Speaker 1: Hey everyone and welcome back to the Amber Living Vlog. This is the Beyonce Film School and I wanted to make a real quick video. I was on set today, it was, I mean, I got real lucky. I got wrapped early and I had like a 10 hour day and it's probably like a 10 hour day, about a 10 hour day and that's like heaven sent when you're talking about the film industry so I'm, you know, I gotta, I'm trying to make the effort even though it's been a month since my last video. I feel bad about it but like the time really does go by when you're on set. So if you saw my last video and if you were paying attention, if you were paying attention, you would have noticed the fact that I skipped and I missed number 6. Now when I was making the video on set, number 6 does exist but for some reason when I was editing it and I was putting all the videos in the timeline and I was trying to get it out and exporting it, somehow I missed it or maybe the file got deleted because I thought I had uploaded all the things to my computer from my phone. So number 6 was missing. So what was number 6, right? Number 6 is communication and when to be vocal, when to be silent on set. And this is going to be the name of this video about communication on set because it's vital. It's like you can't have a set run properly without proper communication and one of the things that you will need for proper communication, if the set is big enough or if there's, I mean not big enough but I would say if there's a number, a certain amount of people, a certain location and you know lots of people involved, I don't know. It depends. I've run sets without them and I've had sets with them and had problems with them and it can go either way. So what I'm talking about is the walkie. Now if you're a walkie PA, man, I mean God bless you because I feel like it's almost like a thankless job but when everything goes to shit and your walkies don't work or you don't have any hot bricks or someone's not organizing the walkies or someone's not doing inventory or someone's not passing them out, you miss the walkie PA. The fact that the walkies are not available or they're not organized or something's not working or your surveillance needs to be replaced or something like that, it's just like very, very, very important job. Every job on set is like super important and that includes like your walkie PA. So what else can I say about communication? I can say that over communicating can be very bad. Being vocal when you don't need to be can be very confusing and just annoying. I would say annoying. So if you're over communicating, people get like really annoyed with that. Like okay, I get it. I know, I know, I know. But also what I have found is I don't like repeating myself. When I run sets, you have to repeat yourself because otherwise there's always going to be someone that misses it. And if everyone's not on walkie, you have to make sure every department knows. So having good walkies is super vital. Making sure every department knows what's going on. And I mean this. I mean, what shot are we doing? What scene are we doing? What actor is in it? What are they wearing? What are they supposed to be doing? You know, things like that. Also, what is the time estimate that Genie will be done? When will the lighting be done? When will HMU be done? There are time estimates that need to be communicated to other departments so other departments can know like when can sound start wiring? When can we bring the actors in to line up with first team? When can the camera line up with first team? So those are things that everyone kind of needs to know what's going on all the time. And communication, that's just how you're going to do it. You have to communicate what's happening to everybody. So I don't like repeating myself, but I know that I have to if I don't have a proper communicating system. So just a couple days ago, I've kind of like wined down. I'm back into the real world now. I was just doing a six day short film and I was first in for that. So I didn't have any PAs. I had like two PAs one day out of the six days, which was super, super challenging as an AD. I had like my UPM and I had other producers helping me, but it was like I always could have used at least two extra people to help me. And you know, when you don't have the budget to kind of pay for PAs, I don't want to off the people that I know only because I know the people that are my friends, our PAs, they're getting paid union rate. So when you go to indie, you know, they don't tend to pay as much, which is kind of like a bummer. So communication, you have to be vocal, but being like overdoing it is kind of annoying. But at the same time, you have to make sure someone knows. So I guess, I guess over communicating would be better than not communication at all. So when you're a PA, and when I was doing the seven tips for, you know, communicate, when I was doing the seven tips for surviving in the film industry, and what I was going to say was like, you should be vocal when you need to be and you should be silent when you need to be because there are going to be moments where you have to be quiet, you need to get others quiet. So but there's that, that weird balance because if people think you're too quiet, they think you're incompetent. So it's like, for Christ, you know, you don't, when you're a PA, it's always like, but when you're an AD, it's a bit different, because people expect you to be the very, very, like the most vocal person, because that's where the PA is going to get their cues from is going to be the AD. So yeah, this was this video was about was about communicating and how important walkies are and how important it is to communicate properly. Also, I guess, I guess a lesson I learned from another set I was on was, you know, with an AD that talks too much, and it gets confusing. And you're like, you're trying to pick out the like, the details or the most important bits when an AD talks too much. So that's the thing. It's like being clear. And you know, concise with what the information is like, that's super important, too. So it's, it's, I feel like, does it take practice, probably, I don't know, probably takes practice to get like, concise and short, because I, as a second AD, with my first AD that I was doing this feature with, I would always make fun of him. And I would say, make it shorter. You got to make it shorter, because people are like, they're doing things, they're busy, and they have to just know what they need to know. And then they have to continue working, you know. So that's kind of like, you know, I wouldn't recommend making fun of your first AD when you're a second, but that was the kind of like, the relationship we had. So yeah, so I'm gonna leave it here. Communication is super important, and you know, be silent when you need to, be quiet when you need to, and, you know, be vocal, and be clear and concise when you're on set. Well, that is it for this, this month, week, or I don't know, maybe I'll post another video, I have no idea. Thanks for watching Beyond Film School. This has been the Amber Living vlog, and I will see you guys next week.