Typed by hand and revised by Biagio. It may differ slightly from the recording.
Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?
Confused Woman: Biagio-WHO???
Announcer: This episode…
Biagio: It’s episode 11. This week we’re talking about surviving production. 7 weird tips guaranteed to save your sanity and help you avoid burnout. Some tips to make sure you don’t die along the way. A simple trick to make sure your friends and family don’t hate you afterwards, and the dirty laundry hack that saves us every time.
Announcer: Music courtesy of Dave Pelman Music, davepelman.com
Biagio: Hey everybody, she’s Joke
Joke: He’s Biagio.
Biagio: We’re married. We make unscripted film in television and want to help you do the same, hopefully by teaming up with us. Welcome to Episode 11. I know it seems like we say this every episode, but we’re in the middle of one of the longest, hardest shoots of our life.
Joke: We’re going on week 5 of 9, week 6 of 9. I can’t even remember.
Biagio: Here’s the thing. There’s different kinds of shows. We’ve talked about this in the past. You got your follow docs where you go out and you’re basically shooting documentary style, and you got shows like our show Scream Queens where everything is very big and you shoot a concentrated amount of time and you got this show which is unlike any beast we’ve ever done before.
Joke: Yeah, it’s like shooting 2 Scream Queens back to back.
Biagio: Honestly, we’re beating the heck out of ourselves in the most awesome way possible. We don’t regret it. That actually brings us – I thought it would be awesome to talk about this week because we’re going through it right now. I think this is something most lead creatives on the show —whether you’re the director of a film, the producer of an unscripted TV show, whatever your project is—when you’re the lead creator, when it’s your project, when you’re “the man” or you’re “the woman” and you’re doing 19 - 20-hour days, more hours than anybody else and the creative is ultimately up to you—one of the last things you’ll ever stop to do is right before you go in production, like figure out how to prepare for it. By prepare for it, I mean prepare yourself for it.
Joke: We’ve described production a lot like going to war. Who do you want to be in the trenches with, etc. This is the same thing. Right before you’re shipping off to production and disappearing from your regular known universe, there’s certain affairs you must get in order.
Biagio: Believe me, you’re a smart person. You’re listening to this podcast. I believe if you haven’t already, you’re going to find yourself in a position whether it’s working with us or working on another project where yes, this is it. This is your big break. Before you dive in head first, I want you to listen to this podcast. So the episode title today is Survive Production: 7 Weird Tips Guaranteed to Save Your Sanity and Help Avoid Burnout. I was originally going to call it 7 weird tips guaranteed to save your sanity and avoid burnout; however, Joke told me that would be an inaccurate title.
Joke: There’s absolutely no way you can guarantee avoiding burnout.
Biagio: You will burn out. You really can’t even guarantee saving your sanity, but you can go a long way by following these steps.
Joke: You can. These will help.
Biagio: These will help. You’re getting ready to go into production. What’s the very first thing you should do especially if this is your first big project? Number one, tell your friends and family.
Joke: It’s important especially if this is the first one that you’d truly have to understand the amount of time you are going to be focusing on your project, and that really leaves little to no time to do the check-ins or the weekly ‘Hey Mom, how you doing?’ Your family and friends need to be prepared that you’re about to go into the deep dark hole of production where cell service is at a minimum.
Biagio: Yeah. My dad practically disowned me during the Beauty and the Geek. We were just around the clock for a good month. I fell out of touch. I didn’t call them. You just don’t think of it. I remember when I finally called them, it was like ‘Where have you been? What the heck? You don’t call.’ I tried to explain it to them, and he didn’t really get it. Now he does because before every production, what do I do, I’m like ‘Dad, I’m going in the black hole. Tell my sisters this is it. I am disappearing for a while. It’s nothing personal.’ If you do this, I guarantee you, when you come out of production and you’re exhausted and you don’t have any of your wits about you, you will be able to avoid the conflicts that tend to come out of this. Because believe me, the last thing you want to deal with after a long hard production are angry friends and family members.
Joke: Yeah, and also I’ll just tell your friends and let them know that it’s not like you’re being mean or anything. You’re just going to go away on an extended trip that’s not just very exotic. It’s just there’s no cellphone service or emails or anything like that.
Biagio: Trust us. Do this step. Number two, pay your bills.
Joke: Very important. You don’t want to come out of production and realize you’re being taken to bankruptcy court. It’s one of those things where technology has come a long way. This really helps. Set automatic payments, create easy reminders. Think ahead and go ‘OK when is this bill due? When is that bill going to be due?’ Maybe you want to pay some in advance. But paying your bills. It’s so easy to come home late at night and you just throw your mail on the table and the next morning, you’re out the door for an early call. Next thing you know, you come out of production and your bills are all past due.
Biagio: Whoops! Do yourself a favor. Just write out those checks ahead of time. Put them in a stamped envelope. Set an email reminder to remind yourself to actually send them out or schedule the online bill pay or do what I did. Marry Joke. Well, you can’t marry Joke. I already did.
