When You're The Piñata, Give 'em Candy

I had a chance to work with a really great guy last week. His name is Todd. We booked a radio spot together, and it was a fairly straightforward script. But there were more than a few people directing us and Todd was taking the brunt of the contradictions. One person would tell him to do it one way, then the second person would tell Todd he missed this or that and would totally redirect him. Then the first person would redirect him again, and it went on and on like that. And it wasn’t as if the “directors” were battling between themselves in the control room, they just didn’t understand that they didn’t want the same thing, and couldn’t figure out why they weren’t getting what they wanted from the actor.

Meanwhile, the actor was trying very hard to please two contradicting directors. Todd was basically being a piñata. They just kept hitting him with more and more contradicting ideas, and he kept giving them candy.

Now, frequently, the actor in the “piñata” position would be rolling his or her eyes, getting snarky and making faces at the other actor, silently screaming, “Can you believe these idiots.” Personally I don’t like working with people like that. They make me feel uncomfortable and I think it makes them look like an ass. True, it’s hard to keep your cool when it’s so obvious that the clients either don’t know what they want, or don’t know how to communicate what they want. But it’s your job to do what you’re told, and if asked, help the client figure out how to define their direction. Usually, the people who do the impatient eye-rolling thing are people who don’t work that much. They have an idea in their head of how it should be, versus how things really tend to work. I often want to say, “Folks, you’re being paid to read. Buck up. It’s not like you’re digging holes during a heat wave.”

But Todd is a pro. He knows how good he has it. He makes fantastic money by talking. He’s been doing it for years, and quite frankly, this kind of thing happens all the time. During our session he was patient, he always did what they wanted, and he never got ruffled. Instead, when we were between takes while they were figuring things out in the control room, we talked about life stuff -- his son who’s in high school, our houses, our spouses -- and we had a great time. And when it was time to do another take, we did it. No attitude, just did our job.

Two days later they called us back to do a rerecord because of a mistake that had nothing to do with us, and we did it all again.

Class act, that Todd.