Business screen magazine (1946)

paradox BY STANFORD SOBEL r.\K\l)()\: I he I'lrson Who Pushes the r:uiic Biilinn First Is L'suully The One With I he l.easl To I.osc. wiii-N I WAS iHiRiiiN I wrote a musical comedy show tor my eighth grade graduation play. We had a twenty-five piece school orchestra, a cast of four adults and thirty children, and a chorus of eight-year olds from the third grade dressed as flowers. On our dress rehearsal night, our leading lady failed to show up. (In the tradition of the stage, she was also my girl friend.) We put in a substitute, and I ran over to her house, where I found her sick in bed and crying. 1 began to scream at her for missing the dress rehearsal, and finally sh." said: "What arc you yelling about? I'm the one who just became a woman!" The Panic Button has an uresistible attraction for many of the people in our business, and. like the teen-age director I was at thirteen, they're often the ones with the least at stake. 1 have many associates . . . and clients . . . who sincerely believe that film people do their best work when they're under pressure . . . So . . . they artificially create a sense of pressure with the idea of stimulating a high level of performance. In practice, this ac tion is self-defeating. It doesn't lake too long to figure out that when Charley says he needs the script on the l.^th he really needs it on the l.lih. Bui when Art says he needs the script on the 1 .^Ih, he do,:sn'l actually need it until the 15th, and Frank doesn't need a 13lh script until the 21st. and so forth. In my own case, I do my best work for the producer or client who levels with me . . . who tells me "I'd like it b\ the I ^ih so I can make some 10 changes aiul g^l it back Ui u>u on Ihe \Mh. and then show it to the client on the 21st." I U)se respect for people who are less than candid with their writer. e\en though they cxpl.iin later that they have to be that way in order to make sure the writer doesn't miss his promised deadline. My own reaction is to distrust a producer When I learn that the script for which I sacrificed my weekend to complete on time has been sitting on his desk for three days without being read, because he didn't really need it for another ten days. An artificial crisis brings out the cynic in me. but a true crisis brings out the professional. In fact. I would define the true professional as one who works smoothly, efficiently, and unflappably in a situation of total tension. This kind of confidence comes from being ready for the unexpected based upon prior experience. The whole film industry is a learning process, an educational environment. 1 have worked on very few film projects which resulted in my learning nothing new at all And each one of those learning experiences has made me better equipped to cope with unexpected troubles when they occur without warning ... as they often do. Recently 1 was involved in a national sales meeting in .St. 1 ouis. In the middle of the morning program, a multimedia show with eight screens and 29 projectors, the electricity went out. not only in our hotel, but in the entire downtown area. Instantly, the director turned over the headset to me. in casj the current came on quickly. He then picked up the do/en spare flashlights he kept in his briefcase next to his foot and a small portable hiillhorn. which 1 had never seen him us.-. He quickly went up to the front of the room, and handed to the people in the first row every flashlight he had. They kept them trained on the director, who explained what had hap p.-ned to Ih.' electricity. He then proCL'cded to tell about fifteen stories related lo blaekoiils ami blackout situations. Meantime, backstage, the projectionist was busily shutting off all the switches lo protect ,ig.imsi damage when the current should i on again. When the light camej again, ten minutes later, the dire received a big cheer from the salesmen in the room. He deservol And the show went on from thcr This ability to perform under s] pressure, this sense of being aM cope with the extraordinary, is t| the mark of the professional in business. Hqually significant, howc is the ability to recognize a situa in which absolutely nothing can done. It is simply not possible to make tain kinds of pictures for certain k of budgets, and \ou arc deluding ) client if you do not advise him this fact. There is absolutely no \ou can get permission from the F to shoot helicopter photography Kennedy Airport on a summer a( noon during the air-traffic rush-h« The professional knows this fact, he knows it in advance and doc waste everybody's time and mo Irving \o do the impossible cannot bring a girl, either amateu professional, into an automotive sembly plant without slowing di production on the line. You cai shoot as a gas station without in fering with the income of the dei The professional knows about all tl limitations and takes them into count. He doesn't fight against tl ... he allows for them and copes i them. It was at the Waldorf once thl heard the greatest comment of about the panic button. The pro tionist was trying very hard to | gram the dress rehearsal of a mi media show and everv thing kept g« wrong . . . none of it his fault, nally the projectionist said to the cli who kept rattling him by making e remarks . . . "Please go away Nou're making me nervous. I'm d< pretty well, considering I've never d this before!" That ri-ally frighte the client, who now had a e<'»»« ease of panic, because if he blew continued on pagt Stanford Sohcl. a frcf-lancc writer hated in New York City, has survived inai panic-striiken crises during conventions and film productions he hat writtt lie says that he sometimes feels panic as the deatlline approaches for "Parodo> this column which he writes for each issue of Bi'siNFSs ScRriN. BUSINESS SCRI 4