The Vision Maker Podcast
The Vision Maker Podcast
EP 24 - A.D AKA The MOST STREESFUL job on set
Ever wondered what it takes to pull off a successful film shoot? We had the pleasure of sitting down with assistant director and director, Nick Sasi Romano, who shares his firsthand experience in the film industry. Nick lets us peek behind the scenes, revealing the art of problem-solving that keeps the show running. He shares his unique approach to team management, demonstrating how respect and a positive attitude can be instrumental in creating something cool.
Switching gears, we chat about the contrasts between small grassroots productions and bigger commercial ones. Nick's wealth of experience spans from filming on an indie set to managing large-scale projects. He gives us the lowdown on the unique challenges and rewards each type of production brings. If you're an aspiring filmmaker, you'll want to take notes as we delve into the transition process into the film industry, offering some useful advice on networking, gaining experience, and finding balance.
We also talk about an exhilarating military sci-fi film shot in an abandoned nuclear facility, showcasing the resilience and adaptability required in such demanding situations. Finally, we leave you with a few tips for your next film shoot, focusing on the importance of planning, communication, and time management. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a film enthusiast, this episode has something for everyone. Tune in for an insightful journey into the world of filmmaking.
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Welcome to the Vision Maker podcast. Today we have the chance to speak with Assistant Director and Director Nick Sasi Romano. So pleasure to have you on with us today. And hey, nick, could you please introduce yourself to the audience, give them a little background about yourself, and yeah, Sure, absolutely.
Speaker 2:What's up everybody. I'm Nick. As stated, I'm an Assistant Director. I'm based mostly in New York, born and raised, and yeah, I've been working in a professional capacity in some way in the film industry for the past six to seven years. I've dotted around a bunch of different departments through that time, but I've now landed on being in AD the last couple years and it's been a lot of fun. I work on a variety of different projects like music videos, commercials and some short films and narrative features when the time arises, and, yeah, we just try to have as much fun as we can doing it.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome man. Yeah, I was had a chance to dig into you a little bit and I saw that you know you've had a lot of fun projects, especially the last two years or so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just about.
Speaker 1:I think I think I saw you mention something like 70 projects in 2022.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, just about 70 in 2022, and actually this year I've just hit 70 now.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So there's going to be probably a whole nother quarter, or so my guess is about 8590 by the end of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, oh man, but that's what that's kind of like, the life we're trying to do here, right?
Speaker 2:As much as we can. Yeah, try to stay busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we just say, for a vast majority of those projects, you were a dean for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at some point in some level of the AD team, usually I'm the first, but I don't obviously turn down any time being second, second, second or even key PA. That that's been a lot more rare this year but in previous years.
Speaker 1:Of course, as you're building up 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, awesome, awesome, that's fantastic. Yeah, ad, that's an interesting one around the film Because I see a lot of like in a lot of ways you guys really keep those big sets together Like you guys are really like the glue for the DP, for the director and like the whole team as far as keeping things together. But you're also like very consistently the meme. You know there's always the stereotype with the AD coming around things to get things to get right on time. You know different things like that.
Speaker 1:As far as your experience as an AD, how do you feel like your interactions with people? Because I hear, I hear a can bit when it comes to like ADs, where it's like either everyone's stressed and kind of frustrated with the AD all the time, like is this just like orders, orders, orders, or but I've also heard there's some people is like no, actually there's some of them can be pretty cool too. So it's like how do you feel like you feel your dynamic with your teams across all these different production sets? Because I've seen you work with some major brands, some major artists and also some more local.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. I think that the thing to start with is obviously just the stereotype of what you know what an assistant director is pulling out. Even farther than that is like most people outside the film industry have no idea what an assistant director does. Me explaining to my family what I do like on a daily basis is like an impossible task because I basically have to reduce my job to like a certain level of like. Oh, this is what I do in three steps, but in fact it's a lot.
Speaker 2:And yeah, the big stereotype of ADs is that they're they're loud, boisterous, they're, you know, constantly yelling at someone's, you know, always stressing everybody else out. And I fully understand that read and I've know people who work like that and that is totally their style and if they get the job done, they get the job done right, and if someone wants to hire them for that, that's cool. My style is a little bit more casual, but not in terms of easing the time tension. It's more of just we could treat everybody with respect. It's not hard to treat everybody with respect. Everybody is usually here to do a good job and, like you know, make something cool, and that's the thing like. I try not to attach myself to projects that I just don't think will make something cool in the end. So every single time I'm coming into something like, okay, if we get one really cool shot even out of this, it's worth it. So let's, let's make sure we get to the fun stuff right.
Speaker 2:And obviously, with with being an AD, you're not only the person keeping time on set, but you're also really paying attention to safety and you're kind of the liaison for the production crew and everybody else.
