across the pond…

i can't remember when i first met shannon vandermark, it's been so long,  but the first i remember was one of the best jobs ever...surf girls.  not the best show i ever saw but oh boy did we travel to great places and have ton's of fun.  i was shooting, paula was my ac alex lipsitz was audio and shannon was our director.  it was great because shannon had been a story producer, had been in post, was a supervising producer all that.  so she knew what we needed, how to get it and when to just have fun.

when she moved to london to get married, i wondered how her professional life was compared to here.  this is what she said.

when did you move to London and why?

I moved to London in 2006 to be with a boy.  Now the boy is my husband.

were you planning to go into tv there?

No way!  I wanted to escape Reality TV, but then I realized that the only way I could feasibly stay in the UK was to prove that I was a “Highly Skilled Migrant” and the only thing I am highly skilled in, is producing TV.

how are the jobs different, pay? positions? titles? Etc

Ah....well,  there  are different in title for one.  In the US I was a Supervising Producer, leaning towards Co-EP roles.  In the UK, Co-Eps don’t exist and I am called a Series Producer.  The responsibilities of a Series Producer are very similar to that of a Supervising Producer, but as a Series Producer you deal with the network a lot more.  Here, a Field Producer is called a P/D (Producer/Director), a Story Editor or Story Producer is called an Edit Producer and it takes longer to work up through the ranks.  You start off as a Runner or a Researcher.  (A PA is a Personal Assistant here and not a common title in TV unless you are working directly for a network exec, etc.)  Some people will work as a Researcher for nearly 5 years before they get their first AP gig, and by then you need to know how to shoot on your own.   Once you are an AP, you will move up to becoming a DV Director, which is basically a P/D but you are your own Director and crew all rolled into one!  Sometimes, as budgets shrink, they will try to do away with the camera operators and audio engineers altogether and just have the producers do everything.  Like guerrilla-documentary style.  It was a difficult concept to grasp for me because I have had to learn all of those technical skills later in my career to be qualified to compete for jobs here.  I couldn’t just tell people what to do, I had to do it.  Now, I know that all of you shooters and audio engineers think Producers don’t do much, but a good Producer will have his/her head wrapped around the big picture and will be constantly spotting story and putting out fires.  It is very difficult to cover those responsibilities while looking through a camera lens.  So although I don’t agree with the documentary direction where production is headed here, its a bit out of my hands and I need to work.  So now I can shoot.  I must say, when you see your program on the air and you know that you were responsible for some of the sound, camera and all of the other bits that no one would notice, there is a sense of pride that I didn’t get from just delegating to others.  OK, now the pay.  Its horrible.  I’ll be frank here, when I left the States in 2006, I was getting at least $3000/week, sometimes as much as $3600 as a Supervising Producer or Lead Director.  As a Series Producer (and I will talk in dollars here) I have to beg to get $1980/week.  I’m told that some Series Producers can get $2200/week, but those are the ones who have been working for the BBC for 25 years and have helped develop Britian’s Got Talent or something.  Its a lot more competitive here and there are a lot less jobs.  Its also difficult to come over as an American for a lot of reasons (a few less reasons now that Bush is out!) but in terms of getting hired, the employers are looking for very specific experience.  I think that in

the US, we are rewarded for diversity and being “well-rounded.”  If you have a bit of comedy experience as well as big glossy studio shows and then some Reality and Documentary stuff, I think you would be in demand.  You are a Jack of All Trades, and that’s good!  Not here.  Its like, if you are going for a Comedy gig, you better have a good handful of well-known Comedy programs on your CV otherwise they won’t even call you in for an interview.  That being said, London is not unlike LA in the sense that if you know someone who will get you in, it doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of difference WHAT your experience is.  They hire fools here too.

how did you acclimate?

