Reflections of a Production Coordinator

After a couple of months of leaving the production job behind and seriously reconsidering my career, I got the itch to get back into production. I started PA’ing with a couple of friends on shoots here and there and saw firsthand what a healthy work environment was like. It was in a lull between jobs that I got the call. “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you but there are a bunch of people off/sick this weekend and I could really use your help.” I was bored and between jobs, what harm could one show do? Besides, I had tasted what a real work environment was, there was no way I was going to let him get to me.

I went in, did my job, without condescending comments for maybe the first time ever, and I left. It happened again the following week, and the week after. After three weeks my phone pinged, a group text, “Hey so I just got off the phone with him, and he basically fired me for not being able to commit to coming in every week. I got offered a shoot over the weekend and he flipped on me. I don’t think he realizes that this is an internship placement for us, not a career. Anyway, act surprised when he tells you.” Danny had been the floor director when I first started, he was family friends with the owner of the company. “Oh is that why he’s called me three times already?” Marco chimed in. Marco was arguable the director’s pet. He had been there longer than any of the crew, and was often asked to go on additional shoots or to go in for tasks during the week. “Crap he’s calling me.” I managed to send quickly before answering the phone. “Hey, I’m going to need you to come in again this weekend if that works. Danny is no longer with us.” “Danny died?!” I feigned shock. “No, no, no! nothing like that. He’s fine, I told him coming in on Sunday was a commitment and if he couldn’t do it than I didn’t need him anymore, and he chose to leave.” “Oh, you should rephrase how you tell other people that makes it sound like he died or something.” I laughed as I recounted the conversation in the group chat.

With Danny gone a permanent hole had been left. “Alex, if you start coming in regularly again we’ll get you on the payroll with everyone else (a whopping fifty dollars a show), and you’ll be the floor director going forward.” “That works, sure.” I didn’t have anything else going on, and, besides, some of my closest friends worked here, what could go wrong?

Within weeks of me returning Johnny and Steve, brothers, both resign. A week later Marco comes in and notifies the director that he can no longer commit to every week, but instead, every other week as his partner is going to school in Detroit and he’ll be visiting her on some weekends. Halfway through the show it’s “I’ll come in as I can,” by the end of wrap, “Ya, today is my last day.” Just like that everyone I spoke to was gone.

A new crew of students were recruited, and I was left to train them, even though everything I did was incorrect. “How did you train these kids on camera? Who the fuck showed you how to wrap cables?” etc. etc. I watched some students come in for a week, leave in tears part way through the show and never come back. I became the punching bag again, but the PA gigs had dried up, and this was consistent work. I knew how to deal with him, it was fine. It was fine, right?

There were weeks where I did everything perfectly, even received praise. I was prepared, of course, for this not to last, and was not at all surprised when everything that went wrong on the production somehow became my fault. When new hires would come in I would give them the same warning, “he yells a lot, and often at you, if you can’t deal with it, this isn’t the place for you. My job here is to make sure you get yelled at as little as possible, so just follow my advice and you’ll make it through.” Most listened, a few dared to push back against him, and were scolded.

During one show I recall vividly, the president, who occasionally came on air, was speaking to the new floor director (I had been ‘promoted’ to TD, lucky me). The director, feeling ignored, snapped, declaring “My voice is the voice of God. When I speak, you stop, listen, and do as I say. I do not care WHO is speaking to you. The hosts do not run the program, I do. When the president comes on, they are just a host, they are not the president of the company.”

Ya, you go ahead and tell the president of the company that.

I still spoke to and saw some of the old crew regularly, and would fill them in on the stories, the ‘voice of God,’ quickly became one of our favourites.

Fast forward a bit, I graduate and have a tremendously difficult time finding any sort of work. “Well we need someone to come in on a full time basis. It would primarily just be digitizing the library, going on shoots and preparing for Sunday. The pay isn’t great but it’s a start.” I needed work, was a young parent, and had debts to pay, “Sure, absolutely!”

I started almost immediately. It was easy at first. Digitizing ate up most of my day. Monday’s tied up our system because I had to import the previous day’s show. There was a lot of downtime in the beginning. Multiple walks for an espresso, visits to other departments sprinkled with the occasional busy work of course, but for the most part it was easy money.

We got threatened to be pulled off the air as we were still broadcasting in standard definition while the rest of the world hand long ago moved onto high definition. We went to work on testing and ordering equipment, rebuilding and organizing the control room, and fitting everything into a neat little air pack so that we could broadcast on location when need be. I felt like I was doing something important. I felt important. It felt like we were working together for once. “You’re not my employee, we’re brothers, this is a family,” he’d like to repeat often. It was probably the only time I felt that way. We baptized my son. I invited him and his family into my home. Mr. Director still had outbursts even during the week, and Sundays were always the same kind of beast, but the weekdays were simple. Simple until I made the mistake of asking for a raise and realizing how little I really made.

