You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. You're cutting out? Can you repeat that? Go for production, Go for production, I said, go for production production. That's right. You're listening to a podcast about TV and film production. Join us as we converse with industry leaders and gain insight into their strategies, their systems, in best practices in bringing a script
to life. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Brendan Riley. Welcome to another episode and go for Production where it's my job to deconstruct and demystify the production process in both film and television. We'll talk about strategies, systems, and tools the pros use so you could be inspired move forward in your filmmaking career. Today's guest is Robert Skid Skidmore Skid as an experience assistant
director and host of the Below the Line in podcast. A few of the shows that Skid has worked on include Veep, Entourage, Spider Man Two, Arrest of Development, Big Fish, The West Wing, and many more. Welcome to the show, Skid, Brandy, glad to be here. Thanks for having me. How did you get into the film industry? Tell us about the DGA training program. What was it like in your instruments into film
making? Sure, so, I decided late in college that I actually really liked the idea of working on the film industry, and for me, it was the idea of this mechanical creativity, if you will, the way things go together, you create something that's more than some of the parts. And I got intrigued to that. It was late in college when I decided I was actually committed to the Air Force because I was doing RTC and convinced the
Air Force to let me do back camera while I was in uniform. So for five years, from about ninety three to ninety eight, I was in the Air Force. We're in the military, doing sort of corporate style video production for the military California for a while, and then in DC. And when I got out, I moved to LA and you know, worked as a PA like many people do, found some work for free and uh basically
put something together. Did get accepted in the DGA training program as as you mentioned, and for two years worked on the shows that I was assigned. Do you think that your military background, you know, helped you to have the stamina for long days and this enduring. You know, it might have
been part of anything as the film world. It might have been part of it, and a lot of way because it was crazy, even for the beginning, and you know, as a production assistant, I basically just tried to be you know, the best airmen that had ever worked for me when
I was on set in the beginning. The bigger connection, though, is that the military and the film industry they use the same organizational principles where if you have a very complicated structure that needs to respond quickly to change, you have to build it in a way that the expertise is pushed to the bottom. And so when the situation changes, you know, in the military, the enemies are behind a different hill. On a film set, maybe the actor is late. From the top, you can give direction, but then
the parts can self adjust rather than waiting for new instruction. And so seeing those parallels between the military and the film industry, it's actually why I became an assistant director. Of all the things I thought about doing in Hollywood, ads, as probably most of your listeners know, are the ones that sort of execute on that system, and so my experience in the military was directly
applicable to the kind of work we did in the AD department. I wanted to hear about some of your experience as an assistant director in the role of the second second AD or additional AD, and just maybe for somebody out there is not sure what that position does, if you could kind of just give us the layman terms so they can think about that and what your main duties were. Well, in case folks are not fully familiar with the way the
AD department is set up. Again, most listeners probably are. But the first assistant director is like the right hand of the director, and he or she builds their team that basically executes from the planning stages to the work on
the day to summarizing afterwards the paperwork and such about what happened. That person the first AD's right hand is the key second a D and that person basically runs the team of additional ads, including the second second AD and PA's who might help out sort of execute on all of this the role of second, second AD or additional AD. A couple of times I did that. It really depends on how that first AD and key second AD have structured their team.
