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Can you repeat that? Go for production, Go for production, I said,
go for production production. That's right. You're listening to a podcast about
TV and film production. Join us as we converse with industry leaders and gain
insight into their strategies, their systems, in best practices in bringing a script
to life. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Brendan Riley.
Welcome to another episode and go for Production where it's my job to deconstruct and
demystify the production process in both film and television. We'll talk about strategies,
systems, and tools the pros use so you could be inspired move forward in
your filmmaking career. Today's guest is Robert Skid Skidmore Skid as an experience assistant
director and host of the Below the Line in podcast. A few of the
shows that Skid has worked on include Veep, Entourage, Spider Man Two,
Arrest of Development, Big Fish, The West Wing, and many more.
Welcome to the show, Skid, Brandy, glad to be here. Thanks
for having me. How did you get into the film industry? Tell us
about the DGA training program. What was it like in your instruments into film
making? Sure, so, I decided late in college that I actually really
liked the idea of working on the film industry, and for me, it
was the idea of this mechanical creativity, if you will, the way things
go together, you create something that's more than some of the parts. And
I got intrigued to that. It was late in college when I decided I
was actually committed to the Air Force because I was doing RTC and convinced the
Air Force to let me do back camera while I was in uniform. So
for five years, from about ninety three to ninety eight, I was in
the Air Force. We're in the military, doing sort of corporate style video
production for the military California for a while, and then in DC. And
when I got out, I moved to LA and you know, worked as
a PA like many people do, found some work for free and uh basically
put something together. Did get accepted in the DGA training program as as you
mentioned, and for two years worked on the shows that I was assigned.
Do you think that your military background, you know, helped you to have
the stamina for long days and this enduring. You know, it might have
been part of anything as the film world. It might have been part of
it, and a lot of way because it was crazy, even for the
beginning, and you know, as a production assistant, I basically just tried
to be you know, the best airmen that had ever worked for me when
I was on set in the beginning. The bigger connection, though, is
that the military and the film industry they use the same organizational principles where if
you have a very complicated structure that needs to respond quickly to change, you
have to build it in a way that the expertise is pushed to the bottom.
And so when the situation changes, you know, in the military,
the enemies are behind a different hill. On a film set, maybe the
actor is late. From the top, you can give direction, but then
the parts can self adjust rather than waiting for new instruction. And so seeing
those parallels between the military and the film industry, it's actually why I became
an assistant director. Of all the things I thought about doing in Hollywood,
ads, as probably most of your listeners know, are the ones that sort
of execute on that system, and so my experience in the military was directly
applicable to the kind of work we did in the AD department. I wanted
to hear about some of your experience as an assistant director in the role of
the second second AD or additional AD, and just maybe for somebody out there
is not sure what that position does, if you could kind of just give
us the layman terms so they can think about that and what your main duties
were. Well, in case folks are not fully familiar with the way the
AD department is set up. Again, most listeners probably are. But the
first assistant director is like the right hand of the director, and he or
she builds their team that basically executes from the planning stages to the work on
the day to summarizing afterwards the paperwork and such about what happened. That person
the first AD's right hand is the key second a D and that person basically
runs the team of additional ads, including the second second AD and PA's who
might help out sort of execute on all of this the role of second,
second AD or additional AD. A couple of times I did that. It
really depends on how that first AD and key second AD have structured their team.
Obviously the first AD is on set ninety five if not one hundred percent
of the time. The key second AD will then define their role based on
the relationship with the first. Some keys that I worked with were working the
paperwork and planning the next day, and so they would generally be offset working
that. In fact, sometimes when I was the key, that was my
job as well. Other keys I worked with were more on set where they
were setting background and working with the first to sort of execute on the actual
work, and in those cases as the second second, I might take on
more of the paperwork. Generally, if you have an additional AD, it's
because things are of such a scale or scope, either large background or multiple
locations that you're sending people doing DGA workout. But rather than have rather than
higher PA, the DJA would like you to hire additional AD so they have
lower rates that you can work as the additional capacity. When you're working as
an additional AD or a second second AD, and let's say you have a
lot of background one day, maybe one hundred, maybe a thousand, you
know what's your process for you know, making sure things are going to run
smoothly for that day. Is there certain things to keep it keep in mind.