Hmmm...still working on that, really.  London is usually cold and damp...a stark contrast to LA that was charming at first, but becomes a bit redundant after 4 years of rain.  It isn’t as easy to make friends in London because people aren’t as quick to warm up to you as they are in LA.  Sure, in LA a lot of people warm up to you because they want something, but you are never without a few invitations for socializing.  Here, it takes longer to become friends, but once you’re there, you are in for good and acquaintances pretty much become family.  The drinking culture here is hard-core and although good friends might be hard to come by, you can always find a co-worker who wants to ‘ave a pint or a glass of vino “down the pub” after work.  I have acclimated to that aspect quite well.  I have had to alter some of my vocabulary and the way I speak, but I wouldn’t say I have an annoying Madonna accent.  But I don’t really know, maybe I do.  I hope not.  OK another important way to fit in is to enjoy tea.  I like mine strong but milky.  When I arrived, I found it remarkable that people would consistently get so excited if you offered them a cup of tea.  They would be like “Why yes!  That would be LOVELY!” and their eyes would positively sparkle.  Now I get it.  In a place that can still be damp and cold in the middle of July, an offer of a cup of tea is like someone holding out their hand and saying, “I think it sucks too.  Lets allow ourselves this treat.”

what do you like better/worse?

Gosh, that’s a difficult question.  One that I ask myself a lot.  To be completely honest, I love it here.  I love that I can walk everywhere and that there is so much history and that travel to some many exciting places is on my doorstep.  But its an expensive city and I miss my family and friends in the US.  Its hard to get people to call you internationally because its expensive, the time change is confusing and there are all of those weird numbers to dial.  Even my mom can’t keep the time difference straight, and I have been here for 4 years!  Also, there is a lot more time off between gigs and I can’t collect unemployment here because I am not a citizen.  Even if I was a citizen, I would only be able to collect about $88/week anyway.  For now I think we like it better here, even though I get very frustrated sometimes and I miss people terribly.  But we are planning our return to the States and I will miss it here, so we are trying to figure out a way to live the dream, and live/work in both countries.

how is your relationship with your co workers different in the UK compared to the US?

There isn’t much difference, though I will say that there are many many women here who have families and go home at 6/6:30pm everyday without feeling guilty, which I think is wonderful.  One difference between working with the crews in the US and the crews in the UK is that in the US a lot of camera and sound opps tend to put on their producing and directing hats and get involved in, well, producing and directing.  In the UK, they generally stick camera and sound.  I don’t know which I prefer because sometimes it is invaluable to have a bit of help with the producing and directing tasks.  On the other hand, crews might start “taking the piss” a bit and second guessing or walking all over the producer, which of course is not ideal.  I also found that I have had to work on my subtlety skills.  Generally speaking, I can be quite frank and blunt but here, you get a lot more accomplished if you choose your words and battles very wisely.

what do you miss/not miss about working in the US?

I miss the money.  I miss all of my contacts and networks that took years to cultivate, the job frequency and knowing the lay of the land.  I also miss unemployment checks.  I don’t miss having to commute in my car for hours and hours and I don’t regret trading in “networking” in cocktail lounges for cheeky half pint “working” lunches in thatched-roof pubs with fireplaces.  I do miss having an office, as everything here is open-plan.  I miss editors who can work on their own without a permanent Edit Producer telling them each move to make.  Have I said that I miss the money?

how is reality tv viewed in England, what do people think of it as a genre and of the people who work in it?

The mentality towards reality TV in the UK is basically the same as it is in the US.  At dinner parties, when you tell people that you work in Reality TV they patronizingly pat your shoulder and apologize for your misfortune, then turn around and rattle off what happened over the past 3 weeks of Big Brother.  What the British industry has wisely done, is they have started re-naming Reality TV in order to make us all feel better for working in it and to confuse those on the outside who are attempting to judge us.  For example, if you are following a group of kids on a trip to Nepal, that could be considered Ob-Doc (observational documentary), Light Entertainment or Fact Ent (factual entertainment).  If there is competition involved, it is generally considered a Game Show if there are elements of hand-held or Glossy Floor/Studio if you are working with sticks.  The only time a show is genuinely considered “Reality” is when the “contributors” or “punters” (cast) live in a house together and at the end there is some sort of a winner.  In the US, my resume would be almost entirely made up of Reality shows, but my British CV is filled with Light Entertainment, Fact Ent, Game Shows, Comedy, Children’s and Ob-Docs.  The benefit of being employed by these different genres is that you can develop a unique skill set.  Before I used to edit pieces of “reality” together after the fact.  Now, I have the skills to write scripts and running orders so that I produce the best “reality” that I can, to make putting it together in the edit a bit less painful.

