In the past month, I've been living in a totally new city! And as you can imagine, when you're in a different city... things are slightly different...
As i've previously blogged about, the Four Fingers team have kept me pretty busy... but money must still be earned to start with! So i've been working as a runner up here to pay my way! Its ideal, because you can choose days a little more easily. When I production assist, I need to be in 5 days a week, but with running, I can do 2 days a week and still earn enough to keep myself afloat, so thats been my plan!
Now, because Manchester is a smaller city, the industry is faaarr smaller. I've worked on three jobs and already worked with 3 different runners twice, the same sound guy, the same sparks, etc etc.
But because of this... the people are incredibly friendly... I truly believe you couldn't get by unless you are a friendly person and good to be around.
The similarities between the industry here and the industry in London, are almost identical. They have the "good" companies, the "bad" companies, the well known runners that everyone uses, the 'usual' studio, the favourite caterers... the same stereotypical role types, the same terms over radio (10:100 ... To Loo), "Fish & Chip Friday" and the same sandwich fillings for afternoon tea. Even the sparks have very similar variations of their well known catch phrases... when offering sugar in tea, its no longer "I'm sweet enough Babe", now its "I'm all sugar, me"
ONE thing however, is different. Often, the Heads of Department come up from London... and so the more junior department members are not used to them, and haven't worked with them before.
One of my past blogs mentioned the importance of team, and how my "AD" team worked so well because we were so close knit with one another, and this is certainly something that makes a difference in the North!
The Runners know each other really well, and often so does the 2nd, but the 1st takes a while to get used to everyone and try and get everyone into their roles. This also means that as a runner, the person to employ you is the production manager or producer from Manchester, rather than the AD putting your name forward!
The difference in this relationship, in my opinion, appears to slow an entire shoot down. Every AD is different, and every runner is different, so without knowing what the AD expects, what they like to be reminded of, and how they like to work in general often means that things run a lot slower, particularly at the beginning of day one.
However, this is one of the only differences I have noticed... and the reason for that being that many of the companies are based in London, and these directors have their own teams that they are used to. Other than this, everything would be almost identical.
SO... it turns out that the industry, no matter where you are, has the same systems, habits, characters and general running!
My favourite example of these similarities is from "living in oblivion". An American film about the making of a film, which hits these similarities dead on, even in a completely different country. It makes me wonder, how did those ways get spread so far? And where did most of it begin?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekseiZOJ
