tellymole.com

Instead of being a supercilious little cunt and having a pop at The Mole on TV Watercooler (kisses, Uncle Arthur), ‘TELE TWAT’ raised a few issues with some of my previous posts, giving me the chance to reply and also offered up this rather amusing and observant little compendium of thoughts on what we can a agree is quite twatish behaviour.

1) If you become a ‘fan’ of something that you have worked on for money, you are the broadcasting equivalent of a prostitute faking an orgasm. Fandom by it’s very definition is not about witless self promotion.

2) Taking a photo of your credit then uploading and tagging it, is I admit, quicker, easier and less painful that tattooing ‘I’m a massive wanker’ on your forehead. The end result is much the same though

3) Just as that temp who filled in one day on reception probably isn’t your friend, neither is a sleb you met through work once. No matter how many photos of the two of you together you’ve uploaded. Really they probably forget you the minute the left.

Honestly, even if they were ‘OMG, like a-mazing’

4) Like wise, central London is full of well known people, spotting one, and immediately recalling this fleeting encounter on your status, doesn’t make anyone think that you live in some sort of uber cool media bubble that only where only the beautiful people are admitted.

You know that Narnia that you suburban peasants can only dream of, where the lattes are always skinny, the glamour never ending and you are never more than five minutes away from a intimate tet a tet, oh sod it let’s do cocktails, with Alexa fucking Chung.

No, you just come across as the sort of person who would write in to Heat magazine. And that’s ain’t impressing anyone. It’s your parents I pity.

5) How likely is it that lad from your GCSE English class whose now a teacher will his status to illicit your advice as to how to handle a particularly unruly year 11 class? Not very.

So do you really want his, or anyone else’s, guidance on what questions you should ask the cunting Kooks? Do you, really? Or do you just want to let him, and everyone else know, that you’ve got a really ‘cool’ job now?
He turned you down when you were fifteen and he’d turn you down now. Whether you’ve spent five minutes dragging shit awful sound bites out of Lady Sovereign or not.

6) If you follow all the above, you’ll probably find that you have a lot more time on your hands. Use it wisely, look up the dictionary definitions of the words ‘literally’ ‘random’ and ‘genius’, then apply this knowledge to your every day use of the aforementioned words. You’ll instantly seem a lot lot brighter.

TELE TWAT

When I say ‘you people’, I mean production managers. Years of mulling this over has recently brought me to the conclusion that I’ve got a massive issue with production managers. It’s something I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to get over… but then, I’m certain that my feelings are well founded. So who cares?

While trying to reverse-engineer my disdain for the PM and find out why I harbour such an apparently irrational feelings, I’ve come across, what I believe to be several fairly straightforward root causes.

I started by trying to figure out what characteristics the average PM displays which might have triggered this response in me. Well, for me, it’s just the overriding feeling that they don’t belong in the TV environment. They represent ‘health and safety’, ‘per diems’, ‘being careful’ and ‘checking to see if that’s in the budget’ - which, alone, makes me want to pull out my fingernails and use them to slice open my femoral artery.

Production managers always seem smug to me. I don’t know why. Maybe I see an evil within them that nobody else can see? It’s like… some girl who wanted to work in TV, to be able to say that they work in TV, but basically does an administrative job, but with a trendy fringe… kind of scenario. I get the feeling that the majority of PMs ‘gave up’ the TV idea when the tea-making got a bit too much, decided to bin-off any dream of creativity and just go for the one, solid, ‘officey’ role that exists in telly.

But WAIT!!! That’s not enough for the production manager, oh no! Production managers are given the illusion of power. A terrible, terrible thing. Firstly let’s re-cap what has happened to them so far; work experience, runner, (possibly a bit of junior researcher/PA/clapper loader/other dogsbody), then junior co-ordinator, production co-ordinator, junior production manager, production manager. So they’ve wound up in this weird role. A role that means they’re controlling a budget, making decisions on resources, ‘micro-managing’ little helper minions like junior co-ordinators, PAs and work experience peeps - but not really fitting into any sort of hierarchy of the production team. I can’t stand it!

A few weeks ago I heard a production manager lecturing an AP about arriving into the office 5 minutes late (on the back of about an 80-hour week). No!! Please don’t do that. Not your job. Your job is to schedule. Your job is to budget. Your job is to tell all your friends about the meeting you had with a certain ‘talent’ and post semi-cryptic comments about said ‘talent’ on your facebook status to lure your acquaintances into probing you for more details; ie ‘What a meeting today, my job really sucks. ps…FIT!!’.

Much of my anguish comes from a feeling that production managers simply haven’t experienced the highs and lows of telly. They haven’t spent those long hours on a set or location. They haven’t felt the creative demands of an unreasonable exec or commissioning editor. They haven’t lived their life in the depressing gloom of the edit suite, trying to knock 3 minutes off something that already feels too light… Yet they’re still around to hoover up the free drinks at the end with the rest of the team.

I would suggest the following changes be made across the TV industry.

1. I don’t think you should necessarily sit anywhere near the production team. We gain nothing from you being in close proximity. We have email. We have phones. I’d quite like you to be in a some centralised production manager call-centre, ideally in Bolton or somewhere else far away.

Me: “Hello is this my production manager?”

PM: “Yes, how can I help?”

Me: “I’d like some more stock for my production please. I’m also going to film next week, please prepare the call sheet.”

PM: “Of course. I’ll get right on it. I’ll give you £500 more float than you need, so under no circumstances will you need to use your own credit card for any production expenses.”

Me: “As it should be. Ta.”

2. Production managers should be specially trained from graduate level. They should have no aspirations to be part of the creative world of television whatsoever. They should be, quite simply;  competent organisers, properly drilled in the workings and processes of television production. If they own a pair of skinny jeans or signed up to the ‘Secret London’ facebook group just to feel a bit more cultured, arty and edgey - they should be ineligible for employment.

3. If a production manager begins to confuse the role of PM (ie managing the budget, resources and schedule of the production) with exec, series producer, producer or director (ie managing the creative aspects or creative staff of the production) - then they should be immediately reminded of their role (via the call-centre freephone number).

Well, look. Production managers, you’ll be glad to know that in writing this little article and exploring my annoyances a little more, it’s all proved quite cathartic for me. I don’t HATE you. I just find your role in the industry a little strange. That’s all. Why would ANYONE who spent the time and effort to break into the TV industry want to then just sit at a desk all day and feel important for slightly better money than an AP? Very strange. I mean, just go and work in the accounts department of a financial company. You’ll work less hours, have less stress, get an annual bonus and won’t be subjected to degrading internet rants. On the flipside, you won’t be able to impress your friends with ‘telly’ stories any more, or have a picture taken with the presenter at the wrap party…. tough call isn’t it?

The good news is that my rant here today has been inspired by only the worst of the worst. I just thought I’d poke a little fun while it was fresh in my mind. The majority of these girls do a very difficult job with increasingly smaller budgets and have to put up with a lot of shite from us creative types. Luckily the bad-eggs tend to move on to other jobs by their mid-thirties and the good ones move on to head-of-production roles or other suitably well-earned posts.

I’m now in two minds as to whether or not I should publish this post. I feel like I’ve been a bit cruel and pointless.

Sod it.