Venting My Frustrations

I've been feeling pretty frustrated lately. As usual, it's mostly because of my job. The truth of the matter is, I hate casting. No, correction, I hate casting for the people I'm working with right now. I didn't mind casting before, so why should I hate it now? I've attributed it to the team.

You see, some of the people in this team aren't really in my good books. Some might use terms like "sycophant", "unrealistic", "picky" and "hypocritical" to describe them. I just prefer to use "fucked up".

When you're in a team, you look out for each other. If anyone has a problem, it's the problem of the entire team. When you feel like the project is your project, even if you're just a little cog in the wheel, then you've got it good.

Unfortunately, with the current people I'm working with, they seem to be more concerned with delegating responsibilities all over the fucking place, to the extent that they will refuse to step in and fix what is deemed as someone else's responsibility. Even if it's just a few simple phone calls. Even if they know that person will not be returning to the office soon. Even if the deadline is pressing. Nope, it's his responsibility, he should take care of it. In fact, it's so much his responsibility that even if schedules have been changed and a new draft came out and hey, we decided to change a cast member after the fucking rehearsal, we don't have to keep him in the loop. Let him find out for himself when he returns and only has, oh, a few hours to fix everything.

Fuck them.

And about being picky... God, they would die if they ever did a real docudrama with the usual team. There aren't as many good actors out there as you think there are, and even if there were, I can't be bothered to find them. Not if you give me six days per episode. And especially not if you pick on perfectly fine people and reject them for silly reasons. It's no point telling me "everyone must be able to act". Wake up and smell the coffee sometime. We're not living in Hollywood where everyone wants to be an actor. Sometimes all we need is a warm body to stand there and say the words. I know what kind of calibre we need for the roles. I will find people that can do the bare minimum. If you have such high standards, find them yourself.

Oh, and coming to me every few hours and asking what the progress is will not earn you any points in my book. It'll just piss me off.

The AVP told me I shouldn't just wall myself off in the corner and do my own little thing. I should be going to meetings, suggesting things left, right and centre. Getting more involved. I smiled and nodded.

Hah! How the fuck can you expect me to get involved in something I don't give a flying fuck about? And when do I care about something? When I respect the people working on it and their work ethic. Otherwise I'm just going to do my bare minimum and provide you with warm bodies. Because I. Don't. Care.

Yes, I take forever to cast. I don't spend all my time calling people up and getting them to come in for auditions. But that doesn't mean I do the same for things I give a shit about. In fact, I wrote an outline for a sitcom episode while on public transport one evening. If I can be that productive, you'd do well giving me more work like that, right?

My frustration got to the point where I had to do something - anything - to let off some steam. So I shaved my head last Wednesday. Well, not exactly shaved, just cut really really short.

However, yesterday I got the news that I was to be taken out of the team in the middle of next week, and put on the writing team of a drama. Given the proper incentive, I casted like I never did before, staying till almost 9pm and confirming a whole bunch of people that I'd been sitting on.

I mean, when I don't have the incentive I'll just come in and be a zombie and do a little shit here, do a little shit there, and basically just make sure you have all the warm bodies you need on the actual day of the shoot. Anything more is asking too much. But when I have a goal... Well, the results speak for themselves.

And I think the head-shaving gesture had a little to do with it. As did my piss-poor attitude. Can't help it. If I don't fucking care, I don't fucking care.

Speaking about people I hate in the office, some colleagues came up with an idea. They split the office into The Dark Side and The Light Side (or whatever they call it in Star Wars). As such, we have people like Jabba the Slut and Boba Flat (both not typos) hovering around. It was a good laugh. As expected, the people I hated ended up on The Dark Side.

Actually, I think I can put most of the writers here in The Dark Side too. They're just so incredibly lazy and unwilling to do research. When I went to the guy in charge of the drama I'm supposed to be writing next week and proposed a certain scenario, he said he didn't want to write it because there was too much research involved. I was blown away. No wonder the scripts have been so shitty thus far, he just didn't want to get down and dirty with the material.

It does not work when you don't do the research, and when you do your homework, it shows so very clearly. Given this, I cannot fathom how a writer can refuse to do research, it should be illegal. It pissed me off so much I decided to write that scenario and thoroughly research it and write the best fucking episode ever. Just so I can wave it in their face and say, "Fuck you." Seriously, they should just be fired. Maybe that'll give them a wake-up call.

I also read the script for an upcoming fantasy-drama. Jesus fucking Christ, it's fantastic. The best script I've read in Singapore thus far. It gave me the shivers just reading it, and I'm all psyched for it now. It's good that they're waiting till they have half the scripts before launching into pre-production, because at least the quality will be there. In fact, I was so excited after reading it that I SMSed the exec producer:

I love it! I wanna be on it. I'll do anything... except casting.

So yeah. Good things in the future. Hopefully.