As anyone who took a production class learned, production is waiting. That has not changed in this real world setting.
As an intern at Allied Pixel in Media, PA, I’ve done a lot of waiting.
On days I’m in the office, I come in, brew the morning coffee, and then wait for the rest of the staff to come in and check their e-mails. Then I wait for some equipment to come in from a rental to check in, or an errand to come my way, or a piece of equipment to pick up from another production house in the Philadelphia area. Some days, those tasks are almost non-existent, and I wait some more.
On these slow days, I’ll pursue their equipment manuals, or look at their B&H manual and try to decide what I want to buy, what I can afford, and what I really can afford. Sometimes I grab some of their cameras and play around with it. The cameras they have are incredibly nice, but even with expensive professional cameras, there is only so much time you can wrack focus between a chair and a water bottle before you’ve had enough.
Shooting days are much more interesting to me, but sadly, the waiting doesn’t end. I help set up shots and lights, but once the filming begins, I just kind of have to wait to help break the set down, although sometimes I get to be the slate boy. Those are the exciting days.
The shot gets set up and refined, and then you wait for the talent. The talent, usually someone important, gives you five minutes to do their portion, and leave. Then you wait for the next person, until you quickly have to break everything down. The moral of the story is that production is a start-stop business, especially in the corporate video settings I’ve been in.