Joke: What are you going to do? Are you going to pimp me out now?
Biagio: No. although I could probably make a lot of money, but. Here’s the thing. There’s only one Joke, but find your own Joke. I’ll tell you what. She takes good care of us. Thank goodness. Because I guarantee you were I not married to Joke, I would probably ruin my credit every single time we did a show.
Number three, think about your health.
Joke: Yeah. We kind of bombed on this one before this production. Didn’t really think this one through. But it’s really important to try and get everything taken care of in advance in terms of doctor’s appointments or filling prescriptions or anything that you know health-wise you’re going to need to take care of.
Biagio: A couple of tips that I got from our set medic on our crew that I think are great, take a daily vitamin, if you can. By the way, most sets over by craft services in…the area that serves all the bad food, in the area you’re not supposed to be eating…they usually also have vitamins. Make sure you take a daily vitamin. No excuse. One of my favorite tips from a set medic on our crew: most of us creatives are going to slam energy drinks even though it’s not very healthy. When you’re going on 19-, 20-hours days, there’s no avoiding the 5-hour energy or a Rock Star, whatever. For every energy drink you drink, also drink a bottle of water. That was a really good tip.
Number four, get comfortable shoes. Splurge on these, people.
Joke: Yeah. Definitely splurge on this. If you are going to be “on-set” on set, wear close-toed shoes that protect your feet because a C-stand can fall and now you’re in the hospital with a broken foot. So yeah, get comfortable shoes. Get sturdy shoes. If it’s hot, get moisture-wicking type of socks so your feet are very well taken care of. You do not want to enter Day 3 of production with blisters.
Biagio: Yeah. Trust me. I’m way less cranky when I invest in good shoes. Spend the extra $50. Totally worth it.
Number five and my personal Achilles heel, take your car into the shop.
Joke: This is my personal Achilles heel. I have not been that great in helping keep track of this, but in terms of all those things that sneak up on you, if it is a production where you’re going to be driving a lot—even if it’s just getting to set in the morning and back—just make sure that your car is in tip-top shape because you don’t want to be the guy arriving late on set because your car broke down.
Biagio: Yes. Don’t be that guy.
Number six, the big one. Clean your home top to bottom. Believe me, whether you’re in a studio apartment or you got your big old house, the 4-5 hours you get at home in between production, you’re not going to be cleaning.
Joke: Or if you come home and you just throw your stuff down over the course of production, you will create a hazard zone within your house. By the time you start, the cleaner it is, the less of a nuclear meltdown it will be by the time production is over.
Biagio: Let’s call it as it is. A lot of us creative folk, we’re not necessarily the neatest people.
Joke: Speak for yourself.
Biagio: I’ll speak for me. I am not a neat person especially if I’m in the middle of editing or writing or whatever. My space just gets messy. I just call it like it is. You know what, it’s true. When you’re in production, you need every second you can to sleep and rest. As much as I hate to admit it, when I clean up the place, things are just a little bit calmer. I get a little bit more rest.
Last up. Listen, people. This is our top super secret. Most favorite tip of all. You’re not going to get this anywhere else, but believe me, you will thank us. Number seven, buy extra socks and underwear.
Joke: This has gotten us thru many productions because the truth of the matter is we all have probably tons of jeans or T-shirts, sweaters. But in terms of socks and underwear, those drawers are pretty tight. But I tell you, when you don’t have time for laundry, having those extra socks and underwear on hand just makes your early morning just a lot happier.
Biagio: You don’t want to be worried about doing the laundry in the middle of production. Hopefully, those clothes last. That’s it. There you go. 7 weird tips guaranteed to save your sanity and help you avoid burnout. I really believe in these. We tried to do most of these before this production, we didn’t get to all of them. I’ll tell you what: if you follow these, you’re going to come out of production in better shape then you will if you don’t because we’ve had productions where we didn’t do any of these. Right, Joke.
Joke: Yes. I have one little extra one.
Biagio: Ooh! Bonus tip number 8?
Joke: Is it number 8? Set your DVR’s because you’re not going to be able to watch anything. Make sure you clean out your TIVOs ahead of time so that you have plenty of space left to record the shows you actually really do want to see because you’re not going to get to them until production is over.
Biagio: There you go. Words of wisdom from a real TV producer who needs to keep up on her homework of watching at least one episode of everything that’s out there. You get shows that you get to watch for fun. So set that TiVo. We’re going to get back to production, as usual we’re in the middle of it today. I hope these tips are helpful. I look forward to keeping you up to date with more good stuff as we come to the end of production here. We’ll see all of you in 2 weeks. Until then, good luck when your production comes up. Follow these tips.
Joke: Save your sanity.
Biagio: If you can. Bye-bye.
Joke: Bye.
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
