One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes (2 page)

As soon as the initial schedule is on paper, it changes completely.

During the first season of
Wild Things
, the production was flipped upside down a number of times. We would need to reschedule the flights and crew and interview subjects to make the new schedule work. Not because mistakes were made, but because what was envisioned wasn’t exactly going well, the studio didn’t like a story, it was the wrong time of year to film a particular animal, or our on-camera personality was not available. There were any number of reasons why the schedule might be changed. And this was the sort of thing that happened daily. Everything was in flux
up until the moment the crew left for a country. Even then things would change. And without the creativity of the producers in the field, there would have been no show. They would change stories on the fly, getting some great, unexpected shots. So the people in the field had to change how they worked, and those of us at the main production office a couple of continents away would have to change how we worked with our overseas counterparts to make sure that what was shot made it to air. There were even some stories that were filmed that didn’t end up airing for one reason or another. Stories weren’t as interesting as had initially been thought, the wildlife was hard to capture on camera, or the studio hadn’t liked the story. Still, even with all this apparent chaos, we were able to make great television. If it had been any other “normal” company, it wouldn’t have survived.

One day the production manager, my boss, finally decided to go out to lunch, which was very, very rare. She had just finished a meeting, and we now had the list of countries and places we were planning to use for the show. I needed to start putting together travel arrangements and research how to go about getting permission to film in those countries but by the time the production manager returned an hour later, everything had completely changed
at least twice. She swore she would never go out to lunch again.

First seasons are the most stressful of any time on a production because there is a battle for getting the show shot and “in the can” and getting it to air. And with everything up in the air and constantly changing, the pressure rolls downhill right into the laps of those who can do little or nothing without their supervisor’s help. There isn’t a moment of peace. When I worked as a coordinator for a large studio, I would see a high percentage of crew members leave after the first season on scripted shows, disheartened and upset about how hard it was to get a show off the ground. It was even more stressful for shows that were unscripted, with a general outline and no exact plan.

The second season staff benefits from the first season’s mistakes. The screw ups, the missed shots, the overtime, the unknown costs that would cause the studio headaches would be worked out as the staff reviewed the mistakes made on the first season. The first season is about education, dedication, and determination. And I needed all three of those qualities to succeed in the first season of
Wild Things
. I needed to be educated about the world, I needed to dedicate my time to figuring
out the problems, and I was determined to stay for further seasons.

I also formed a very bad habit at that time.

I decided to eat, breathe, and live the show. I believed that I should be the only one who could solve problems, and I didn’t want to give anyone else the chance (What an ego, right?!). I took my job way too personally, to the point of foregoing any personal life. I decided early on that I would handle whatever came my way. I would take whatever was wrong and lay it squarely on my own shoulders. If something fell apart, it was my fault. If I tried to fix something and couldn’t, it was my fault. If something happened that wasn’t my fault, it was my fault for not stopping it before it happened. I wanted to be the lightning rod for problems, assuming all the responsibility of failure. Well, that was pretty unintelligent, but at the time I rationalized it by telling myself that I needed to make sure everything ran smoothly so that my bosses could be free to be creative and those around me could be free to do their work better. I needed to prove to myself and others that I could handle the pressure.

By the end of the first season, I had been promoted to production manager and was working directly
with crews in South Africa, India, and Australia… basically all the countries where the time difference was so great that I had to get up in the middle of the night to make phone calls.

The show was a huge production. It involved researchers, story editors, field producers, editors, fixers, and camera crews all over the world, not to mention all the storytellers, the various facilitators in countries we were visiting, and the studio. And we had tight deadlines. There were deadlines to finish shooting, deadlines to finish cutting the shows, and deadlines to air the shows. This was a big undertaking and could be overwhelming. But I was able to learn many new things and help define my roll on the show; it gave me the chance to stretch my professional muscles. The fact that the show was so complicated meant that each day was a huge adrenaline rush. There was always something new to figure out, a country to research, travel to change…never a dull moment. I also got to see how everyone else handled the “excitement” of a difficult show with crazy deadlines and situations.

As I got used to working with Bert, like any boss, I got into a routine with him. There were three things I learned while working for him that can be true of any executive producer.

#1. There was never anything wrong with his equipment.

Besides brushing up on geography, the other big thing I needed to learn about was equipment—cameras, lenses and audio. I had to know who needed what type of camera and audio equipment and where I could rent it from. Two of the cameras were Bert’s, and I had to use them for three years and they were much older and had seen a lot of videotape.

I don’t know if it was the cameras or the people or a little of both. But I never had a moment’s peace with Bert’s cameras. Something was broken, something needed to be replaced. The batteries were so old; they could not hold a charge. I had the batteries secretly tested because I needed to prove to him that they needed to be replaced. Some didn’t last ten seconds; others lasted between one to five minutes. He still wouldn’t budge on buying new ones. The crews were allowed to take three batteries and he didn’t want to hear that there was a problem. Well, I sure heard about it. Some of the cameramen used to complain on videotape right before the batteries went out. I would have crews coming back furious, telling me they’d needed to use a car battery attached to the cameras to be able to shoot. And it was certainly a dangerous thing for them to
have to do. Bert told me that if he could use his cameras in the field, then the other crews could too. I never fully understood or appreciated what the crews were going through, but I had compassion for their dilemma. It fell to me to try and fix the problem amicably.

I was between two rocks—the rock of the crew who were suffering terribly and not being properly equipped, and the rock of the producer who wouldn’t budge. I wanted to fix the problem and also make sure that I was supporting the executive producer and not doing something behind his back that would bite me in the ass later.

