For the record, Roosevelt Island is cool, and full of cat sanctuaries, and you should check it out (thank you Jill Twiss).
It is negotiation season again for my union, IATSE, and I’m pretty sure this year’s round will result in no significant change in the way we work. Yes, I think we will get some rate boosts and residuals improvements and something related to AI, the way the other unions did, thanks to joining up with the Teamsters, who, let’s face it, have way bigger balls than we do, or maybe just very large trucks, which amounts to the same thing in our business. But the fact is, with many of us having been out work for a year (the run-up to the strikes meant that projects were winding down around this time last year and very little was winding up) and plenty of us still out of work and begging for things to finally pick up soon — because streaming still hasn’t figured out what the hell it needs to do to make money, so everyone except Dick Wolf and Ryan Murphy has been forced to become a lot more picky about what they are making and how — nobody has the stomach for another strike. And if we didn’t push for more humane days and weeks during the pandemic, when there was a real consensus around not creating conditions that make people sick (which are basically our everyday conditions), we certainly won’t be able to do it now.
I know, I know, nobody likes a whiner. Although I will say that nobody bitches and moans with the skill and alacrity of crew people. We have refined our world-weary, crabbypants commentary over things like 16-hour days during which we get one break, bad catering and barely-existent crafty that we have no choice but to eat because we can’t leave to get anything else (one break), and the extreme hierarchy in pay and power that allows the people at the top to do nearly anything they want at the expense of those at the bottom, into new vocabulary like “Fraturday” and catchphrases like “What’s for chicken?” that we repeat over until we get bored with them, and then we still use them. At one point I decided I was going to stop complaining, not because it was pointless and annoying, even though it was, but because it was just so unoriginal. Of course that didn’t stick, but at least I tried.
But today, I’m actually here to do the opposite of complain. For some reason, maybe because I actually miss being on set?!?! (although it hasn’t kept me from having work stress dreams every night. I’m still feeling scarred from the one I had last night where I lost the boom pole, which, thank God, is not something that really happens. At least not often.), I’ve been thinking about all the strange skills I’ve acquired through this work. Oh wait, actually, no, the real reason I was thinking about this was because I went to Roosevelt Island a couple of days ago, which I thought I had never been to, and then when I arrived at a certain area I said, Oh wait, that looks familiar! And I realized that I had filmed a commercial there. Which is something that happens all the time: I get go to extremely interesting places — old mansions (lots, including Gracie Mansion), exquisite penthouses, beautiful gardens, every park and pier in NYC, every alley (there aren’t as many as you’d think), streets in Battery Park or Ditmas Park doubling for 1930s New York, streets in Queens doubling for West Africa, quarries in Westchester doubling for apocalyptic hellscapes — and then sometimes forget about them (even when I have pictures) because I am so quickly on to the next one and apparently the exact wheres of it all is too much data for my little brain to hold on to these days.
So here’s a list of special skills that I’ve acquired, and special experiences that I’ve had, thanks to work on film sets.
1) Walking backwards
I wrote an entire post about this, so I won’t belabor the point, but it occasionally comes in handy.
2) Reaching high shelves
Booming has enhanced, for better or worse, my ability to hyper-extend my upper body. This is no small thing when you are 5’2”.
3) Using ladders and knowing what I can do when atop them without falling
Every short boom person (and there are actually quite a few of us) knows how to use a ladder.
4) Spotting what lights are creating shadows
Because boom shadow, obvi.
5) Pushing carts around
Sound people bring their gear to work on two or more carts, the various permutations of which I’ve had to learn how to drive when I’ve worked with them. This skill comes in handy with, most commonly, grocery carts (lean back and use the back wheels to turn) and luggage carts at hotels and airports, even when they are hard to maneuver, which they generally are. Pro tip: yes, there is a front and a back to most carts, and the first thing you need to figure out is which is which.
6) Lifting heavy things without hurting myself
A skill I developed over many years of hurting myself lifting heavy cases full of gear.
7) Paying attention to my body in general
When you work long days that require, in some cases, consistent focus, it’s very easy to lose track of how you are doing physically. You cannot really afford to do this as a boom operator, because your body is your instrument. You have to be aware of what positions will work and which won’t and how long you can stay in one that works before you have to shift to another, and what’s going to enable you to stay in those positions longer — being higher up, on an apple box or a ladder, sitting down, bracing your arms in a certain way. And beyond that, you also have to be aware of how soon you have to go to the bathroom, or eat, or drink water, or sit down, or stretch, because if you’re not, you will eventually fuck up at your job. Nobody will notice that you are not feeling your best and on the verge of fucking up, but when the fucking up happens, they will definitely notice, because the boom will be in the frame, or you’ll miss a cue, or some other thing which wouldn’t necessarily be disastrous, except that you are in a job where every mistake is a disaster, because it ruins a take. So you can’t let it get to that point — nor should you in any other part of your life. Take care of yourself.