Speaker 2:Right, you know it's, you're trying to be this middleman in the middle of also talking to the director and everybody else to try to figure out, like, okay, what's the best thing that we need right now? And you can make 800 plans. I've made pages, long schedules and two hours it's thrown out the window because something happened that you're never going to predict and then you just got to kind of run with it. So it's, the job is essentially being a giant problem solver, and I think that's why I liked it and why I fell into it, because I've always been a fan of like puzzles and problem solving and logic and stuff, and so that fit very well with my personality. And so coming into this job was like, oh, I can do that. I can help solve people's problems and help get us to the finish line, and that's kind of where I've landed on that.
Speaker 1:I actually I love one thing you said in there is that the whole realization of being a basically a master problem solver, because I feel like with logistics, on most things I come from prior to like really doing what I do with the production company stuff. I come from an events background and the one thing I know about any live production, any live event, it's not if something goes wrong, it's when something goes wrong and that one thing stops working the way it should, when that, whatever the timeline, goes out the window pretty quickly. Usually someone's like who knows? And you have to pick it on the spot.
Speaker 1:And from what I've learned to is that production sets are production sets are no different, and that can really fluster some people, especially if there's something like fully like scheduled out, like you've made the Google sheets, the Google docs, everyone has their call sheets, everything like that, and then the director comes in and it's like hey, yeah, so that's the scene we're going to do today. I don't want to do at all. We're going to skip forward and go to do this scene or is like well, we actually location comes in and says like there's something going on with the location. We're actually only have it one day instead of two days, and you know, like all these things, and you're finding out, like, as people are arriving, thinking one thing, and then a lot of it falls on you, right as to like pivot, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how does that?
Speaker 1:how do you, how's your process in that, when those things really monkey wrench?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's obviously a lot of different factors and you gave a lot of examples before. What could go wrong, right? So easiest one is always with music videos, especially like the artist or the talent shows up hours behind schedule. And you said another one where the director is we're shooting one scene, and I've had it happen for where we're halfway through shooting a scene but we want to get another thing real quick, so we're going to move the camera over here and then he wants to come back. So, but we got to, we got to come back, and that's a ridiculous waste of time but we have to do it because that's what the director wants.
Speaker 2:All of these things I try to do as much as I can in prep to put that in the schedule, to try to figure out, like, ok, if the artist is someone who's going to come up late, maybe by you know, if the reputation is about like an hour or two or more, we try to put anything that the artist is definitely not in first, if as much as possible. If the director has a reputation for moving around and being mobile, that's cool and I'm totally willing to work with it. We just have to be as flexible with we can. So I'd be talking to art department and to G&E saying how many of these sets can we actually get prelit completely so that way we can be mobile and move around to set by set? So it's really just asking the right questions about who, who and where is the best place to be given all of the circumstances.
Speaker 2:The thing I tell all ADs that either I'm talking to, or training or PAs who are asking me it's mostly all about questions. Every single thing about being an AD is just having your rotary of questions and just asking as many of them rapid fires you possibly can and get as many of the answers and retain them. Retain the answers as much as possible. Every time you do a job you're getting another question. Whether you know it or not, you're getting another thing to add to your list. So it rains during a production. You've never had it rain during production before. Okay, cool. So now you have the list of hey, are we prepared for rain with pop-up tents and umbrellas? Does the talent need to be shielded? Do they need a duplicate set of clothes if it does rain on them? Like all of these things happen just basically through experience, but you just get better and better as you learn those questions.
Speaker 1:And I feel like that's just an honestly, that's just a plain important skill as any member of production you need to constantly be aware of. Not, you know not, if something goes wrong, when something is going wrong, how are you going to pivot? Because I feel like, even at the higher levels, it's even more important than in the sense that, like, can this guy like work under pressure? You know, pivot, is the light on his feet, adaptable, you know, because sometimes the talent wants to do one thing. You know this. The director, dp, you know, and it's like, can you do that?
Speaker 1:And I'm, as someone who's like as an AD and at the time you kind of have the pulse on all the departments, to say the least, like because you're kind of in charge of making sure that everyone is where they need to be, everyone is like working together. In that sense, you're the middle man in a sense, in a lot of ways. Yeah, with that Now, but you've also worked on smaller productions, I know. You know you got stuff with your band and but you also got stuff like so we recently had Anthony Natoli on here and James Moreno, and I know you've worked on with their crew for Sunday, sunday, sunday, and I know that was more of a skeleton crew for the film.
Speaker 1:So and other things like that, you know, and, of course, you have some of your own projects. So how do you feel is the pros and cons or differences that you really see from a small, like grassroots production versus these bigger commercials that you've done for, like New Balance, nike, spike and all these guys? Sure?