So I contacted a camera battery company directly and pleaded with them to give me a good deal on their batteries. They agreed, so long as I was willing to exchange the new batteries for the old ones. I don’t remember how I did it, but I presented the idea to Bert and emphasized the cheap price of the batteries and the fact that the production would pay for it. The most important part of that sentence was “the production would pay for it.” I don’t know if we did, but he went for it. I was very happy. I had won a small battle in what felt like a very long war. And I learned that my job would forever be between two heavily leaning rocks.

#2. Travel never went smoothly for the executive producer.

The first season, I was responsible for arranging the travel plans for everyone on the show, including Bert. He would travel several times during the shooting of a season to make sure things were going okay or to check out a country to see if it was where he wanted to go. But I believe he played a game of dodge ball with the drivers who were assigned to pick him up. If we had a driver picking him up from the airport, we would be on the phone with the driver, who was standing along with the other drivers waiting for people. The driver would never see Bert get off the plane. And then there were times when he didn’t get the seats he wanted or the flight he wanted. Things I couldn’t necessarily control, but they always put him in an ugly mindset. He’d get into a chronic bad mood after traveling. And I’m sure he thought I was personally responsible.

#3: Every morning Bert needed to have a “screaming” moment.

Not a high-pitched screaming and yell fest with finger pointing and threats, but a recounting of all the problems of the previous day’s shooting, his frustrations, and the list of people he didn’t like or
wanted fired. While he wasn’t yelling at me, in particular, I took it personally at first, as if I’d failed to intercede to solve the problem. But after a while, I realized he was yelling through me. And I think a lot of his attitude sprung from the pressure he felt to make sure the show was a success. He just needed someone to listen to all the things he couldn’t say to people. He never wanted to be seen as the bad guy. He was always positive and upbeat with his colleagues, no matter how much he liked or disliked them. But I also have to say, in fairness to him, that his yell fests weren’t always as impotent as they seemed. He really wanted certain things changed, and I gave him my support, making whatever improvements I could. I always let Mark know when I didn’t do something that Bert wanted so that he could help with any damage control.

I had some of my strangest conversations while working on
Wild Things
. I’ll never forget a call I got early one morning from a sound person who told me that a gorilla had taken the boom pole (a long pole that the microphone would be attached to so that we could get sound that was farther away from the camera) that had been left outside his sleeping area somewhere in Africa. Another day I received news that a small camera had been killed by a lion. The crew had put a DV camera on top of a remote
control car, and then they’d sent the car with the camera on top of it toward a few lion cubs that were playing with each other. The cubs became curious and started sniffing and toying with the camera. While the camera was getting great shots of the baby cubs, it suddenly went dead because the mother, detecting it as a possible threat to her young ones, had decided to chew it to death.

Sometimes I would get a call from the field producer that the government of whatever country we were filming in wanted some outrageous sum of money to release our equipment from customs. I remember fifty thousand being demanded one time. We never paid fifty thousand dollars, more like three thousand dollars. But the absolute worst of the worst was when I had to let the producers know that the animals weren’t “performing” on schedule. I had a crew wait for several days on the plains of Africa for the wildebeest to cross a river so we could see the excitement of their crossing. The poor wildebeest would be food for the crocodiles that were lying in wait in the river, so it took a while for them to arrive. And time always cost money and delays. Even though we were documenting what was happening naturally, it had to work with our time frame for filming. And I would say about ninety percent of the time that worked.

Many of these calls would arrive in the middle of the night owing to the time difference. If there were problems at 3:00 a.m. that needed solving at that moment, I had to fix them without anyone else’s guidance or help. I could never get any executives on the phone that late at night. So I always dreaded having to come in and tell Bert and Mark the problems that had occurred while they were sleeping—whether it was an animal attack on our equipment or our equipment being confiscated.

I couldn’t imagine what it was like to pick up an irate call from our office on the other side of the world. I imagined that they got less sleep than I did. Being in the field was really hard work, and when you don’t have a script and can’t guarantee that there will be any interesting action, it’s almost impossible to give the producers what they want.

The hours were pretty long the first season as I was trying to figure things out, and I was hoping that by the second season it would be easier. I was wrong. For three years on the project, my typical day would involve working at the office for about ten hours, going home, taking a nap for a couple of hours and then working from about midnight to 4:00 a.m., communicating with people in other countries, take another nap and then head into the office early to
get out any paperwork that I needed to finish by the end of the day so that I wouldn’t miss any deadlines for shooting. I used to keep a pillow and a small television under my desk so I would catch the occasional cat nap at lunch time.

Bert hated that pillow under my desk. I also found out he didn’t much care for me, either. The third season of the show, which was also the last, was the hardest for me. The lack of sleep, of a personal life, or anything other than work was taking its toll on me both physically and mentally. My back was hurting because I had a disk that was not in good shape; I had gained weight because I wasn’t taking good care of myself; and I started to get snippy and illogical. Even though I tried to put on a funny face and goof off from time to time, in hindsight, I could see that I was getting bitter.

And I did lose it. A few times over the course of that last season Mark told me that Bert wanted me fired. He didn’t like me and wanted me out. Mark told me this because he was tired of hearing it from Bert. But it took a serious toll on me. I was feeling insecure; after all, I was doing my job, right? Wouldn’t I be fired if I were doing it poorly? I could itemize in my head everything that had gone wrong, everything Bert had complained about, and everything I’d tried
to do. My dedication and the long hours I put in meant nothing to Bert. That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t confront Bert until Mark passed along another fine piece of information. Bert thought I was sharing confidential information with another producer, one who wasn’t on our show, and that I was on some sort of “gossip” list.