I'm glad you asked about that, Brandon, because actually organizing large groups
of background was one of my favorite things to do, whether it was one
hundred folks on some shows and also not to be brought in just for that,
or on Sea Biscuit, where we had thousands of background unpaid extras that
were being brought in and we had to learn to work around them. For
me, it was a multi stage process. On one level, the most
important thing is to plan ahead, figure out your logistics. How are people
going to move around. Maybe some of my military background affected this as well,
but just the idea of how the system is going to work and how's
this going to manage a large group of people. By planning that, by
planning your production assistant teams and whose where and how things run through, that's
going to be the most important part of your day. The second most important
part of your day is going to be the talk to folks as far once
they get there, and really make the background feel like they're part of the
team. If you can build a team of folks, they will do incredible
work. And so I had what I used to call the speech I used
to train my folks to do it as well if I wasn't available, but
basically get up on stage explain to them how important their role is. They're
in front of camera after all the ads and the PA's we're not by definition
we're behind camera. The work they're doing in front is important. So we
would talk through the basics about what the job was going to be and also
my expectations and what I expected for the day, how things would come together.
Basically established that we were a team. I was going to be the
leader of their team, but my job was to enable them to do good
work when they were on set. And honestly, when I did that and
did it well in the beginning my background, whether it was a small group
of folks or whether it was thousands of folks, I found that they were
really great and we're really part of the team. And I think oftentimes when
you have these large calls, there might be some folks who are going to
cause you trouble no matter what. But if you start from the place of
trusting people, establishing sort of what the rules are, the people who are
going to cause you trouble will self identify and you can then remove them from
the group. If you come in chaotically. If you're not feeding folks,
if you're not taking care of the people, if you don't see the background
as your responsibility, then honestly, people that otherwise would do great work for
you, they're going to start to freight at the edges as well, because
it's a hard job as well, even their job, and again you need
them fresh in front of the camera. So running background and organizing that group,
it's one of the most important things I did, and honestly, I
really enjoyed it a lot. If every day had been like on Seabiscuit,
we were running thousands of people around this horse track, I'd probably still be
in the business. When you're doing something crazy like Sea Biscuit, how do
you how do you determine how many PA's or additional ads to have on a
big day? You know, I don't remember our exact count on that,
but I probably had fifty folks or so. But it was determined less by
the sheer number than just the way we were going to break it up on
Sea Biscuit. As I alluded to, we hired a company that brought in
folks for free, and so they brought them in, they would get paid
a percentage of the headcount of what we would pay normal background. But all
of these folks are there because they want to be and so you have to
make them feel like they want to be there, and there's a reason for
them to say and also a reason to follow your directions. So on Sea
Biscuit, we broke them into groups of five hundred. Whereas they signed in,
we would literally hand them a piece of paper that it was a certain
color. And then once we had them in groups, then I had five
or six PA's also assigned to that color, who would wear the color either
their shirts or a little placard to sort of create some cohesion among that group.
And so once we on that one, we probably had six or seven
groups of five hundred that we were going to be moving around. But once
you created stickiness amongst the group, then it was possible to say, Okay,
green group, move over here, or blue group, move over there,
and they would move as a group because you had created an sentive for
them to be part of the group and made them feel like they're part of
something. You could also send one group to lunch while the rest of the
groups were still working around, and so that system worked really well. But
as I said, you need five or six pas per groups they could sort
of create a parameter answer questions. Then you also needed a separate group that
was going to do in processing, and you need a separate group that was
going to run lunch. And so when you added it all up, that's
how we got to about fifty production assistants on Sea Biscuit. Yeah, fifty's
that's a big number. That was a big movie. That's also a movie
where we had multiple second seconds because the job was so large. I was
the second second that went out to Kentucky early to get background ready and to
prepare for some of these larger events. But there were other second seconds that
had on other locations, and of course you know the second second that traveled
with the company full time. So that that was a big movie. We
got nominated for that one as well. For what it's worth, the DJA
nomination, I don't think we didn't win, but we did get pominated.
