Asking questions will only help the situation.

Before I begin to write about some of those “simple tasks” I want to comment on the biggest problem of all. I see a lot of young production techs and P.A.s struggle to guess their way through certain tasks. As a director or a producer, my biggest pet peeve is when crew members think that they have to know everything. Guessing is not acceptable. Ask questions. It isn’t a sign of weakness . . . it’s actually a sign to me that you’re willing to learn. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that you act like a five-year-old and ask questions just for the sake of asking them. I am suggesting that if I ask you to get me an apple box, and you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t go to the grocery looking for a box of apples. Just ask me if you don’t know.

Don’t feel intimidated . . . we all started somewhere

I remember back when I was interning, I was intimidated by all of the “old-timers” in the company. More than anything, I really wanted to fit in. I spent a great deal of time pretending to know things that I didn’t know. These people didn’t care. To them, I was an intern. It didn’t matter what I knew, I was still an intern. They weren’t going to give me the camera and the keys to the van to go off and shoot by myself. The only person that I was cheating was myself. So if you take anything from this first post, I want you to remember that questions are the key to learning.

Photo by demi-brooke