Obviously the first AD is on set ninety five if not one hundred percent of the time. The key second AD will then define their role based on the relationship with the first. Some keys that I worked with were working the paperwork and planning the next day, and so they would generally be offset working that. In fact, sometimes when I was the key, that was my
job as well. Other keys I worked with were more on set where they were setting background and working with the first to sort of execute on the actual work, and in those cases as the second second, I might take on more of the paperwork. Generally, if you have an additional AD, it's because things are of such a scale or scope, either large background or multiple
locations that you're sending people doing DGA workout. But rather than have rather than higher PA, the DJA would like you to hire additional AD so they have lower rates that you can work as the additional capacity. When you're working as an additional AD or a second second AD, and let's say you have a lot of background one day, maybe one hundred, maybe a thousand, you know what's your process for you know, making sure things are going to run
smoothly for that day. Is there certain things to keep it keep in mind. I'm glad you asked about that, Brandon, because actually organizing large groups of background was one of my favorite things to do, whether it was one hundred folks on some shows and also not to be brought in just for that, or on Sea Biscuit, where we had thousands of background unpaid extras that were being brought in and we had to learn to work around them. For me, it was a multi stage process. On one level, the most
important thing is to plan ahead, figure out your logistics. How are people going to move around. Maybe some of my military background affected this as well, but just the idea of how the system is going to work and how's this going to manage a large group of people. By planning that, by planning your production assistant teams and whose where and how things run through, that's
going to be the most important part of your day. The second most important part of your day is going to be the talk to folks as far once they get there, and really make the background feel like they're part of the team. If you can build a team of folks, they will do incredible work. And so I had what I used to call the speech I used to train my folks to do it as well if I wasn't available, but
basically get up on stage explain to them how important their role is. They're in front of camera after all the ads and the PA's we're not by definition we're behind camera. The work they're doing in front is important. So we would talk through the basics about what the job was going to be and also my expectations and what I expected for the day, how things would come together.
Basically established that we were a team. I was going to be the leader of their team, but my job was to enable them to do good work when they were on set. And honestly, when I did that and did it well in the beginning my background, whether it was a small group of folks or whether it was thousands of folks, I found that they were really great and we're really part of the team. And I think oftentimes when you have these large calls, there might be some folks who are going to
cause you trouble no matter what. But if you start from the place of trusting people, establishing sort of what the rules are, the people who are going to cause you trouble will self identify and you can then remove them from
the group. If you come in chaotically. If you're not feeding folks, if you're not taking care of the people, if you don't see the background as your responsibility, then honestly, people that otherwise would do great work for you, they're going to start to freight at the edges as well, because it's a hard job as well, even their job, and again you need them fresh in front of the camera. So running background and organizing that group, it's one of the most important things I did, and honestly, I
really enjoyed it a lot. If every day had been like on Seabiscuit, we were running thousands of people around this horse track, I'd probably still be in the business. When you're doing something crazy like Sea Biscuit, how do you how do you determine how many PA's or additional ads to have on a big day? You know, I don't remember our exact count on that, but I probably had fifty folks or so. But it was determined less by the sheer number than just the way we were going to break it up on
Sea Biscuit. As I alluded to, we hired a company that brought in folks for free, and so they brought them in, they would get paid a percentage of the headcount of what we would pay normal background. But all of these folks are there because they want to be and so you have to make them feel like they want to be there, and there's a reason for them to say and also a reason to follow your directions. So on Sea
Biscuit, we broke them into groups of five hundred. Whereas they signed in, we would literally hand them a piece of paper that it was a certain color. And then once we had them in groups, then I had five or six PA's also assigned to that color, who would wear the color either their shirts or a little placard to sort of create some cohesion among that group. And so once we on that one, we probably had six or seven
groups of five hundred that we were going to be moving around. But once you created stickiness amongst the group, then it was possible to say, Okay, green group, move over here, or blue group, move over there, and they would move as a group because you had created an sentive for them to be part of the group and made them feel like they're part of something. You could also send one group to lunch while the rest of the
groups were still working around, and so that system worked really well. But as I said, you need five or six pas per groups they could sort of create a parameter answer questions. Then you also needed a separate group that was going to do in processing, and you need a separate group that was going to run lunch. And so when you added it all up, that's how we got to about fifty production assistants on Sea Biscuit. Yeah, fifty's that's a big number. That was a big movie. That's also a movie
where we had multiple second seconds because the job was so large. I was the second second that went out to Kentucky early to get background ready and to prepare for some of these larger events. But there were other second seconds that had on other locations, and of course you know the second second that traveled with the company full time. So that that was a big movie. We
got nominated for that one as well. For what it's worth, the DJA nomination, I don't think we didn't win, but we did get pominated. Thinking about extras, one question I had was just in terms of your style when it comes to directing background. You know, let's say you've got to set up a bunch of crosses. You got to figure out, you know, your vehicles moving. You know, what are some things, some strategies, tools you have in your mind that you like to use over and over