8) Not being a hero
This is sort of the second part of #7. Can you push yourself to your limits? Yes. Should you? No. So if someone offers to carry that case for you, let them. If they offer to get you equipment you need or help you set stands or blankets, take them up on it. You don’t have anything to prove, except maybe that you know what you’re doing — which knowing when to say when and accept help actually shows that you do.
9) Tying a couple of good knots
Thank you grip friends.
10) Creative use of tape and sharpies
Many people on set are masters of making stuff function and/or look good either temporarily or if you don’t look at it too closely, and it’s surprising how often this is helpful in real life. Are your black shoes or furniture starting to show wear? A black sharpie can do a remarkable job of touching that up. Is there a logo or piece of information you want to obscure? Well-placed tape can subtly alter or hide it, if you cut it neatly. Tape can also be used to make slight alterations in clothing, especially double-sided tape, which is what most wardrobe people use to keep a shirt closed or unpuckered. And tape can also repair things around the house, as long as you don’t mistake it for a permanent fix, which I have done, which is how I know. I also know that tape has other limits. It will not stick in cold weather, or in many cars (ArmorAll). Like your body, if you push tape beyond its limits, it will fail, it’s only a matter of when.
11) How to hide stuff by just not calling attention to it
This is an extension of the previous item. Film folks work in a world of illusion, and it’s surprising how easy it is to change something just enough that it has the appearance of being better than it is. This is because people tend to be supremely unobservant, and there are a million ways to use that your advantage. People don’t need to know what they don’t need to know.
12) Observing and listening before asking questions
I am a big believer in asking for what you need, including what you need to know, but I also have learned that, in situations where other people are busy, you can figure out a lot by just following them, seeing what’s going on and listening in on what’s being said. When we do rehearsals and immediately after, this is how I figure out what the AD, the DP and the director are planning to do — because, I mean, inform the sound department? These are words that nobody has ever said.
13) Eavesdropping
Following off of #12, over the past 30 years I have gotten good at pointing the mic at people without looking like I’m pointing the mic at them. And even when you don’t have a mic to point, eavesdropping is awesome, and it’s very easy to do without being noticed. You come across so many interesting situations, and ways that people talk that are so individual and unique, that are very important for a creative person to stockpile.
14) Figuring out where a sound is coming from
Diagnosing sound problems is important in my job, and it can also be helpful when you want to know, Is that your neighbor upstairs vacuuming at 7 am on a Sunday???
15) How to dress for being outside in cold weather
We film outdoors in every season in every weather, and knowing how to stay warm is useful in all sorts of real-life situations, but especially when we were eating outdoors at restaurants during the pandemic.
16) How to operate a lift gate
17) What height is too far to jump from without hurting yourself (related to 16)
18) How to extract yourself from a conversation
This is a bit confusing, because on set, you never have to give an excuse to leave a conversation at all. Since we are always fitting our chatting into downtime whose length is dependent on what stage we’re in as we progress toward filming, which changes from moment to moment, you can basically just walk away from someone with no explanation and they will assume that you just had to go back to work. However, realizing that you don’t need to stay in a conversation you don’t want to stay in, and that there is always some excuse you can find to gracefully walk away from someone, is a natural outgrowth of this.
19) How to read a call sheet and schedule
Even though this may not really be a life skill, it is definitely a skill. Every day, you are getting ready to go into a situation that you haven’t been in before, not exactly, and you get this one document which has a lot of what you need to know on it — if you know where to look.
Commercial call sheets and TV call sheets are very different. On both you will be able to find out who your co-workers for the day will be, which is good to be prepared for. If this DP is someone you’re friendly with or is someone who makes your day challenging, it’s good to go in aware that that is how your day is going to be. And it’s always nice to know who the friendly faces are who you are going to see, and refresh your memory on names — which is why, if you suck at names like me, you want to have that call sheet with you and accessible, on your phone, throughout the day. All call sheets will also tell you where you have to be and what time you have to be there, and hopefully will have something on them about transportation and parking. Once I get the address, I try to research all of that in advance to figure out how long it’s going to take me to get there, if I want to take public transportation or drive, how long it could take to park, and how much it might cost to pay for parking. And if you know the caterers or crafty people, you can figure out if you should bring your own food to make it through the day. You will also probably be able to deduce — although not always, on a commercial call sheet — whether you will be inside or outside, which is critical for knowing how to dress and what gear to bring.
