Pilot Season

by Michael Taylor

This column is dedicated to explaining aspects of the media industry. I have worked as a juicer (set lighting technician) in Hollywood for over 30 years, and have the battle scars to prove it. The last issue contained the first in four-part series on television pilots. This is second part.

Part II: What it Means to be “Hot”

Fortunately for those of us who work on the crews, doing a pilot isn’t the only way to land a show. I didn’t do the pilots for any of the five sit-coms I’ve worked on as a member of the regular crew: Encore! Encore! (1998), Love and Money (1999), Kristen (2001), Good Morning, Miami (2002 -2004), and Four Kings (2006). This isn’t because Hollywood happens to be a snake-pit of grinning, back-stabbing mendacity (although it is), but because pilot season has never been remotely even-handed when it comes to doling out the work. This is particularly true when it comes to Directors of Photography – the cameramen – whose job is to put those pilots on film or digital tape. At any given time, there are only a handful of “hot” cameramen in the sit-com world: people (mostly men) with a track record of doing good work on hit shows, who have managed to schmooze their way onto the "A" list. When pilot season rolls around, they're first in line for the best jobs.

The power of the herd mentality in Hollywood should never be underestimated – and the sad truth is, most producers have no clue what makes a show look good on film or tape, or even if a show actually does look good. So long as everybody around them says “Wow, this looks great!”, most producers just go with the flow and nod like a bobble-head doll. They do take notes, however, and when it’s time to hire a cameraman, they remember the names of those who shot those “great looking” shows. It’s no surprise then, that come April, every producer in town with a sit-com pilot wants the same three or four cameramen to film his/her precious baby.

You can’t blame them, really, since every producer has a lot riding on his/her pilot. If landing a hit show is great for the crew, it’s even better for a producer, who can make enough money over a good ten year run to retire in style to the south of France. Not that most producers have any intention of retiring, mind you – the Holy Grail for television producers is to rise to the exalted status of “show runner”, where the benefits of success transcend mere money to the ultimate high: power. Some (the bad ones) are bullies at heart, and crave power for its own sake. These miserable souls love nothing more than being able to make other people jump. Others (the good ones), want power to put projects close to their heart on film, shows that otherwise would never make it to the television screen. Whatever his ultimate rationale, when a producer needs a cameraman for his/her pilot – and a shot at the golden ring of power – the last thing he wants to do is take a chance on a D.P. he hasn’t heard of. Thus, the first calls go to agents of those lucky cameramen du jour. It doesn’t matter that any of the dozens of unemployed sit-com cameramen out there could do just as good a job. To the nervous producer, using a “hot” guy means one less thing to worry about. With his ass covered on that end, at least, he’s free to unleash all his nervous energies and turbo-angst on the many other troublesome aspects of production.

A few years ago, one particular cameraman I happen to know landed seven pilots during the brief madness of pilot season – three of which were in production at the same time (including one I worked on) – which meant he spent most of his days driving from one studio to the next, spending a few hours on each show, then moving on. Meanwhile, another cameraman I know (a man whose work has always sparkled on the screen) got nothing at all during that pilot season, simply because he didn’t happen to be one of the “hot” guys that year.

That’s just the way it is.

This absurdly unfair process holds sway only during the crazed frenzy of pilot season. Once the regular television starts up in late summer, the “hot” cameramen go back to work on the hit shows they already had (which made them “hot” to begin with), leaving many of the new shows – pilots that got picked up – for others. This is how cameramen (and their crews) who aren’t considered “hot” manage to get shows, in essence, scavenging the scraps left behind by the in-crowd.

In this rugby-scrum of confusion, the wheel of fate occasionally turns such that none of the “hot” cameramen are available for a particular pilot, which means the producers must then hire one of the many other merely competent cameramen out there. If the pilot gets picked up, that cameraman and his crew are in business. And as luck would have it, such was the case with The Untitled Ed Yeager Project, the working title of a pilot I did last spring, shot by a veteran Director of Photography with countless sit-coms under his belt. The show went well, and at the end of the wrap, each of us on the lighting crew was promised a job if the show got picked up.

That’s one huge “if.” Getting picked up is a bit like drawing to an inside straight – sometimes you get lucky, but it’s a bad idea to bet the rent on it. After a while, you learn not to get too excited by such a promise. It’s not that people are lying when they swear to give you a job – at the time, they usually mean what they say – but things change with dizzying speed in this business. A Hollywood promise has all the hang-time of an air-kiss on the warm summer breeze. All you can do is put it in your back pocket with a grain of salt, and hope for the best.

Truth be told, I didn’t pay much attention to this promise because the pilot wasn’t all that good. I’ve worked on several that were much funnier, but didn’t get picked up, so there was no reason to think this one would. Imagine my surprise then, when the announcement hit the trades in early May that our untitled pilot made the fall lineup on CBS, under the new name of Project Gary – an awkward, ugly-duckling title that soon gave way to Gary Unmarried.

This was great news. After two-and-a-half years wandering through the wilderness of rigging and day-playing – nine hundred long days and nights without a real show – the dice were finally rolling my way. A year that started out in the bleak, wintry despair of the WGA strike had turned on a dime. If this show could hit its stride, take off and become a hit, maybe it would finally be that big wave I’ve been waiting for: a wave big enough to surf all the way in to the sunny beach of retirement.

Maybe – but it never pays to think too far ahead in this town. Besides, my mother used to warn that a wise man never counts his chickens before they hatch, and right now, the only thing that mattered was the job itself. What mom didn’t add – what she didn’t have to add – is that a wise man never goes to the bank on a promise made in Hollywood.

Next issue: Back to You.