Energy Suckers

Sometimes while making a film you’ll find yourself working with people that you just don’t connect with.  No matter what you do you cannot communicate.  I’ve found this a couple times and have fortunately gotten pretty good at spotting people I know I’m going to conflict with before I get involved.I have never been able to understand people in this business who do not love what they do.  I just don’t get it.  And when I encounter these people it frustrates the crap out of me.  But the fact is that in Hollywood there are many like that here and for lots of reasons I can understand but it’s really not my problem to accept.

I thought I’d share some red flags to help others quickly identify these people and either run for the hills or jump in having been told.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make the deadline we agreed to, (insert bullshit here) came up.”

Translation: “I don’t find this to be my number one priority so you’re just going to have to wait until I do my other more important things first.”

“Is it ok with you?”

Translation: “I either don’t know if it’s good enough or I don’t care and I’m not going to bring anything to the table beyond precisely what you tell me to do.”

“I’m happy if you’re happy”

Translation: “I don’t work for myself.  I work for my weekend and my paycheck.”

“Not a problem.”

Translation: “This will become a problem very soon and I am keeping mental score of all the “not a problem” things I have to do.”  This is a sure sign of someone doing something through gritted teeth.

Talking about money before the creative

Translation: “When the going gets tough I’ll be the first to bring up my contract, my agreement, whatever.  I will not go above or beyond the bare minimum.”

Blaming/talking about anything in the past

Translation: “I just don’t want to take any risks or be responsible for anything.  Really, I probably shouldn’t be in charge of anything”

The drama prone/the bad homelife

Translation: “I want to chat constantly and will not go home at the end of the day because I prefer working to everything else in the world.”  (This is actually not so bad for the job sometimes if they can focus, but may start affecting your home life if you get sucked in.)

Rarely, I may still find myself working with these energy-suckers but when I do at least it’s not by mistake.  Now, I’ll only seldom do it knowingly as a result of weighing the pain of working with that person versus the gain I think I may get from the project.  And once I’ve made a decision to do it there’s only one thing I can do from that point out - shut up, smile and work my ass off to make the best of it.  Oh, and probably drink a lot too.