On a TV call sheet, you can also get the list of scene slugs for the scenes that you will be shooting, along with where they take place, who is in them, and the page count and description for each one. This is the biggest clue to what your day will be like. No matter what the show, once you know that you’re doing over 6 pages, you are probably in for a long day — unless you know the show and the director, and they are someone who knows their shit when it comes to shooting episodic, in which case, 8 pages can be a piece of cake. You can also see who the actors are, which can be fun (or not, there are actors who everyone knows will make the day miserable, or at least more complicated, when they are there), and they will each be numbered, which makes it easier to fit on the call sheet, and also generally tells you who is the most important person on set (that would be actor number one, who is often literally referred to as, “Number One.”) There are times when someone is so well-known that they have a fake name on the call sheet, which you can usually deduce is a fake name, and means that you have someone really famous, and that there could very well be paparazzi. The numbered names on the call sheet will also tell you whether there are stunts — because if there are, there will be stunt people listed, and they are usually designated with the same number as the person they are doubling for, but with an “X” beside it. Stunts always take an enormous amount of time, so even if you have only two pages, if you have stunts, that will probably not be a short day.
On commercials, you might get a schedule in advance, or “schedule,” as I like to call it. This has actual times on it for when each shot is supposed to happen, when lunch is, and when wrap is. It’s rarely accurate. If you have a celebrity with a “hard out,” then the wrap time might be accurate, but the start time won’t be (celebrities rarely stick to a schedule). And when you see something implausible, like that you are supposed to get any shot in 10-20 minutes, or that a company move is going to take an hour or less, you’ll get a more decent sense of just how out-of-whack that schedule is. Also, the schedule usually says which shots have sound and which ones don’t, or you can usually figure it out. All of which you can use to deduce how long your day will really be, and if you’re going to make it home for dinner (you don’t need to figure this out on a TV show, because the answer is nearly always “no”). But generally, they don’t email out schedules to the crew in advance, because they are changing up until the last minute, and everyone knows that they are, by and large, ridiculous.
The way this can be applicable in real life is similar to #12: a lot of the time, you can better prepare yourself for something if you read between the lines of the information you’re given.
20) How to use and not be intimidated by equipment
Again, this is obvi for anyone for whom operating some sort of gear is a part of their job, but for a lot of women, even still today when all of my friends kids are going into tech, I think there is the added hurdle of just believing that you can do it. Because of course you can.
21) How to stay up all night and remain semi-functional
I’d never pulled an all-nighter until I worked on set. This was because, when writing a paper, I could tell when I was getting loopy, and so would go to sleep for a few hours and just get up super early in in the morning — which often meant I was printing out the paper at the time that it was due, but still, it worked out better than staying up all night, trust me. Booming, however, it is actually possible for me to do when I’m exhausted, with the “semi” in semi-functional being the operative prefix. Physical stuff is much easier than mental stuff for me, and there is a mental part of my job, but it became a bit second-nature for me a long time ago. So my strategy for working all night is about conserving my mental and physical energy for where it’s needed, and just trying to enjoy the ride of being sleep-deprived — because it’s a little bit like being on drugs, if you know how to relax and go with it. And you keep reminding yourself that it’s going to get light at some point, and then you’ll get to go home.
22) How to hold your ground but also blend in, pleasantly
When you’re booming, as one of the few people who’s not acting who’s actually standing on set — sometimes in the middle of it — you’re supposed to be part of the furniture. The camera operator and the grips who are helping them (dolly, spotting) have to be where they are, because that’s where they director wants them to be to get the shot. But, if you’re the boom operator, either they want you not to be there — you’re in reflection, you’re in the actor’s eyeline, or you’re just in the way — or everything else wants to be where you’re standing — lights, flags, the still photographer.
So you need to assert your right to be there, stubbornly, but also nicely. Sometimes, you’ll have to ask other people to give you a little more space (the DP and the grips placing the flags, set dressing who can move furniture for you), and sometimes, you’ll just have to say clearly that that is your spot, sorry! Even if you’re not sorry, and you shouldn’t be, because you have a job to do, and that is the place to stand where you can best do your job. It doesn’t have to be the only place where you can do your job, just the best one, as long as it’s not infringing on someone who needs it more than you or is farther up in the hierarchy than you are — an actor (for eyeline), a camera, a light. So no, you never have to give ground to the still photographer. They will certainly be grateful if you do, so you should if you can, but not at the risk of fucking up (see #s 7 & 8).
And once you’ve claimed your spot, you need to not disrupt the other work that is going on, which means being quiet and respectful once you start rehearsing, and, of course, smiling and nodding, since that is one of the few ways you can communicate while remaining mute. Particularly if the actor starts looking for someone to talk to and you’re the only one there. This happens more often than you might think. They might want someone to laugh at their jokes (quietly), or validate their opinions or complaints, or just show that they aren’t being ignored. Sometimes you can even chat quietly with them, if that’s what they want, but generally it’s not, because they have to focus and stay in character.
