How To Get A Producer To Like You

How To Get A Producer To Like You

The entertainment business can be a tough and fickle mistress, who has recently decided to stop taking shit from anyone. #timesup.

If you aren’t already jaded and dead inside, I have some quick insider tips to help you interact with, and even win over, those of us who already are.  

...Or at least not hate you before you ever have the chance to set foot on set.

Still want to work here?

Game on.

Challenge: Paperwork.

Y’know, that stuff you have to submit in order to get paid. It is not a suggestion. Do not make us come looking. If we have to ask twice, you’ve already lost.

Beginner: Turn it in correctly, early, and digitally. This level is deceptively simple. It includes hurdles such as "reading" and "knowing your personal information", and even "signing". Seems exceedingly easy... except you just can’t make that ledge jump to column B on the I-9 and keep falling to your death. Over, and over, again. 

Elimination Round: Are you one of those special people that, despite repeated and clear requests for correspondence, insist that they somehow do not apply to you and you will “just fill it out on set”? STOP. Do not be one of those people! 

Listing the reasons we need this information and the sheer amount of extra work this mentality creates raises my blood pressure. So just don't. 

First Move: 

Remember: Correctly. Early. Digitally.

Hint: Digitally does NOT mean sending in a photo of a piece of paper. If you have a phone that can take a picture, you have a phone that can download any number of scanner apps, for free. USE ONE, and scan that shit in as a PDF.

Also, I would like to add – legibly. (Pens are sooooo 2017. Who prints?! Save a tree. But if you MUST do a hardcopy original…) Someone has to read these things, folks. 

A gigantor upside-down .jpeg of your chicken scratch in pencil, partially covered by a week-old mug of coffee on your bathroom counter is useless to me.  And when you take a nail to the flagina or your throat closes up after chef’s famous pine nut pesto, I WILL print out that crooked-ass photo, frame it, and give it to whoever comes to claim your body.

Okay. You’re fine. Shake it off. Moving on.

Level up: You are a technically-full-grown-adult person who has nabbed themselves a j.o.b. Congrats! Taxes! It’s time you know your way around the rudimentary forms essential for employment. Don’t know how to fill out a w4, I9, w9, deal memo or invoice – or better yet – already have all of them on hand? Get thee to a notary! ...Or just any tax professional, accountant, book, Internet search, or parent... (Notice, I did not say producer) 

Barring significant changes, you only have to fill out one form per year and keep it on file. 

So simple! So easy! But wait, there’s more!

Question Round: Sally sends a 60 person crew blank deal memos, titled: “blank deal memo”, to turn in prior to their start dates. She gets 38 completed memos back (16 are wrong) to put on file, all titled “blank deal memo”.

How many people does Sally murder?

Bonus Board: Label your file with YOUR NAME and what document it is before you send it back. 

IE: Cubelic, Brie. W4. (Surname alphabetization is a very personal and private choice made between a coordinator and their god(s). I do not judge.)

Common sense, right?  Supply information. My name is Brie Cubelic, and this is my W4. The w4 is no longer blank; therefore it is no longer a “blank w4”. 

Trippy, I know. There is no spoon.

Boss: What’s worse than sending everything back incorrectly titled? 

Sending each file back separately in its own email. Cringe 

OR, sending it all back in one long AF file. NOPE.

Want to really make your producer swoon? Put all your clearly labeled documents into a clearly labeled FOLDER and THEN attach THAT to your (appreciative and timely) response. Booooooooom! Did I just change your life?! That’s right! Throw all those crisp, black & white, aptly named PDFs into a tidy tiny dossier, Call It By Your Name, and FINISH HIM, hit send.

*Ding* “Oh, look, crew paperwork! Whaaaaaat. I can download and save this ONE thing without creating a new folder, opening, formatting, and re-naming Every. Single. One?” Slow clap. Efficiency brings all the boys to the yard. (She wishes, wistfully) “I’ll remember this lovely human, and NOT because I had to type their inordinately complicated name 9 times.” 

Fireworks. Confetti. Flag raised on the castle. 

Scene.

From there, the rest is easy.

Be Cool.

Do your job.

Bring us snacks. (We like snacks.)

Oh, and put your contact information in your email signature, you animals!

And never… Never, ever, Hit reply all.

Best of Luck!