again. You know. Again with background, I think it comes down in the beginning that you need to really get them thinking about being on camera. You need to explain to them that even though I'm only going to see them an on camera from point A to point B, it's gonna be much more convincing if they know what they were doing before they started and where they're going
afterwards. When I watch TV and the background, I can tell when they've been set in a manner that they're really just crossing quickly or from point you know, point A to point b, as I mentioned, without much motivation. You want them to be subtle. But if they if you encourage folks to bring it themselves, more times than not, you're gonna get background that
looks realistic. You're gonna get folks doing things, having their conversations silently mouthing of course, because you've explained that to them as well, in a manner that really adds subtly to the scene overall. Now and then, if you establish that properly upfront, if you've given everybody the speech you've taught them about what their job needs to be, or for folks who are more experienced,
sort of set your expectations. Then you can watch the camera and you can tweak the things that need fixing here and there and that way and just make it that much better. But it's going to start with enabling and empowering your background to bring their expertise, or if it's not expertise, to bring their experience and self motivation to what they do. It's a lot I'm talked about before. You've got to be able to push it to the bottom. You
don't want people paralyzed waiting for direction. Particularly, Yeah, if you've got three people in a scene and it's very delicate, you can direct them very specifically. You could almost puppetmaster that. But as soon as you start getting ten fifteen people that are going to appear on camera, they have to bring the motivation, they have to understand their job, and then you're as an assistant director managing them for what the camera needs rather than just trying to get
them to do something. Basically, have you ever had to create something very complex, you know, like a long tracking shot where you're having to you know, give like ten different queues, and that was my job on West Wing. I mean, that show is famous for the long walk and talks that used to you know, go around those various rooms. We used to be on two stages and then you'd have to actually reach a split point and
then pick it up on the other stage. But then when they moved us on to one stage, the walk and talks themselves even got more complex.
The nice thing about that is I was actually a DGA trainee on the West Wing, and that show is set up that the second second was responsible for background, but the DGA trainee was taking care of them back and holding and then working with the second second as far as actually making the shot work, going through where are people going to cross, where are people gonna be standing,
where when the camera turns are they going to move around? And so as the dj trainee, that's really where I cut my teeth on background. And then when I went back as the second second a d and third season, now I was in the role with the assistance of a DJA trainee to sort of continue with that and execute on that. The other advantage we had on that is we had a lot of regulars. We had a group of folks that were White House staff, so that in setting it, you weren't
training them from scratch. You knew what people were capable of. You knew that they understood the job and the role and basically where all the rooms were. And so I could do a little chart with a little diagram to tell people to go through, and then I could just walk it through where I was pretending to be the camera, and we had the stand ins walking through, and we could run it a couple of times and more, you know, more often than not. Under those circumstances, we could produce some pretty
good background and people can go the show and designed for themselves. Season three, that's the one I was responsible for. And how long were these tracking shots? A tracking shot on West Wing could run for five minutes. I mean, maybe that's an exaggeration. It felt both longer and shorter when you're doing it, But yeah, this, uh, as much room as there was on the stage, as much dialogue as Aaron Sorkin would write, we'd
have background filling in all around them the whole time. And was this a mixture of like you know, a Q based off dialogue and hey tapping somebody on the shoulder and you go now or was it all based off of the diagram that you're drawing. You know, on a job like that, you've got very little chance to tap people for ques. People need to know where they're going to be, They need to understand the room, and they understand how to get from space to space and then kind of like what the natural
flow is among the various sets. Again, the advantage of working with folks who knew the sets, the actors understood, you know, how the flow was going to work, made for all the difference in the world, and that was something built up over time and that's what made that show successful, at least from a background perspective, What are some you know, challenges or issues that you would phase continually when it comes to you know, working with
background, or especially lots of background. Were there certain things that was always a pain point? You know? I mean, I admit, as much as I enjoyed doing large background, that first moment where I had to get up on stage, it was just so critical to the whole process of the whole day that I often felt anxious about how that was going to go and sort of had to steal myself through practice by having a speech even having notes
on my speech about everything I wanted to cover. I would find that if I could get up over that initial hump of sort of the challenge and speak to people you know and and and really make a team of that group of background, invariably it would it would worcount. Occasionally. Like I mentioned before, there's gonna be a couple people that are going to cause you trouble. They're sneaky, they don't really want to be there, They're gonna, you
know, whatever the situation. But if you're good with most of the folks, those folks again will self identify and you can identify them and ask them to go home before you get into real trouble about it. But generally, building that team is the most important thing. It's a huge challenge. I used to try to memorize everybody's names when I was on Elizabethtown. I made I had most of the people were at table, so it wasn't so hard. But I had one hundred and twenty people and by the end of the
you know, we had multiple days in there. But I would memorize them in groups of ten or twelve or whatever needs so that I knew who the folks were. Because it's much easier. You're gonna get a much better response if you could say, David, I need you to cross, or Melissa, you know, take your seat there, watch out for the camera.
