Beware the ‘Trump-Max’ variant - it’s deadly for production

We are very lucky to have employment at the moment and, for those that don’t, I have extreme sympathy - Covid really has upset the apple cart. One of the consequences of the pandemic is the new rules regarding the way we make TV - and these ‘temporary’ changes could find their way in becoming baked in production processes from now on.

However, I have also observed some other, weird side effects that have affected certain people in the industry.

But before I get to individual symptoms let me outline some of the current challenges productions face, or at least, the ones we are facing.

For instance, the insurers tell us that the ‘talent’ cannot travel in the same vehicle as each other for more than 15 minutes and they must do so whilst having the windows wound down.

Two problems here - having the windows down makes it very difficult for the sound recordists as wind baffle drowns out peoples voices;

Fix: you have to drive slowly and they have to raise their voices. Also, despite it being mid April, it’s still fricking freezing outside so driving around with the windows down means your presenters get really cold, very fast. 

That results in red, runny noses and a lot of sniffing. 

Fix: none.

All this can be quite trying when you’re attempting to make an aspirational travelogue. However, the challenges of managing a production in this environment are much greater than just social distancing protocols on a shoot. Now, the whole production team is working remotely. Not being in an office together means that home life interrupts working life in a way that it never did before. It’s also much harder to get information from team members quickly. When I was a show runner I could just quickly ask a PM or researcher something because they were a couple of desks away.

Now, Zoom calls or phone calls have to be booked, agendas need to be written and mounds of explanatory paperwork make up a new part of the working life - things are not as organic and perhaps most importantly, creative, when your workforce is separated by hundreds of miles rather than a few feet.  This results in unexpected stress levels on the team especially when some of the younger ones are living alone rather than in supportive family units.

Hold on, I hear you say, I thought this column was supposed to be a mildly amusing but very apposite rant - not some boring, whinging production piece you might find in the back pages of a weekly trade mag. Patience my dear readers - we are getting there.

So now I’ve laid out the background to some of the challenges of working in this environment it’s now I can pivot in to what I really want to talk about - the symptoms that channel execs have been displaying in these disease ridden times. Happy now?

We currently have the misfortune of dealing with a channel exec who is clearly out of their depth. This manifests itself in bouts of feeling ‘out of control’, sulking and feeling terribly insecure. So far so ‘normal’ (or asymptomatic for commissioners) right?

But I have noticed that a new symptom which has started to display - delusional show runner behaviour. This is where the individual seems to believe they are in fact series producers or directors rather than channel execs.  I cannot tell whether this is Covid related but it is sad to realise that our commissioner has clearly become infected with this terrible new variant - which I call “Trump Max” named after another delusional individual who over-estimated their own ability.

Anyway, I suspected the commissioner was coming down with “Trump Max” in one of our laborious, Zoom marathon meetings with him. In these ‘concalls’ he talked repeatedly about how much experience he had, yet strangely, he was unable to take any decisions on anything - another classic symptom. The other day we were tediously running through, sequence by sequence, a planned shoot when he asked whether we could also get some other shots “in case we needed them”. I explained that we wouldn’t need them as this kind of editorial was in abundance in the rest of the show and that this sequence was all about, in his words, “all out entertainment”.

But then came the classic commissioner quote that most of us will recognise “Yes, I mean we probably won’t use them, but let’s get them anyway”.

Ugh.

My only response to this was to ask what sequence would he like to sacrifice in case we (DEFINITELY) didn’t have enough time to shoot them all?

Nothing. 

We were told we HAD to get all of them. Everything must be got despite the covid protocols, the lack of time and the under funding of the production (you’re lucky to have work). The commissioner then helpfully explained this extra, rather dull sequence, could also be done in an entertaining way, just not how sadly.  It was then I realised he was in the full grip of Trump Max and that nothing could be done.

So obviously we didn’t get the extra sequence, not because we ran out of time, but because we didn’t even attempt to.  If he’s reading this and recognises his production - sorry, it’s not in your show.  I didn’t want you to discover it this way, I was rather hoping that when you actually saw the brilliant (and very amusing) edit without the “lets see the ‘hilarious’ inner workings of a wiring loom sequence” you’d agree that we didn’t need it.

But I was worried you might have succumbed to Trump Max by then so you’ve had to find out this way instead.  Which, now I think about it, is obviously a much more fun method of imparting information to you - in fact, wouldn’t it be great to post all commissioners notes like this for everyone to read…

I haven’t had my inoculation yet, but I am hoping that it will not only protect me and others in the industry from this debilitating variant.  Actually, I think it would be prescient if all the channels looked at getting their commissioners double vaccinated against this terrible disease because it’s clear there is no ‘herd immunity’ being displayed in our commissioning circles.