jokes for newbies

Tyler JohnsonWilliams · November 6, 2010

What else can you ask a newbie for?

A bag of T-stops, sky hooks, the double lens....what else?

Chris Keth · November 6, 2010

Go find the keys for the dolly and the master pedestal. While you're at it, the key grip wants his butt plug back.

Vincent Sweeney · November 7, 2010

Left-handed C-stand

Chris Millar · November 7, 2010

What else can you ask a newbie for?

A bag of T-stops, sky hooks, the double lens....what else?

Mutual respect :o

Adrian Sierkowski · November 7, 2010

Go bring the bazooka to the corner and get ready to shoot some cars ;)

K Borowski · November 7, 2010

Mutual respect :o

Chris, am I to interpret that as your being against the ancient art of HAZING? :(

Brian Rose · November 7, 2010

Chris, am I to interpret that as your being against the ancient art of HAZING? :(

Heck, just call a normal object by it's slang term. Sure threw me for a loop. Took me forever to figure out what "sticks" and "stingers" were!

K Borowski · November 7, 2010

Sticks used to be really intuitive. . . when most tripods were made out of wood!

Chris Millar · November 8, 2010

Chris, am I to interpret that as your being against the ancient art of HAZING? :(

Yup,

I've been that type of guy, then had my actions reflected back at me and realised it wasn't funny at all - zero redeeming features to it altogether !

I'm not going to form a group of concerned technicians on facebook decrying the process but I do find myself in the place of the 'guy that helped me learn and didn't give me crap' often enough, it's just plain boring and possibly even dangerous (at least for gear if not your person) sending someone off on some hokey mission for a 'hot screw' or otherwise.

Also the informed newbie will help you get your job done sooner - and who knows, maybe they will be hiring YOU one day soon ...

Thinking about it I tend to work in positions where there is zero room for error also - error = possible death - maybe that has something to do with it ;) Pretty much have to be robotic about work, which is appropriate I guess for automation/motion control ...

Quick question: has anyone actually found any of the suggestions really that clever ?

Mike Lary · November 8, 2010

Quick question: has anyone actually found any of the suggestions really that clever ?

I don't think there's anything clever about betraying someone's trust. It's a fairly easy thing to do. I've found it tends to happen more often on jobs that only require a high school diploma and the ability to follow basic instructions on command.

Kieran Scannell · November 8, 2010

I don't think there's anything clever about betraying someone's trust. It's a fairly easy thing to do. I've found it tends to happen more often on jobs that only require a high school diploma and the ability to follow basic instructions on command.

I've only ever seen it on larger productions and it has minimal joke value for me.

I did it once by accident I asked for a french flag and the assistant came back 15min later with someones backpack that had the French tricolour stitched on the back! I must admit I did laugh.

Adrian Sierkowski · November 8, 2010

Personally; I only do it to people who I am friends with and are just getting started; then I buy them a drink and or coffee/tea after production.

Mitch Gross · November 8, 2010

In the 80s, Rosco fog machines were a big thing on set. Lots of music videos suffering from Ridley Scott - wannabeism. The left-handed smoke shifter was a common PA torture. Send them all the way back to the grip house and when the kid returned with a 2z3 flag, you grab it with your right hand and say -- "No, a LEFT-handed one!"

Yeah, I never thought it was that funny either.

Jonathan Bowerbank · November 10, 2010

Of course everything has its place. On big jobs, of course, you can't waste time or jeopardize your efficiency by pulling this stuff. But if you're helping out on some student or low budg film where everyone's there to just have fun and not take it so seriously, there's definitely room to tease someone. I've never seen any kid get pissed or get bent out of shape over it, it's usually taken pretty lightly and gets a great laugh while reflecting on it at the end of the day.

I'm never able to pull this kind of stuff, since I'm Camera Dept., plus it's just not my style of working. Besides, camera usually has left AND right handed things ;)

Michael Kubaszak · November 10, 2010

If I'm 2nd'ing on a RED job, I'll usually ask the 1st at least once if he checked the gate.

Chris Beeger · November 11, 2010

Send him or her back to the camera truck to look for those missing boxes of sprocket holes

November 11, 2010

I plan to use every single one of these on my next shoot, thanks! :D

R,

Adrian Sierkowski · November 11, 2010

Make sure to get the EPK guys on board and shoot some for the BTS ;)

Brian Dzyak · November 11, 2010

I talked with a Director once who began his career as a Grip. He admittedly said he was terrible at it. :)

Anyway, he got his first job by saying that he knew what to do when he didn't, figuring that he could figure it out as he went. Well, at some point in the morning, he was asked to go get an apple box. For a newbie, that sounds like an odd request, but he went looking for an apple box anyway. Not really knowing what that was or what it was used for, he finally ended up at the caterer and asked them for one. He returned to set with a cardboard box that presumably held fruit at some point. :)

The moral of this story? I don't know. Beyond being funny because it WASN'T a joke being played on him, it's a good lesson in that there are lots of strange things on a movie set that a newbie wouldn't know right off the bat.

K Borowski · November 11, 2010

As long as it is in good fun (not like literally pinning flight wings into some guy's chest or paddling someone (Watch "Dazed and Confused" for some *real* hazing.), I don't see any problem with it.

I seem to recall working at a restaurant as a kid, some guy told one of the really gullible new guys to go water the plants, with hot water from the Bunn machine or whatever they were called then. He actually went out trying to do it! (I mean, if you don't notice the plants are fake walking past them every day, where is your head at anyway?) And what kind of plant takes hot water?

I have no mercy for these people, especially since I think he is one of the ones that used to put CUTTING KNIVES in the dishwasher, so if I had reached in, not seeing them, grabbing the wrong end, guess what would have happened? Better he be out watering the fake plants than giving me a severe laceration and a trip to the hospital.

Here's another problem I have, like with someone looking for an "Apple Box" or a "French Flag" and guessing at what it is: If you can't bear the embarrassment of telling your boss you don't know what that's slang for, then ASK SOMEONE ELSE IN YOUR DEPARTMENT! Why would you just guess at the meaning of the term?

I'd be concerned about someone bringing back a cardboard apple "box," and them having the requisite intelligence to do their job, unless this was a green green 16 year old kid.