That it is to say hey you, particularly with those large groups, so trying to learn the names, treating them like a team and that you're the leader of the team, but really forging them and letting them do their job. That's really how with background it all came together. So just making sure they feel valued and not you're just there, but well they should be.
They should be valued in the sense that again they're in front of your camera and what they do is going to have as much to what goes on screen as what the production designer has done. It's what the props folks have done, is what the costumers have done, and so they are very important. The challenge of managing background, I believe in from what I've seen, is that ad work can be very stressful, and sometimes that stress can roll downhill.
And I've seen ads because of that stress not talk to background, or not treat them, or have assumptions about background ahead of time, none of which helps form them as a team. If you don't form them as a team. Then you're managing a bunch of people that you don't agree with, and maybe it's hard to get them to do what you want to do. But if you form, if you go into it with the idea that we're going to be a team, I'm going to be the team leader. But
my point is to make these people successful. Generally, it will work out much better for you. When you're working as a second second. You know, was there much prep involved or what was the prep like for a show? You know, generally, as a second second, I don't remember getting much prep. It might be to come in and work with the pas to get the walk's ready, maybe the week before that sort of thing. Um,
you're not part of the scheduling. You're not really part of the planning on most shows, even if your job is going to be execution and planning ahead on the day, there's not a lot of room I think ahead of time. So as a second second, um, generally I didn't see all out of prep. It's one of the things that makes it tough to work
as a team. You know, you've got eight first ads and key seconds that you want to be there for all the time, but they're going to be on shows longer on both prep and rap than you are, and sometimes as a second second you might have to go join another team just to fill the gaps between the team that's uh that that you know is working on a
different schedule. Besides background setting background and working with pas, what are some of the other responsibilities a second second AD or additional AD might have when it comes to production. You know, it's a it's a good question. I mean again, overall, the AD department is working everything from the planning and prepping, execution, and you know summary afterwards. Um, sometimes a second
second, I'd be responsible for the production report. Sometimes I wouldn't, depending on the show, but you know, that's usually something that that falls in that area. We're just sort of again what you know, we knew a time everyone was supposed to show up, what time did they actually show up, what time did they actually leave, what happened on set that day? Gathering all of that for approval again, just sort of making sure that everything
we did is actually captured for the report. You know, in my days it was all by hand and you know, with pencil. Even the call sheet was largely by hand. These days, I'm presuming it's you know, much more electronic and hopefully you're all around that's less of a drag. But again that was a big part of the job as well. But when you're working on set though, like how much were you assisting the first ad in
terms of just thinking ahead or solving problems on set? Yeah, you know, And again it would really, you know, depend on the job on West Wing, when the key second was off preparing for the next day. You know, I was on set managing that background, stepping into set when the first ad had to step off ether for a conference or you know, to grab some food, and so very much at the center of you know,
what is actually happening. But you know on Big Fish where I was working paperwork most of the day, and on that show you didn't really know what the weather was going to be the next day, so we would prepare three call sheets every day, one for sun, one for rain, and one for not rain but cloudy, and it would be completely different work. And so preparing all of that and warning people that kept me off set where
I had very little to do with the action of what was happening. Sea Biscuit would probably be something in between where there was a full traveling team. I was responsible for this large background at background and interacting with you know, and integrating with what was on the schedule and the team. But but I was also out in Kentucky like a month early trying to get folks ready and all the period costuming and working with the background folks and you know, our
