you’re not going to make it anywhere!” “I’m sorry, I just don’t think it’s for me, and I’m reconsidering staying in this course too. If you need me to cover on a Sunday because you’re shorthanded I’ll come in, but I don’t think I’m going to keep coming in regularly, I’m sorry.”

I left the door open. I fucked up, again.