So you’ve tried explaining why you need someone to do their job. You’ve tried bribing them with treats. You’ve tried threatening them with the consequences of their actions and STILL you’re on the ass end of missing your project’s deadlines.
It is now time to rain down the pain. It’s time to make good on your threats, or find someone who can. Listen, a lot of creative projects are extremely time-sensitive, and every missed deadline puts you farther down the road to Craptown where nothing gets finished and everyone is mad at you and no one ever hires your team again and your kids join a rag-ma-tag group of children beggars to support your family. You, as the ringmaster in charge of the circus, have to make sure the project is completed on time and in budget. Which is kinda frustrating, because all of the components of the project are coming from other people–you can’t just buckle down and do it yourself. If I knew how to model or animate, you can believe I’d be in there trying to finish that animated trailer myself. But I can’t, so I have to do whatever is in my power to get the creative contributors to do their parts.
If you miss a meeting that I needed you to be at, I will tell you that this is the last time I’m covering for your ass. No more Mr. Nice Guy, guy. And so the next time you miss a meeting (let’s say the meeting we rescheduled for because you missed the first one. The one that was scheduled for the very next day. The second one in as many days that you missed without any apology or explanation), I will follow through on my threat. I’m taking this issue to the boss, and outlining all the ways you’ve failed to do your part despite my best efforts. I will make sure we finish this one thing while no longer respecting your privacy or sanity, probably by harassing you in every way I can think of: emails, phone calls, texts, Facebook messages, blog posts, flyers in the hall, home visits, calling your mom, taking out an ad on Craigslist, tracking you down at concerts, skywriting, or singing telegrams, to name a few.
Or I will find a way to get myself detached from you, and see how well your project goes without me. Good luck, little buddy.
I apologize if this offended anyone, I promise if you’re reading this I’m not talking about you. A lot of these stories are anecdotal but highly exaggerated. I’m also sorry for running off on a rant there at the end…I just really hate being taken for granted. But look, it’s ok–here’s a video about cats and a printer and British accents that gets me every time:
Let me just say that you are completely justified. I had such horrible experiences with actors in college that I gave up live-action filmmaking altogether. One actor failed to show up for the entire week of rehearsals and I recast the role the night before the day of shooting. My senior film got canned when my lead actress never showed for the first full day of shooting as well as the rescheduled shoot. I attempted to shoot my film over Thanksgiving break and barely passed the class.
It is additionally perplexing when it is something they claim to want to do professionally, but seem unable to fathom the responsibility such a profession requires.