Thinking about extras, one question I had was just in terms of your style
when it comes to directing background. You know, let's say you've got to
set up a bunch of crosses. You got to figure out, you know,
your vehicles moving. You know, what are some things, some strategies,
tools you have in your mind that you like to use over and over
again. You know. Again with background, I think it comes down in
the beginning that you need to really get them thinking about being on camera.
You need to explain to them that even though I'm only going to see them
an on camera from point A to point B, it's gonna be much more
convincing if they know what they were doing before they started and where they're going
afterwards. When I watch TV and the background, I can tell when they've
been set in a manner that they're really just crossing quickly or from point you
know, point A to point b, as I mentioned, without much motivation.
You want them to be subtle. But if they if you encourage folks
to bring it themselves, more times than not, you're gonna get background that
looks realistic. You're gonna get folks doing things, having their conversations silently mouthing
of course, because you've explained that to them as well, in a manner
that really adds subtly to the scene overall. Now and then, if you
establish that properly upfront, if you've given everybody the speech you've taught them about
what their job needs to be, or for folks who are more experienced,
sort of set your expectations. Then you can watch the camera and you can
tweak the things that need fixing here and there and that way and just make
it that much better. But it's going to start with enabling and empowering your
background to bring their expertise, or if it's not expertise, to bring their
experience and self motivation to what they do. It's a lot I'm talked about
before. You've got to be able to push it to the bottom. You
don't want people paralyzed waiting for direction. Particularly, Yeah, if you've got
three people in a scene and it's very delicate, you can direct them very
specifically. You could almost puppetmaster that. But as soon as you start getting
ten fifteen people that are going to appear on camera, they have to bring
the motivation, they have to understand their job, and then you're as an
assistant director managing them for what the camera needs rather than just trying to get
them to do something. Basically, have you ever had to create something very
complex, you know, like a long tracking shot where you're having to you
know, give like ten different queues, and that was my job on West
Wing. I mean, that show is famous for the long walk and talks
that used to you know, go around those various rooms. We used to
be on two stages and then you'd have to actually reach a split point and
then pick it up on the other stage. But then when they moved us
on to one stage, the walk and talks themselves even got more complex.
The nice thing about that is I was actually a DGA trainee on the West
Wing, and that show is set up that the second second was responsible for
background, but the DGA trainee was taking care of them back and holding and
then working with the second second as far as actually making the shot work,
going through where are people going to cross, where are people gonna be standing,
where when the camera turns are they going to move around? And so
as the dj trainee, that's really where I cut my teeth on background.
And then when I went back as the second second a d and third season,
now I was in the role with the assistance of a DJA trainee to
sort of continue with that and execute on that. The other advantage we had
on that is we had a lot of regulars. We had a group of
folks that were White House staff, so that in setting it, you weren't
training them from scratch. You knew what people were capable of. You knew
that they understood the job and the role and basically where all the rooms were.
And so I could do a little chart with a little diagram to tell
people to go through, and then I could just walk it through where I
was pretending to be the camera, and we had the stand ins walking through,
and we could run it a couple of times and more, you know,
more often than not. Under those circumstances, we could produce some pretty
good background and people can go the show and designed for themselves. Season three,
that's the one I was responsible for. And how long were these tracking
shots? A tracking shot on West Wing could run for five minutes. I
mean, maybe that's an exaggeration. It felt both longer and shorter when you're
doing it, But yeah, this, uh, as much room as there
was on the stage, as much dialogue as Aaron Sorkin would write, we'd
have background filling in all around them the whole time. And was this a
mixture of like you know, a Q based off dialogue and hey tapping somebody
on the shoulder and you go now or was it all based off of the
diagram that you're drawing. You know, on a job like that, you've
got very little chance to tap people for ques. People need to know where
they're going to be, They need to understand the room, and they understand
how to get from space to space and then kind of like what the natural
flow is among the various sets. Again, the advantage of working with folks
who knew the sets, the actors understood, you know, how the flow
was going to work, made for all the difference in the world, and
that was something built up over time and that's what made that show successful,
at least from a background perspective, What are some you know, challenges or
issues that you would phase continually when it comes to you know, working with
background, or especially lots of background. Were there certain things that was always
a pain point? You know? I mean, I admit, as much
as I enjoyed doing large background, that first moment where I had to get
up on stage, it was just so critical to the whole process of the
whole day that I often felt anxious about how that was going to go and
sort of had to steal myself through practice by having a speech even having notes
on my speech about everything I wanted to cover. I would find that if
I could get up over that initial hump of sort of the challenge and speak
to people you know and and and really make a team of that group of
background, invariably it would it would worcount. Occasionally. Like I mentioned before,
there's gonna be a couple people that are going to cause you trouble.