our wardrobe people to get people ready. So honestly, it depends on how that team goes together, each production and each team. How those things come together is going to shape what that work is in a different way. That's one of the things that was exciting about it, that it could be different every time. You know, It's funny you mentioned Kentucky. I got to film some stuff in Kentucky this past summer, and I would hear stories that people talk about, oh yeah, back in the day we filmed on Sea
Biscuit, so some of those background might have been folks. I knew I would love it. If they still knew me, then I knew if they still recognize the name Skid, then I knew that I did my job really well. That if that was the kind of memory they held on too, if they curse with it, well, like I said, it's always going to be a few people that you know don't want to be there. But do you how many books that you recommend that have helped you as an a d you know, honestly, I can't say that I do, or that
I recall. When I started out, there were some books about the film industry. They really broke down the various crafts and who did what. Anyone wanting to get into the business, I would think, start there, and I honestly, really figure out what it is you want to do before you get into it. As a production assistant. Every department's going to need assistance in some way or another, and so you should sample different things and try
different areas and see what's really a good fit. It seems silly to say now, but when I came to Hollywood after being in the military for five years, I was concerned that I was late, and probably if I had gone in with sort of a wider perspective, I'm not sure ad work would have been my first choice. I think I had other creative aspirations or other
parts of the industry that might have interests me as well. But because I was trying to apply the skills I had, I ended up on the path with the ad no regrets about the time that I was working in LA or the work that I've done, you know on and offset sets that and I love doing the podcast now. Film is still very interesting me and talking about
it on every level. But my advice would be understand the different departments, find a book that really breaks that down, or a website or a blog or somewhere that you can really understand what everyone's doing, and then really figure it out what it is that you have a passion for, because it's going to take a passion to stay in this business. It's a lot of work.
It can be a real grind. There's all kinds of stuff that is challenging over the course of it. But if you really have a passion for it, you're going to find someplace that you really love and this industry is gonna love you back. And if people want to find more about your podcast or you, what's the best way to do that. Oh, I appreciate that. So you can find me on IMDb. I'm My IMDb meat page is Skid Skid That's the work I did if you're curious. The podcast is
also on there. For the last four years, I've been producing and hosting a podcast called Below the Line, where crew comes on and talks about working on set. I have a website below the Line dot biz that's b i Z where you can see past episodes. You can see my contact info and links to social media. You know, a lot of the stuff we've been talking about Brandon was during my active days, which was really from ninety eight to two thousand and six or some time ago. But I did become a
member of the Director's Guild through the DGA training program. I've been paying my dues. I love getting the DVDs in the mail come Awards season, and I've been on set a couple of times. I think you mentioned Veep. I shot that in Baltimore when I happened to be out here and an a d I knew from Arrest of Development saw my name on the local list. And I also went down to Atlanta and did COVID protocols in twenty twenty when everything was sort of shutting down, but as things were ramping up, they
needed help and so there was an opportunity for me there. All that being said that the podcast has been straight through and talking about film is still passion of mind. If folks are interested in anything you said, or just want to get in touch. I hope they'll go to below the line dots. Let's kid. I really appreciate your time today and just love learning all things AD stuff with you and look forward to listen to your show as well. It's my pleasure. Branded thanks for having me on. This was fun.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Go for Production. You can listen and subscribe on Apple podcast or Spotify. You can also listen online at Assistant Directing dot com, where we have articles, links and free downloads for people that work in production