Amongst all the emails, phone calls, enquiries and check-ins, it can be easy to forget that behind every communication is a booker juggling the demands of several productions at once.
This blog here provides you with a glimpse into the day in the life of a booker, but what we want to encourage today is to remember the human.
Firstly, please respect the boundaries of the working day when phoning us.
As you know, the Film & TV industry starts early in the morning and finishes late into the evening. Our bookers are often on call and performing duties for far longer than most employees that work in a regular office job.
Having said that, they do not operate 24/7 and still deserve the ability to switch off in the evening.
We understand that when you’re on a filming day, your hours may be very early in the morning and very late at night.
However, we’d like all of our SA’s to use their initiative and consideration before reaching out to us outside of traditional working hours.
When we give you phone numbers for out-of-hours emergencies, please do not abuse this line. It is for emergencies only and most certainly isn’t for general enquiries.
Even then, it may not be the right number to call. We provide the onset contact number in the Check-In for each filming day. The onset contact and the agency contact have two different purposes.
The agency contact is for if you have a problem in the run up to or in the evening before the shoot day.
The on-set contact is for if you have a delay getting to set or any problem on the day of the filming.
If you puncture a tyre at 04:30 on the morning of a shoot, the person you need to inform is the on-set contact. The booker at the agency will be fast asleep.
The bookers at the agency are not production crew. Bookers operate remotely and almost entirely online. They may be hundreds of miles away from where filming is taking place.
Phoning the agency contact any time before 08:00 is inappropriate when we have provided you with an on-set contact. The bookers can only perform their jobs well and get you booked if they are well-rested!
Instead, the production crew is always operating at the same time as you. They will be there when you sign in and they will be there when you sign out. Of course, this on-set contact number should still not be used for anything other than emergencies. Do not use this contact to discuss other filming dates or enquiries related to the booking process.
Secondly, please make sure to check the FAQ section of our website first before calling or emailing during the day.
Almost all answers are available online.
The busyness of our daily work schedule means that sometimes we are unable to answer the phone for general enquiries, and when we do, we may have to be very quick at delivering you with an answer. Do not take it personally if we cannot sit and have a chat.
We are constantly trying to improve our communication channels and it would help us out if FAQs are kept to a minimum. We want to be sending you availability enquiries and booking confirmations - not walking someone through the process of how to upload photos to their profile!
Thirdly, rudeness or abuse of any kind toward our staff will not be tolerated.
We are a team. Bookers are here to help you earn money.
The person you do not want to antagonise is the booker. These people decide who to approach with job opportunities. If you alienate them, they will send the availability enquiries to other artistes.
Every agency has a blacklist. If an SA antagonises us enough or conducts themselves unprofessionally, either on set or through communication channels, they will be blacklisted. This excludes them from all future searches made by all bookers across the agency.
A blacklisted SA will never receive availability enquiries from the agency again.
A good name goes around quickly, a bad name goes around even quicker.
Finally, we have to talk about entitlement.
Some SAs become very irate when they go through a quiet patch with few jobs. Financial insecurity is of course very stressful, but it is important to remember that we are doing our best to get you hired.
While releases are frustrating, they are still a good sign that the bookers are putting you forward for work. Unfortunately, the agency can only put you forward. Production books you.
Still, some artistes believe that we owe them regular work.
If you are one of these artistes, we’d like to remind you:
You voluntarily requested to join our database and we accepted.
You are not charged to be on our books. We only take commission from your earnings.
We are not your ‘Acting Agent’. We have not signed you exclusively and you are free to join other background agencies.
We never made any commitment to find you a set volume of work.
We do not work for you. We approach you when we have opportunities that we think you are a good candidate for.
And once again, we do not decide who gets booked and who gets released.
Every agency is clear from the outset that being a Supporting Artiste isn’t a reliable source of income. Due to the nature of the industry, your look will sometimes be in demand and sometimes it won’t be.
Agencies do not owe you consistent work. Having said that, we certainly want to get you consistent work. With a commission-based business model, we only make money when our artistes make money.
We are on the same side.
Fundamentally, this is a people's industry.
If you are easy to work with and make a great impression, you will be rewarded with more job opportunities. If you antagonise and alienate, you will soon find yourself shut out of the industry.
Phew. This wasn’t a nice piece to write, so please ensure that you do not become one the SAs that justifies this article’s existence.
The unfortunate truth is that both the bookers at the agencies and the ADs on set have to disproportionately deal with the SAs that cause trouble. The good SAs that communicate efficiently, arrive on time, do what is asked of them and conduct themselves professionally do not demand nearly the same attention as the ones that we have to chase, the ones that are rude to crew, the ones that drop-out, turn up late or no-show all together.
So to the good SAs who are polite, switched on and understand the nature of our working relationship, thank you very much. We are only as good as the people on our books and you are the reason that we are able to operate. You are a joy to work with and we look forward to sending you many more booking confirmations.
If you are looking to maximise your earnings from Supporting Artiste work, one SA shared with us what he does to make this line of work full-time.
And as always, the best way to contact us with an enquiry is to either reply directly to the email that the issue relates to or to email team@extra-people.com with a clear subject title.
Many thanks,
The Extra People Team.