Minimum wage got bumped by the government, and suddenly the students that came in once a week were getting paid the same as I was. How dare they?! Me?! A full-time employee?! I spoke to the director about it, and he promised to speak to the president. A week went by, a month, two, three. I gave up waiting for him and spoke to the president myself, who agreed to a 10% raise, a big raise…if I wasn’t making minimum wage. It wasn’t enough, but I kept my head down, did whatever work I was given, and planned my escape. I wasn’t allowed to take vacation time because I was ‘integral’ to the crew, but I was not paid out for the vacation time I didn’t use, so I lost it. If I took a sick day, it was a personal attack on him.

When the director found out I had gone ahead and spoke to the president myself he was supportive at first, but very quickly started throwing in snarky comments about how I went above him, and how everything was about money to me. The unspoken truce was at an end, and I became the target for every bit of ire once again. I needed a job. I needed a job. I wasn’t getting any other offers. I needed this job.

We got subcontracted by another network to produce a one hour newscast for them. We began the planning. Setting up the ‘studio,’ hiring crew and outlining what the program would look like. We didn’t hire enough people, we weren’t given enough time to prepare, and so clearly bit off more than we could chew, but we made it work, I made it work. My wedding was booked and planned a month after we had launched the program, my honeymoon in the air, but there was always the possibility it would happen immediately after the wedding (1 week, nothing longer). The second I knew that this was happening I spoke to him, “Hey don’t forget I’ll need this day off, and possibly the week. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” “Why do you need that day off?” “My wedding?” I let him know nearly six weeks out that I was taking the week off for my honeymoon, “You’re just springing this on me! We’re launching the news you can’t leave!” “I’ve never taken a full week off in the length of time I’ve been here. I’m giving you more than a month notice. No, you’re fucking me this is ridiculous. Go if you want but you may not have a job when you come back.” “Ok so I’ll be gone from this date to this date.” “So you’re going?!” “Yes.” “I can’t believe this.” I was on the shit list again, like I’d ever truly left.

The night of my wedding him and his wife showed up. While we danced our first dance he kept calling out my name even though the rest of the room was quiet. Him and his wife commented on how great of a wedding we had thrown while wrapping on Sunday, my bag in the trunk ready to head to the airport immediately afterward. I got yelled at the entire show, everything I did was wrong. “Ok see you next Monday.” “Ya call me when you get back you might not have a job here anymore.” “Ok, I’ll call you Monday at 9 am.” I left, got on the plane and forgot that place existed for a week.

My dad picked us up a week later. “Jesus fucking Christ that show was a mess without you there. They kept dipping to black and things weren’t getting rolled on time.” It was validating to know I was needed. I waited until 9 am Monday to call, like I had told him (we landed late Sunday night), but he called me first. “Where the fuck are you?” “I was waiting until 9 to call, like I said. You told me I may not have a job, I wasn’t going to assume that you needed me there.” “Hurry the fuck up and get down here, the news isn’t going to produce itself.” Months passed, the workload grew. The crew members stayed the same.

When we started doing the news my sole job was to fact check the stories, and to find content to fill the 25-45 seconds the anchor was announcing said story. It turned into me continuing that job, shooting, editing, cutting soundbites, packaging and shipping. I ran the program, but everything I did was wrong. The content I chose wasn’t up to par. I wasn’t finishing on time despite not doing ANYTHING other than the job from 9-5, spare a couple of bio breaks. ‘If I worked the way I did there I wouldn’t last anywhere else.’ ‘You’re not going to go anywhere and be treated as well or with enough forgiveness as you’re treated here.’ I pushed on. I kept trying to do better, but even when it was good enough, it wasn’t good enough for long. Things got bad, worse than they had ever been, so I grasped at the first thing I was offered. It wasn’t in my field, it was physically laborious, and the pay cap was not great, but it was more than I was getting or likely would ever get, and it wasn’t there.

“I need to do what’s right for my family. I’m not earning enough here, and I know that isn’t your fault, but it’s something that’s become an issue at home. I have kids to worry about I can’t keep working full-time here and picking up twenty plus hours a week at a part-time job as well.” He understood, let me go. I said I’d come help on Sundays as I could. I didn’t learn my lesson. I left the door open again. I hurt myself on that job. I was unable to work. Sundays became helping on weekdays occasionally, which became going back full-time again. I was stuck in a cycle.