They're sneaky, they don't really want to be there, They're gonna, you
know, whatever the situation. But if you're good with most of the folks,
those folks again will self identify and you can identify them and ask them
to go home before you get into real trouble about it. But generally,
building that team is the most important thing. It's a huge challenge. I
used to try to memorize everybody's names when I was on Elizabethtown. I made
I had most of the people were at table, so it wasn't so hard.
But I had one hundred and twenty people and by the end of the
you know, we had multiple days in there. But I would memorize them
in groups of ten or twelve or whatever needs so that I knew who the
folks were. Because it's much easier. You're gonna get a much better response
if you could say, David, I need you to cross, or Melissa,
you know, take your seat there, watch out for the camera.
That it is to say hey you, particularly with those large groups, so
trying to learn the names, treating them like a team and that you're the
leader of the team, but really forging them and letting them do their job.
That's really how with background it all came together. So just making sure
they feel valued and not you're just there, but well they should be.
They should be valued in the sense that again they're in front of your camera
and what they do is going to have as much to what goes on screen
as what the production designer has done. It's what the props folks have done,
is what the costumers have done, and so they are very important.
The challenge of managing background, I believe in from what I've seen, is
that ad work can be very stressful, and sometimes that stress can roll downhill.
And I've seen ads because of that stress not talk to background, or
not treat them, or have assumptions about background ahead of time, none of
which helps form them as a team. If you don't form them as a
team. Then you're managing a bunch of people that you don't agree with,
and maybe it's hard to get them to do what you want to do.
But if you form, if you go into it with the idea that we're
going to be a team, I'm going to be the team leader. But
my point is to make these people successful. Generally, it will work out
much better for you. When you're working as a second second. You know,
was there much prep involved or what was the prep like for a show?
You know, generally, as a second second, I don't remember getting
much prep. It might be to come in and work with the pas to
get the walk's ready, maybe the week before that sort of thing. Um,
you're not part of the scheduling. You're not really part of the planning
on most shows, even if your job is going to be execution and planning
ahead on the day, there's not a lot of room I think ahead of
time. So as a second second, um, generally I didn't see all
out of prep. It's one of the things that makes it tough to work
as a team. You know, you've got eight first ads and key seconds
that you want to be there for all the time, but they're going to
be on shows longer on both prep and rap than you are, and sometimes
as a second second you might have to go join another team just to fill
the gaps between the team that's uh that that you know is working on a
different schedule. Besides background setting background and working with pas, what are some
of the other responsibilities a second second AD or additional AD might have when it
comes to production. You know, it's a it's a good question. I
mean again, overall, the AD department is working everything from the planning and
prepping, execution, and you know summary afterwards. Um, sometimes a second
second, I'd be responsible for the production report. Sometimes I wouldn't, depending
on the show, but you know, that's usually something that that falls in
that area. We're just sort of again what you know, we knew a
time everyone was supposed to show up, what time did they actually show up,
what time did they actually leave, what happened on set that day?
Gathering all of that for approval again, just sort of making sure that everything
we did is actually captured for the report. You know, in my days
it was all by hand and you know, with pencil. Even the call
sheet was largely by hand. These days, I'm presuming it's you know,
much more electronic and hopefully you're all around that's less of a drag. But
again that was a big part of the job as well. But when you're
working on set though, like how much were you assisting the first ad in
terms of just thinking ahead or solving problems on set? Yeah, you know,
And again it would really, you know, depend on the job on
West Wing, when the key second was off preparing for the next day.
