The American critic and writer Randolph Bourne once said “he who mounts a wild elephant goes where the wild elephant goes.”

I’m not really sure which independent film Bourne was working on in the late 1800’s, but they must have had a pretty low budget. 

I rode a tame elephant once when I was eight, and that was scary enough. That’s what working on a film is like. You have no idea what to expect, where it will take you, or if it will hurt. You just hold on as tight as you can, give the elephant a map, and hope he can read directions.

Our ride started in an unusual way. Our above-the-line crew and department heads from Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, and Indianapolis, hit town and immediately gathered to meet the nearly fifty students they would be working with over the next month.

Our first assignment? A team building exercise at a local outdoor ropes course.

I was skeptical too. It’s hard to picture Ethan Coen and Roger Deakins trying to help John Goodman get to the other side of a tightrope.

But for a production like ours with many students who had never stepped foot on a real film set, it was an invaluable chance to learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses just days before we’d be expected to perform flawlessly together in difficult situations most of us had never faced. It helped us build trust and learn everyone’s style of communication.

During one exercise, my director and I were at the front of our group. We had led our team down the wrong path and only the two of us could tell that success was impossible. Faced with a hopeless situation, the director turned to me and whispered “We’re totally screwed, but just pretend everything is ok so they won’t know.”

Which is pretty much how we would operate for the next several weeks.

But the point is this: you’re going to have to trust the people around you, and you’re going to have to take some chances together.

For a smaller indie film, that might mean taking a chance on some crew members. Interview everyone who’s interested in the job, but be willing to hire an experienced grip as your best boy if you think she can do the job. Give a new opportunity to someone who is ready to move up. If you can’t pay as much as the big guys, opportunity becomes your currency. You obviously need skilled and experienced people, but sometimes calculated risks pay off.

You’re probably not going to get away with sending your crew to a ropes course or playing that game where everyone takes off a shoe and finds a partner to break the ice, but you will need to find ways to communicate effectively from the very beginning, and get to know your crew before you get on that wild elephant together. If you do, the ride will be just a bit smoother.

You’ll probably still get thrown off the beast, but maybe someone will roll you out of the way before it tramples you to death.

Stay tuned for another installment of the My Name is Jerry production diary. In the meantime, you can check out our website at http://mynameisjerry.com.

photo: Director Morgan Mead (center) works with Lamar Clark-Gainous (PA) on the ropes course.
(Photo by Kyle Peters)