when in rome...

I've heard all the nightmare stories from people who have worked on productions in China - crew who don't understand the technical aspects of shooting a show/film, ridiculous hours (there is no union to regulate things like this), directors who direct projects into the ground, sound (invisible) men, the list of complaints goes on and on like an angry wife nitpicking about her no good lazy ass husband who does nothing but sit around the house farting all day while she rakes the leaves, washes dishes, folds the laundry, all while holding down her own full-time job.

Today, I can say I've had the pleasure(?) of having experienced all of this in its full glory.

I have undoubtedly been spoiled silly working on projects in the United States.  Now, even what were some of the worst projects I was ever associated with there seems like Emmy/Oscar caliber stuff in comparison to what I've been going through.  Ugh.

Earlier this year, I got to work on a reality show here in Shanghai called Shanghai Rush that was produced and shot by a Western production company called Fly Films (awesome guys if you ever need a team to do something out here btw).  While the crew consisted of some local Chinese people, the entire ship was directed by an American with an NYU Tisch pedigree.  A few incompetent folks were hired for that shoot and when they proved to be too life-sucking in terms of clearly not knowing what they were doing, they were let go mid-shoot and quickly replaced.

The operation overall wasn't too far from that of working on something in the States.  I've never done anything reality contest show related in the US, but one just had the feeling that, throughout the production, Fly Films "got it".  I would entrust them to pull together a commercial or TV show/video and have it run smoothly and end with a nice product.

I'm in Shanghai again currently shooting something and this time, it's being done by an entirely local group.  I just went through 2 weeks of education on how it's done here without any Western influence.  You know what?  I'm actually kinda glad I went through it because now I can say I truly know what it's like and, more than anything, I have learned to appreciate that much more the people who I've worked with on projects out West.

I'm kicking around the idea of how to incorporate my recent experiences into a story somehow.  It would be comedy, high comedy.  I don't mean to do this to make fun of these people or China in general - and I realize that if this post was read by someone in command and they took offense, maybe I'd never work in this town again - but I do this in order, honestly, to challenge and maybe awaken Chinese production people to raise their game a little (okay, a lot) in order so that they can get to a world-class level.

As a nation, China is entirely too concerned about raising their game across all industries.  Finance, energy, food and beverage, cars, apparel, media & entertainment too.  The Olympics tore through here last year and the World Expo is before them next year.  They know the world's spotlight is directly on this place and they want to capitalize on it.  More foreigners than ever are living and working here today.  Mandarin is becoming the most popular language to learn.  I love it, I love it all.  I totally dig the vibe here and the sort of history in the making moment that people here are living in as this communist country becomes ever more capitalistic.  Sure, there are severe problems here that we will forever have to deal with and come to accept as Westerners living in this world, but insofar as doing business on a global scale, China definitely needs to beef themselves up.  I wouldn't expect China to sell itself out and do everything exactly as everyone else does.  They rightfully should maintain their own practices and methodologies, especially if it's already working, but when it comes to certain things, like producing world class entertainment projects, there is a minimum level of competency that one should have.

Experienced in my last 2 weeks, in no particular order:

• One lighting man, split between 2-3 projects, taking off during our's to work on another one, leaving us to our own defenses, before returning a few hours later to pick up.

• One lighting man, not really understanding scrims or angles of lights, shining big spotlight directly on my face, creating a REALLY bright Brian and awesome shadows all over the place.

• One cameraman walking away from the camera to another room as I delivered lines, leaving no one behind the camera.  I had to stifle myself from breaking out into laughter from the ridiculousness of it all.

• One cameraman behind the camera shooting me with one eye in the lens (good) and one finger up his nose digging for gold (not good.)

• One cameraman falling asleep literally every moment he wasn't shooting something.  He would lean up against the wall and doze off, sit on the sofa and snooze, get yelled at to start shooting, and wipe his mouth and press record angrily.  Same goes for lighting man whenever he wasn't actively engaged in something.

• Different directors not really knowing what they wanted at all and just winging it.  Granted, this isn't a feature film or a tv series, but another hosting segment, but, still, having some semblance of order and vision is definitely encouraged.

• The "set" we were on was a floor model unit at a luxury high rise building.  I guess nice they let us use it, but with it, so too did we have to endure random families coming traipsing in through our set with a sales agent showing them the unit.  Seriously?!?!  Don't even get me started on the drilling and hammering we had to endure from the floor above us by workers working on the still unfinished complex.  I couldn't exactly be irritated by them as they were just doing their job.  I say to the producer of the show, "Who picks such a place to shoot???"  Is this not common sense 101 that you secure locations that are favorable to you?  How much time (and ultimately, monay?) did we waste waiting for the families to finish looking or for the noise above us to pipe down?  1,000 hours, at least.

• Directors/cameraman/anything that had a pulse in the room would answer their cell phones right during me delivering lines.  I'm not sure what that's all about, but I guess in a country where picking up your cell during a movie or a business meeting and just gabbing away is acceptable, I just have to eat it?

Look, I realize I'm harping on the edge here of coming off as a prima donna, but trust me, these are basic production points that should not be happening, no matter what the project is.  And this says nothing to the fact that I had to wear a visible external microphone while delivering lines or the incessant scheduling changes (line producers and call sheets don't exist here) we had to just accept. 

At least my days were relatively short.

Look, I love this place.  It's definitely grown on me, and to a large degree, you have to learn to live with a layer of numbness around you in order to survive cause lots of things will frustrated you to no end.  I appreciate the opportunities and I realize these things happen not because the people don't mean well or aren't trying.  They just don't know any better, even when you tell them.  It's a process and I'm hoping as this industry evolves here, crews/producers/etc. will develop with the times and bring themselves up.  I think a great place to start would be by making sure everyone went to a production school boot camp if not film school itself.  I'm not sure many of these people working in this world ever had a formal hands-on training process.  There are people here who know how to do things on a world class level (both Westerners and some really savvy Chinese), use them as your resources.  If you want to be the best, you've got to learn from the best.

I'm never going to expect things here to be exactly the same as back in the States, but I say this respectfully, because I think it would behoove us all if it were the case, the vast gap needs to be closed considerably.  Other nations will take you more seriously and your filmed/televised product may stand a better chance of being exported/accepted.  This is your goal, isn't it?  You keep saying so anyways.