This is a weird one, I’ll admit, but it’s actually quite important in terms of creating a nice atmosphere on set in which actors can do the work they need to do — and it applies outside of that environment more, again, often that you might think. Smiling at people when you happen to make eye contact with them and then quickly going back to minding your own business is such a New York City skill, because it assures people that you see their shared humanity, but you don’t actually require or desire anything more than that. When you’re in a city of eight million people, all of whom you certainly don’t have time to befriend, that’s very very useful.
23) How to troubleshoot
This is one of those skills that everyone should have but so few people do. Of course, as a sound person it’s essential, because you have all of this gear, and cables and connectors of all sorts that holds it all together and lets it communicate, and none of it is going to last forever (except for maybe the Nagra were we still using it. Those things were ridiculously hard to destroy). Troubleshooting isn’t technical, it’s about learning how, when there is a problem, to narrow it down and pinpoint its source. For that, you just need to think methodically, know that the answer exists, and most of all, stay calm.
This is applicable to so many situations in life I cannot tell you. Do you have a computer? Do you have a home? Do you have possessions and body parts, or a person or a pet or a plant in your life? All of these things will require troubleshooting at some point. And the fact that we are always under time-pressure in our biz means that I have learned to think logically when there are a lot of people and circumstances calling for my attention, or perhaps screaming for it, and that is a big part of troubleshooting in life too.
24) How to be prepared for anything
As you’ve no doubt figured out now that we are at #23, I don’t get a lot of information about what exactly I’m going to be doing before I show up on a job. Sometimes, if I’m on a commercial and my boss remembers, they will send me storyboards or a script and shot list, but most of the time, I’m finding out what is going to happen on the fly. So I read the shit out of that call sheet, reach out to someone from my crew or from production if I have burning questions that must be answered in advance, get all of my clothes ready and my water bottle and the tea kettle filled the night before, and stuff everything into my backpack that I might possibly need. This has often led me to being made fun of for the size of my backpack, but, invariably, if I don’t have my headphones, back-up headphones, wiring supplies (at least surgical transpore tape, double-sided tape, moleskin, and a scissor), two hats (one for sun and one for cold), extra gloves, sunscreen, bug repellant, hand lotion, lip balm, any medications I might need (for me that’s my daily pillbox [yes, I’m an old person] plus advil, tylenol, pepcid, and lactaid), hand and foot warmers, 401K forms, snacks, pens, sharpies, sunglasses, water bottle, portable and plug-in chargers for my phone, the New Yorker app on my phone (I can never ever be without reading material), my AirPods (for phone calls and walking long distances from public transportation), a portable magnetic flashlight (this is new but has quickly become a necessity), and, even though I’ve only had to show it maybe once, my union card, I know that the day will inevitably come when I really really need one of those things, and not having it will make my day less good (the snacks), or perhaps ruin it altogether (the hats). And trust me, I have pared it down.
25) How to find my way anywhere
Since I am used to being told to show up the next day at an ungodly hour at a random address, this has become a natural thing for me to do. I have three navigation apps on my phone, two transit apps, four parking apps, and three ride share apps. I am also, as I’ve discussed before, a Yelp power-user, and have several other restaurant apps too. With these tools, I can figure out the most efficient way to get anywhere that has a cell phone signal — and places that don’t if I know that I have to prepare and download maps in advance — and how long it’s going to take.
This has made me super good at both planning trips and enjoying them. I never need anyone to give me directions. I never need a travel guide (although I do like having one, and will often download that to my phone too, particularly if it has a map with interactive GPS that doesn’t require cell service). I love doing the research and then showing up somewhere and just figuring it all out. Granted, traveling around Latin America by myself also contributed to that sense of adventure, but I would never ever have done that if I hadn’t been working on set for 12 years before that.
I’m sure this list could go on and on, into some more obscure shit (how to work with animals, how to get kids to ignore you) and other stuff that most women probably also know how to do thanks to just having jobs (how to smile on command, how to carefully frame a question or comment so as not to make the man you’re talking to feel small). But I’m going to end here. Because these last few items in particular basically add up to being more confident and self-reliant, and I really have working in film production to thank for putting me on that path. I’m sure lots of other people have become empowered through their own 30-year careers, whatever they may be, but having been through a lot of situations that most people never expect to encounter, the knowledge that I can handle whatever if I go in prepared and calm and figure it out, is pretty nice.
And even if I’m not staying up all night, that part of #21 about enjoying the ride is something I always try keep in my back pocket — along with my gloves and my sides.