Thoughts from the annual company development weeks in US Dec 2016 – Jan 2017
It’s very usual for anyone working in film: when a civilian (aka someone not working in film) hears about your career they assume it’s fun all day and glamorous parties every weekend. It’s not every production but every other one when producer or director encourages people to “have fun at the shoot”. Is it really necessary to point out having fun in a stressful industry like this – since it kind of feels like a joke most of the time?
We’re thinking it might be. Though it often sounds really sarcastic (yeah, sure I’m having fun rescheduling the next three days after a call in the middle of the night to be ready at 7am….) it’s not about the exact work you do. It’s about the attitude. And at Blockbusters Gang we surely appreciate a great attitude.
Me and Emma are describing our mindset as “cut the bullshit-thing”. For us it means couple of very important things:
1. Get to the point. Like it or not, everyone is always in a hurry. 2. We don’t need to hear dozens of explanations why something didn’t go as planned. Let’s just focus on the solution. 3. While working be present 100%. It’s much more fun fooling around at full later than mixing up these two things for the whole day.
Though we are pretty strict with many things we’ve also been very careful of making sure our company isn’t run with rules that exist just because there needs to be rules. It’s not once or twice we’ve popped out the champagne in an afternoon in the middle of the week or slept in on a Monday morning since nothing needed to be done before noon… After years or intense working you learn to let go of being productive in the moments you don’t need to.
Anger or rudeness should never be part of any working environment although there surely is a lot of frustrating things about making films. We just have to accept them – living with the unknown isn’t actually as bad as it might feel at first. And not taking yourself too seriously helps in other life too.
Old sayings are still very accurately true: even the worst of the productions is great when you have the right people by your side. That alone is a good reason to form a gang.
Ps. Pictures are from Santa Monica Pier.
Missing my crew back in Helsinki,
– Iiris
1st Assistant Director / COO, Head of Production
iiris(a)blockbustersgang.com
Twitter: iirisjuu Tumbl: @iirisjuutilainen Instagram: iirisjuutilainen