How To Avoid A Crew Member Yelling at You On A TV Set

I can tell you, I will never make this on-set mistake again. It was not a good experience for me. Hey, watch this video to the end. I've got a really good bonus video for you. It's my secret to working with A-list actors. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. I had— it was a very difficult experience on a— this was a TV set, and actually we were out on location, and I was the stand-in. And I'm sharing this with you just to let you know also, it's not an absolute thing. Sometimes it is okay to do this, and I'll explain that to you soon. And we were out on location. I'm a stand-in, been a stand-in on this project for a little while at this point, maybe a couple months. I wound up working about a year and a half on the show. It was a great experience. And if you don't know, so the stand-in, basically you are standing in for the principal actor. So when they are setting up the lighting and the sound and the camera movements Instead of having the principal actor do all this, they can relax, prepare, do whatever they need to do, and they'll get a stand-in who's a— it's got to be the same height, facial features, skin tones. You don't necessarily have to look like the principal actor, but when you put on the same wardrobe and they're getting everything focused that way, once they're done and they're ready, now they call the first team in, which are the principal actors. Second team, the stand-ins, we walk out. So we were out on location. It was this big park, and I've been standing around for a long time. There is a lot of waiting around when you're doing stand-in work. And it was warm out, and they finished shooting a scene, and they were breaking everything down, moving to another area in this park. And I, I'm watching the crew, and these guys are working so hard. And so I thought I was being a nice guy, and they had a battery pack for one of the lights, and I saw where they were going. So I thought, you know what, let me, let me help the guy out and— or help these people out. So I picked up the battery and I started walking. I started following some of them, and some guy comes over to me very quickly. He said, what are you doing? I said, I'm just trying to help you guys out. I'm, you know, carrying this over for you. He goes, hey, are you a member of IATSE? Which is the union for these guys. I said, no. He goes, put it down. Don't you ever touch our equipment again. I said, okay. And I did, and I never picked up the equipment again. It was a very uncomfortable situation. And I can tell you, one of the things that I learned from that experience was Number one, it's not my job. You know, I shouldn't necessarily be doing that, but I don't know, I've got a heart and I'm seeing people working really hard and I'm just standing around. But I'll tell you what I should have done. I should have walked over to one of the crew guys. Well, when I say guys, I don't mean just men. There were women too. I just meant people. And I should have said, hey, do you guys need a hand? I'm just hanging around here. You want me to carry something for you? And he probably would have said no. And that would have been the end of it, and that was it. But, um, yeah, I learned the hard way. So when you're on a set, um, you know, you don't want to start doing other people's jobs without asking first. And I do have one other experience that I want to share with you. And, and by the way, if you haven't done this yet, hey, don't forget you can go to my new website, howtoactandmodel.com. And sign up to be on my free mailing list. I send out great industry information, and you will get a free video. It's 6 Secrets to Mastering Home Auditions. It will be really, really helpful to you. And if you haven't subscribed here, just click the subscription button. Uh, also click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. And if you like the video, share it. So Oh, and by the way, one other last thing before I share this other experience. Hey, if you've ever had an interesting experience on a set and you did something that maybe you shouldn't have and people let you know about it, please share it here on the channel so that way we can learn from you and make sure we don't do and make the same mistakes that I made and perhaps that you made. So please share that here. Hey, so something else that I did, and, and there is a way of working around this one as well to, to make it— to potentially make it work. I was an extra. And, and by the way, just so you guys know, being a stand-in— and I, I learned this the hard way, and that's a whole other story— but a stand-in is actually— you're, you are in the extra category now. You get paid a lot better than extras. You get treated better than extras. When they break for meals, you get your meal ahead of the extras, but technically you're still an extra. So it's a, it's a nice additional category of being an extra. So this, for this one, it was a film and I was just an extra. Not just enough, I was an extra. And we're sitting around a bar And they shoot a scene, we're supposed to take a drink, and of course they didn't have real alcohol, but it looked like alcohol. And we're doing lots of takes, and at one point I noticed that I had very little drink in, in, in my glass. And so I was thinking— this is pretty, pretty close to the beginning of my career, but even at that point I knew If they use this take— and I had no idea if I was even visible, if the glass was visible— but it might look weird. At least it would look weird to me if you see somebody drinking and they're shooting the scene, and then all of a sudden you see them, you know, they do the scene again and now the glass is almost empty at the very beginning. I was, I was worried that when they go to edit it, it's going to look really weird. So walked over to the person who was doing props and said, hey, just wanted to let you know, when we start of the scene, you know, I had this much liquid in the glass. Now it's, you know, pretty far down. And essentially he said, mind your own business. And so that was also a valuable lesson. Not a good one, or it didn't feel good, but it was a good lesson. But here's, here's the takeaway that I got from that one. Look, and I, and I've done this more so in print work for commercial modeling jobs than with acting jobs, but I have done it in some ways with acting jobs. If I have an idea I don't want to walk over to the photographer. I'm not going to— I don't want to walk over to the director and say, look, this is what we need to do. Your way really isn't working. We need to make a change. Of course, I would never do something like this. But here's the trick, and I have done this and it's been very effective. I will pose a question in a way so it sounds like it's their idea. Let me give you an example. So, hey, so I wanted to ask you, do you think it would work better if I'm looking this direction as opposed to looking this direction? And all of a sudden the photographer might say, you know what, that's great. Yeah, you know what, I want you to look over in this direction. So all of a sudden it's this photographer's idea, although it came from me. And honestly, I don't care. I don't care who gets credit. I don't need to get credit for it. I just want this shot to be as good as it can possibly be. So If you ever run into a situation, if you see a props person and there's a problem with continuity, you might— you could always walk over and say, I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but just wanted to let you know the glass was here, the liquid was here, and now it's down to here. Do you want me to do anything different or just keep going with it? At least that way they're not taking it as an assault, as you're questioning their professionalism or anything like that. So just wanted to make sure, um, that you heard this, and it will make your life a lot better on a set. And, and I hope that you don't run into the, like, those couple situations that I did that honestly was pretty uncomfortable. Hey, I did promise a really helpful bonus video. If you look right up here, you're going to see it. And basically, it's my secrets for, uh, for working with A-list actors, and I've been very fortunate to have worked with 3 Academy Award-winning actors, and these things were so helpful to me. So I hope you are in that position as well and hope you enjoyed the video. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.