what exactly is the BBC and what influence does it hold over the tv industry?

in the US, you can buy a TV set, plug it in and depending on your antennae, you can get up to 6 or so channels off the bat.  And you can watch them for free.  In the UK, you have to pay a monthly TV license of $18.70 directly to the BBC in order to turn your TV set on.  Don’t get me wrong, the BBC is a wonderful thing; the programs are longer because there isn’t any advertising and because everyone pays the licensing fee, the quality of the programs is very high and diverse.  However, because the BBC is publicly-funded, they have to be very conservative.  Have you heard of “Queensgate?” Basically, there was a BBC program that covered a scene in which the Queen is being photographed by Annie Leibovitz.  Someone made a crafty edit which made it seem as though the Queen was storming out of the session in a huff.  Well, when that program was broadcast, many important people high in the ranks of the BBC lost their jobs.  At least it wasn’t their heads!  So because of the influence that Queensgate has had on unscripted TV on a whole, people here are very wary of “Franken-biting” or  anything that could be considered a “cheat” in the edit.

are the technical people (camera/audio) rates lower in the UK?

This is difficult to answer as I am out of touch with rates in the US but I can say that as far as day rates go here, audio is about £270 ($392) per day plus £70($101) for his/her gear. Camera is about £350 ($509) per day for operator and £250 ($364) for the camera.

But this brings me to an important issue that I am fairly certain is only happening in the UK. Producers are being expected to shoot and/or run an audio rig because its "easier" to cut the technical roles out of the ever-shrinking budgets. Its ridiculous as producers are only doing it to get the work, and the quality of the sound and pictures is diminishing significantly. I shot a pilot last year on which I directed, produced, operated the boom and shot on the days they could afford camera. So moving over here not having grown up in an industry where you need that experience has been difficult. I have had to learn quick how to not only speak "English" but also how to do all of the jobs I used to merely supervise.

what are the days like in british tv compared to us?

In the US, crews are hired on a "buy-out" basis which means although we try to keep to a 10-hour day, there is rarely overtime paid if we go over. There are not any unions here to protect anyone.

in the us, sometimes crew (camera/audio) will get blamed for things that get screwed up since they are not there to defend themselves in post which I think is sometimes the reason they get too involved in producing/directing, does that happen in the uk as well?

This is an interesting debate that has gone on forever. The post dept blames the crew for not giving them enough good material to work with and the crew blames the post dept for taking all of their good material and not doing enough with it. Because in the US there is usually a great separation between location crew and post crew, no one feels complete ownership or responsibility for the project and its easier to blame the other side. It is also an opportunity to "save the day" if you complain about the material you are dealt, then end up making something decent from it. In the UK I am sure it happens to some extent, but there isn't such a divide. There are PDs (producer/directors) who direct the field crew then produce the material in the edit. So there isn't anyone to blame if something wasn't shot because the PDs are likely to be directing as well as doing some of the shooting. But I mean, everyone has a tough job in TV and its incredibly difficult to accept that you have little control over the material at the end of the day, in one way or another.

are producers held accountable for the final product or crew or both?

Oh right. Well I guess see above answer. In one answer, the producer is responsible. But then, I have always thought that ultimately the producer is responsible. If you can't hold your producer accountable, you shouldn't have hired them.

what do you think crew in the us could learn from crew in the UK and vice versa

This is also an interesting topic. When I moved here, a lot of the British producers complained about how lazy the crews are in the US. I would defend US crews, saying they were hiring the wrong people, etc.

But then something remarkable and disappointing happened. I was doing a show that shot half of the material in London and the other half in NY. We shot the London bit first. The crew was a dream. They just got on with it. They were strictly hired for pretty pictures and sound and they only did that. No one volunteered any opinions unless asked. Then we went to the US and EVERYONE down to the PA had an opinion and even went so far as to second-guess my decisions as the director. It was very annoying and a lot of valuable shooting time was wasted. I preferred working with the UK crew, and that made me sad. I think US crew could take a step back from the producing side because really, all the crew is ultimately responsible for is the sound and pictures. And they get re-hired because they are reliable and easy to work with. On the other hand I think the UK crew could stand up for themselves a bit more. They are slowly being cut out of the equation here and that isn't happening in the US. I don't know why.