Is Work/Life Balance All but a Producer’s Dream?

It's 6am as I sit here and write in my morning journal; I was up at 5:30 am to meditate first… naturally… part of ‘that’ club. I began to think about what a lovely work/life balance I have. Maybe I should film this and Instagram it to my followers to fill them with some dreaded anxiety as they get their daily social dopamine hit. I’ve just won the lottery but, more importantly, I’ve won the day. A piercing sound goes off in the background, becoming louder and louder. I wake up in a cold sweat; my alarm goes off for 40 minutes. F@#k! It's a PPM day! And I have a tech recce afterwards! Did I send the art department deck to the agency producer last night? My day was already on the back foot, but that was a lovely dream.

The freelancer's dilemma 

‘Work/life balance’ wasn’t a phrase I often heard when I first started as a producer in the industry. Traditionally, the film industry is and has been freelance-oriented, so balance is challenging to find and talk about - let alone achieve. Working full-time for an agency or any ‘normal’ company provides structure, which includes paid time off, furlough, pension schemes, your company laptop and, if you’re lucky, a secondary phone. Meanwhile the freelance side can feel like the Wild West - you’re out on your own, and who knows when the next job will come?

In my career as a producer, I’ve always been freelanced. It wasn’t exactly a plan for me to do it this way, but (well, to be fair, I had no plan) somehow, it’s what happened anyway. My only two salaried jobs were at 17 as a kitchen porter and lasted only two weeks, and the other was as a Pirate at Legoland. Past that time in my current career path, I have booked and cancelled countless holidays and on family and friends’ gatherings when a job has come in, or had to return from a much-needed holiday early to get started on a project that I knew I couldn’t turn down.

In those instances, I couldn’t afford to turn down the jobs, creating a mentality where every job can feel like the last one. Or the job that will make you. You make a promise only to take a last-minute job once again, or just one more time, but before you know it, months or even years have passed, and you’ve not had a proper break, and you’re adequately burnt out. (Cut to me writing this article from my hotel room.)

I’ve spoken to many of my producer friends and industry colleagues, and I know they’d agree with me. Any producer starting in their career will probably nod their heads along in recognition and maybe with a bit of fear about the future. While the producer’s career can be gratifying, it does come with high personal costs. Planning for the future becomes difficult, anxieties about the next job float around all the time, and - unless carefully honed - the ability to say ‘no’ to projects and favours becomes problematic because it’s a people business, and people talk.

In a way, it’s a lot easier to deal with this stuff when you’re younger. There’s a real sense of excitement and possibility when a call or an email comes in on a Tuesday briefing you on a job, and by Thursday morning, you’re on a plane (maybe missing some travel essentials) to a place you’ve not visited before to go and create. The problem sets in when the same is constantly expected, even as life responsibilities pile up and you have more than yourself to consider.

Let’s be honest: production has a bit of an unspoken expectation that everyone is always available to work and will commit to getting the needed shots even if everything runs over. It’s understandable; there are deadlines, and those can rarely be shifted. So, the silent expectation of ‘get it done’ persists - and where does it leave the people working on those shoots?

It bears saying that things are better today than when I started the industry. For one, we’re having this conversation right now - me and you - and many others like it. Mental health, which I’ve written about before, isn’t some hush-hush topic, and there’s an understanding that good work follows on from happy, rested people. We’ve moved past production’s dark ages (the '80s and '90s) when the people in charge shouted at the juniors and threw their coffee over a poor runner when things didn’t go their way. Trust me, I’ve seen that happen.

A Tough Climate

It’s just not quite enough for it to be better. We must ask, is it actively good? Everyone working in production can agree that shrinking budgets are affecting working conditions. We have to do the same, sometimes more, with less, because while the pot is smaller, the expectation for high quality is at an all-time high. So, while things got better in one way, they took a not-so-great dip in another.

Some budgets are so small that a producer will take on the role of two or three people, becoming a PA and a location manager and then doing the producing thing, too. It’s doable, but it’s dangerous. It spreads the producer’s attention thinly, teaches the client and the agency that this is possible (risking this becoming a new normal), and puts enormous pressure on the individual to do it all on time, on budget, and probably with a smile. Work/life balance doesn’t even begin to come into that.

This brings me to one of my real bugbears with the industry - the supposed immediacy with which everything has to be addressed. Emails are to be replied to in an instant, and everything should be done yesterday. There’s little time to step back, breathe, and think about the best solution. I’ve always felt this way, but these feelings crystallised once I started to meditate daily, and I learned more about stoicism and how its philosophical principles can apply and help with modern life.

Anyway, I’m sorry it’s taking this long to get to the crux of this article and that you’ve had to listen to me waffle and moan. I wanted to talk about the ‘balance’ - the stuff of dreams - and how I’ve fixed it and can coach you all to be better, to be like water, and to be more Zen and Stoic. I’m here if you need me. Or maybe I need you.

I’ll tell you a secret: LBB let me write this article only because it’s the school summer holidays. They said all the prominent people who read are away on their summer holidays anyway. I was supposed to write about how I’ve come up with a solution and how I’ve used Stoicism and become more Zen-like to quell these groans and make me better. We ‘should’ and ‘could’ all do it.

But you know what, I’ve just realised I haven’t sent those damn art department documents to my agency producer. I have to do it before I’m off to bed.