Hey Bonnie,

What’s the etiquette when you, as an actor, are being treated unprofessionally?

In this particular instance I was told that my call time was 5:15pm. I was also told to be at a particular location and to call the numbers in my call time email when I arrived. One was the director, one was the producer, and one was, I believe, the assistant director. I called the first number at 5:05pm, no response. I called the second one and was quickly shuffled off the phone and instructed to leave a message because they were in the middle of the take. The third one was a wrong number.

I finally decided to text the first number to tell him about what had happened, that I had been there on time and that I had followed the instructions in his email. He responded for me to stay put. I did. I waited outside the location for an entire hour before any other news.

All the while I was carefully considering whether or not I should cut my losses and leave or just suck it up and stay. I did stay, but I felt as if my time and effort to be there didn’t matter to the production. I didn’t say anything to anyone about this and never received any sort of apology.

What is the etiquette of dealing with a situation like this? I don’t want to be known as someone who complains about everything but I also don’t want to be walked all over because I just put up with it.

I feel like this is an issue that many actors, especially young/new actors, have had to deal with.

Best,
An actor who met you when you visited UC Irvine (THANKS)

Oh, I feel for you! I really do. I remember my actor days (long ago) and having similar experiences. Well, actually *one* very similar experience, and then I got very clear on my NO line as I learned to look for red flags, which amazingly became much more evident, the longer I was in the industry.

You’re totally right about this being the sort of thing that happens to young or newer actors, in particular. So eager to work, so excited to get some experience and footage, the new-to-the-game actor may overlook red flags that the seasoned actor would see right away.

First off, the whole “hit the location then call us” thing is totally non-standard, and it’s definitely the sign of a crew that’s not sure they’re gonna make their day. Getting you to location before any member of the crew is there to meet you, get your paperwork handled, get you into hair and makeup, answer any questions, even provide a cup of coffee… that’s all red flag territory.

Certainly, you did everything they told you to do, and you stuck around on set, waiting for them to make a company move to get to you (finally). That they didn’t apologize for the inconvenience just shows how wrapped up in their individual jobs they all were. They were stressing about being behind, not about the awesome actor whose time they were wasting.

Would I advise sticking around that long? Eh, that depends. If you’re really hungry for footage, you’re already THERE, you like the role, you’re crazy about the script, you’ve done research on these folks before having accepted the role to know that they churn out quality projects of which you’d be proud to be a part, and your day was already blocked out for this gig, sure. Stick around. But learn the lesson for next time.

What’s the etiquette for having been treated so badly and not getting that apology? Welp, you guessed it. You can either throw a fit, storm off the set, and earn a reputation you don’t want, or you can stay the pro that you are, do great work, get your awesome footage, and note for the future (in your fab show bible) that these are filmmakers you’d prefer not to do business with in the future. Or, that you will work together, just under very specific conditions. That’s how most of this ends up going down. We all work with non-pros sometimes. The key is learning from every experience, so you can cut down on your time with the non-pros out there.

Now, before I close off for this week, I thought I’d share two links based on recommendations from members of the SMFA Master Class, in a recent discussion we had about just this topic. One is a book: On the Set: The Hidden Rules of Movie Making Etiquette by Paul J. Salamoff and the other is “The A to Z Guide to Film Set Etiquette” by Evan Luzi. Enjoy! And keep doing good work. I’m proud of you. I know you’re going to learn from this. And by asking your question here, you’ve helped others learn from it too. Yay! 🙂


Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!


Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001693.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.

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1 Comment

  1. Jonathan Riggs September 24, 2015 at 8:41 am

    What a great question and answer. Thanks!

    Jonathan

    Reply

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