You know, I was on set managing that background, stepping into set when
the first ad had to step off ether for a conference or you know,
to grab some food, and so very much at the center of you know,
what is actually happening. But you know on Big Fish where I was
working paperwork most of the day, and on that show you didn't really know
what the weather was going to be the next day, so we would prepare
three call sheets every day, one for sun, one for rain, and
one for not rain but cloudy, and it would be completely different work.
And so preparing all of that and warning people that kept me off set where
I had very little to do with the action of what was happening. Sea
Biscuit would probably be something in between where there was a full traveling team.
I was responsible for this large background at background and interacting with you know,
and integrating with what was on the schedule and the team. But but I
was also out in Kentucky like a month early trying to get folks ready and
all the period costuming and working with the background folks and you know, our
our wardrobe people to get people ready. So honestly, it depends on how
that team goes together, each production and each team. How those things come
together is going to shape what that work is in a different way. That's
one of the things that was exciting about it, that it could be different
every time. You know, It's funny you mentioned Kentucky. I got to
film some stuff in Kentucky this past summer, and I would hear stories that
people talk about, oh yeah, back in the day we filmed on Sea
Biscuit, so some of those background might have been folks. I knew I
would love it. If they still knew me, then I knew if they
still recognize the name Skid, then I knew that I did my job really
well. That if that was the kind of memory they held on too,
if they curse with it, well, like I said, it's always going
to be a few people that you know don't want to be there. But
do you how many books that you recommend that have helped you as an a
d you know, honestly, I can't say that I do, or that
I recall. When I started out, there were some books about the film
industry. They really broke down the various crafts and who did what. Anyone
wanting to get into the business, I would think, start there, and
I honestly, really figure out what it is you want to do before you
get into it. As a production assistant. Every department's going to need assistance
in some way or another, and so you should sample different things and try
different areas and see what's really a good fit. It seems silly to say
now, but when I came to Hollywood after being in the military for five
years, I was concerned that I was late, and probably if I had
gone in with sort of a wider perspective, I'm not sure ad work would
have been my first choice. I think I had other creative aspirations or other
parts of the industry that might have interests me as well. But because I
was trying to apply the skills I had, I ended up on the path
with the ad no regrets about the time that I was working in LA or
the work that I've done, you know on and offset sets that and I
love doing the podcast now. Film is still very interesting me and talking about
it on every level. But my advice would be understand the different departments,
find a book that really breaks that down, or a website or a blog
or somewhere that you can really understand what everyone's doing, and then really figure
it out what it is that you have a passion for, because it's going
to take a passion to stay in this business. It's a lot of work.
It can be a real grind. There's all kinds of stuff that is
challenging over the course of it. But if you really have a passion for
it, you're going to find someplace that you really love and this industry is
gonna love you back. And if people want to find more about your podcast
or you, what's the best way to do that. Oh, I appreciate
that. So you can find me on IMDb. I'm My IMDb meat page
is Skid Skid That's the work I did if you're curious. The podcast is
also on there. For the last four years, I've been producing and hosting
a podcast called Below the Line, where crew comes on and talks about working
on set. I have a website below the Line dot biz that's b i
Z where you can see past episodes. You can see my contact info and
links to social media. You know, a lot of the stuff we've been
talking about Brandon was during my active days, which was really from ninety eight
to two thousand and six or some time ago. But I did become a
member of the Director's Guild through the DGA training program. I've been paying my
dues. I love getting the DVDs in the mail come Awards season, and
I've been on set a couple of times. I think you mentioned Veep.
I shot that in Baltimore when I happened to be out here and an a
d I knew from Arrest of Development saw my name on the local list.
And I also went down to Atlanta and did COVID protocols in twenty twenty when
everything was sort of shutting down, but as things were ramping up, they
needed help and so there was an opportunity for me there. All that being
said that the podcast has been straight through and talking about film is still passion
of mind. If folks are interested in anything you said, or just want
to get in touch. I hope they'll go to below the line dots.
Let's kid. I really appreciate your time today and just love learning all things
AD stuff with you and look forward to listen to your show as well.
It's my pleasure. Branded thanks for having me on. This was fun.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Go for Production. You can listen
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