tellymole.com

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.

There’s a recurring cycle in this business, whereby it seems a few weeks after you start a new contract – you’re on the lookout for a new one. If you’re lucky or extremely well-connected you’ll find yourself on a good run of back-to-back contracts, unless of course you’re one of those jammy gits who’s landed themselves a nice cushy ‘staff’ position (for those of you who actually believe these types of roles are cushy, staff doesn’t mean permanent, like a job for life… it purely means; ‘you’re employed here until our commissions dry up and then you’re out on your arse’). Anyway, all I’m assuming that you’re aware that a freelance TV world exists…

I want to talk about the conditions in that weird little void we all find ourselves in sometimes, that magical place in between contracts where something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong. Maybe that special commission which your friend told you was ‘just about to be green-lit’ didn’t happen, or you weren’t able to coincide your last finish date exactly with the start date of this new thing, or whatever… fact is, you’re now out of work and looking frantically for something worthwhile or at least something that pays ok. For those new to the industry, this can seem quite alien and strange. You life can draw parallels with that of a jobbing actor in Hollywood, you’re forced to wait tables and pull pints while looking around for work that might pay you a couple of hundred quid a week (assuming they’re paying you at all). For the more senior of us, we feel annoyed with ourselves that our supposedly extensive list of contacts have let us down on this occasion and we’re reduced to the lowly and embarrassing levels of sending out CV’s and cold-calling companies that we’ve not worked with before. The fact is, it can happen to anyone, because if you’ve been working in TV for any length of time, you will have realised by now that the ‘right place, right time’ element of getting any job in telly places a massive part.

But don’t worry! There are plenty of things in place to help you through this dark period. First off, we’ve got job ads in Media Guardian, Broadcast Freelancer, et al. Fine, if you’re going for a job at ‘the beeb’ and can afford to be out of work for another 3 months while they take you through a simple 7-part recruitment process, or if you’re after a job as an ‘in-house scheduler’ or ‘technical supervisor’. For those of us with dreams of more than a thankless £19k a year, we need to try and dig a little deeper.

So what else is on offer? Mandy.com? Productionbase? Well, you would have thought so. Mandy still seems to be the place to go if you fancy working for NO money whatsoever. I can’t believe they still have a function to search for ‘unpaid’ or ‘lo-paid’ jobs if you fancy it. Why the fuck would I fancy that? Oh yeah, I forgot, it looks good on my CV. Apparently. Productionbase actually take the biscuit as far as con-artists are concerned though. For months we received emails promising us brand new and exciting content, but when they launched their new site late last year – we found that it was exactly the same set of tools, set out in a different colour scheme with the inclusion of a new method of displaying showreels and media, although now you have to pay hundreds of pounds a year to display it. Thanks pb. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more when I’m looking for work  than spend more of my dwindling supply of cash on stupid productionbase things that I used to get for free with my subscription. Turds.

The answer is simple, save that money you’re about to chuck at productionbase or the premium bits of broadcast and put the money towards doing things your own way. Don’t be lazy, you can do it. How many jobs has pb ever got you anyway? Seriously. How many ? More than three? Were they good? Anyone calling you because they found your CV on productionbase is scraping the barrel, because they exhausted the list of people they actually want to work with and they’ve begrudgingly turned to a list of people they know nothing about. It really isn’t the best way to work. They’ll probably offer you a lower rate, too. That money you’re about to pay someone else to do the job for you, you might as well do yourself. Nobody is going to put as much effort in finding you a job than you are, seeing as, erm, you’re you. Do your research, find out who’s who at each indie you’re going to be contacting if you don’t already know. Contact them individually, address them by their name, show you know something about them – but not too much to seem creepy. Send HARD COPIES of your CV as well as emails, I can’t stress how important this is – you’ll be surprised how often they get picked up, even if its a year down the line.  If you’re desperate and you’re out of work, you need to plan a full-scale assault on the industry to make sure you get work.

Fancy online galleries of your showreels? Simple, that can be done yourself , you don’t need to pay productionbase to do it. If you insist on having a productionbase account – you can still link directly to your own website from you pb page and have all that nice shiny video content on there for a fraction of the price. A domain name will set you back from £3 a year, hosting on a really snazzy web host (which will make your content look awesome in a simple ‘drag-and-drop’ interface) will cost a comfortable £5 a month and there’s plenty of free software lying around on the internet that will turn your impressive showreel into a web-friendly video. There are snakes in the industry that are more interested in lining their own pockets than actually helping to find freelancers work.

Luckily most of us are able to find work, at least most of the time. I think if you’re finding it tough all year round – there’s probably something wrong. It’s tough, but it’s not that tough. As much as people like to moan that it’s getting harder and harder, I’ve actually found it easier as my career has progressed. I guess if I was a cameraman and I had shooting APs snatching up all my jobs, then I might have something to grumble about – but thankfully, I’m not. I guess maybe it’s karma, for all those grumbling cameramen who like to whinge if a shoot overruns by half an hour and moan if there’s not enough rocket in their ‘Pret’ sandwiches.

I’ve normally reached the end of post, fairly happy that I’ve driven home something I think is particularly to-the-point – but today, I’m not sure exactly what it is I’ve written about. Erm, okay – how to handle things when you’re out of work? Career advice?…

..okay, I’ve just read back through. This post doesn’t really seem to have much point to it at all, it’s been a bit of a ramble. Good job I’m not getting paid to blog, eh? Well hopefully you’ve at least identified with some of the points I’ve made today and maybe I’ve given you some food for thought regarding chucking your money down the drain in between contracts.

That’s all for today. Something better to talk about soon, I’m sure.

The Mole