Speaker 2:absolutely. It's just about kind of like, what is the expectation of what you're trying to get out of it, because everything can be on a level playing field, and I'm sure Anthony and James probably talk a lot about this, about them being scrappy, them being kind of like freelance by themselves and what we were doing with Sunday Sunday Sunday for those of you who might not have seen those episodes Sunday Sunday Sunday is a movie all about drag racing, shot on iPhone. We started shooting that in 2016. And I joined. I knew Anthony. We worked together a long time ago now and he brought me in because I knew he knew I was at the time studying film.
Speaker 2:I was in film school and that was it was an interesting way to start. My career really is in film production. It was the first feature I had really been on and because it was like it was everybody's volunteer. Actually, everybody was there because they wanted to be there, not because they were expecting a paycheck or really anything out of it. They just wanted to help Anthony make this movie, including James. He came down just to make the movie and it was a really cool environment just to start with filmmaking, because it was like this is just people who just want to make a film, whether they want to like, elevate and succeed in film at the end of the day, who knows? And I feel like most starting filmmakers kind of live in a similar world, where they just start making, they have their iPhone or back in the day like an old camcorder and they started filming things and try to make something with their friends and then it grows into kind of more than a passion or you start making money from it or whatever the path is.
Speaker 2:There's obviously hundreds, but yeah, so the difference between something like that and the bigger productions is just kind of about scale and expectation. In my opinion, it's really like we would show up on a day of Sunday Sunday, sunday and say, okay, what are we getting, and we just go for it. We wouldn't have much prep. Really, something I tried to ask Anthony to do is like, especially in his continuing projects, just like, hey, what are we doing? Just talk to us about kind of what we're doing. Obviously, now as an AD, not having a schedule going into a day is like a crazy thought, but you get a lot done because you can kind of just go for it with bigger up to union jobs, but even just like the bigger productions that I've worked on, you need a lot of time. You just need a lot of prep time to just kind of talk it through, because there are, you know, at minimum, like sometimes 40 to up to 80 to 100 people that's not even really ever including talent.
Speaker 2:Like you're talking about organizing all of these people and making sure not only do they know what's happening but they know what's happening in the moment to continually adapt. Like you are Right, it's one thing for me to adapt to a thing that gets thrown by the wayside, but it's another thing for me to then update the 100 people that need to also know what's happening in the shoot. You know there are some, some levels of productions where you can just kind of point the camera, shoot something and move around. That's fun and that's typically what we're actually really.
Speaker 2:Where I enjoy Most is when we can kind of be a little scrappy with it, a little run and gun, because we can invent things and we could be a little bit more creative and I can help suggest things and I can help make the things happen. But there is a level of structure and hierarchy when it comes to the bigger productions that you know you will get things To get like. You are getting the plan and you are. You will shoot what is written when you're on that level of production.
Speaker 1:Got it, got it, yeah. No, I can only imagine, like you said, like a hundred plus people, yeah, you have to. It's like because then it's like, that's not. I don't even think that's possible to organize a day of Very effectively at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. Um, it can be challenging the things I've been dealing with a lot recently. There was a production I was on a semi recently. It was about a 50 person crew and then there were 80 extras on top of that. So you're not only trying to tell the 50 person crew like hey, we need to be in this setup by this time, but then you're also saying like hey, 80 extras, I need you to perform this action in camera and do it so that way we can get done by this with the scene by an hour from now. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just about ever keeping everybody unified, and the only way to really do that, I think, in my opinion, effectively is to again treat everybody with respect and just kind of keep, keep the Positivity up, like hey, this is a difficult job, completely like no matter what position you're in, it's difficult, so as long as we can say positive about it and like, hey, we can get it, let's just Keep it. Keep it focused, though, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like the, the key points I kind of got from that. We're, um, you know, obviously understand what the goal is for the day. You know this is, this is what we're trying to do, this is the goal, this is what we're trying to end up with by the end of the day. This is what we're all working towards, you know. And then, but also having Clear, concise communication and just treating people like people. I mean, it's always been the common thread you want to treat, you want to just be a good energy. You know people respond well to that, people more likely to listen to that, and of course you're you're dealing with a million different personalities all at the same time and a lot of this stuff is getting trickled down, I'm sure, and so.
Speaker 1:Of course, the clearer you can be, the more effective in communication you can be, the more the more things become streamlined, the less need to repeat and less chance of things getting skewed in the direction that you don't need it to go in totally yeah, I say I mean it's an obvious fact.
Speaker 2:But the AD is kind of just like the manager On the set right, like any other manager position at any retail store or food service or anything like. It's the same type of Job where you're managing a bunch of people, you're making sure that the thing that you're all working to do is working and that you can get through the end of the day Effectively and not have to close later, whatever. So it's, it's a similar, it's a similar structure. Yeah, and it's just communication is everything? Just sure that everybody knows what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:So to track back a little bit, you mentioned, when you were talking about Sunday, sunday, sunday, how it was Kind of your your start, it was your first feature and it was kind of like where you really, I guess, boasted your, your industry. I wanted to ask like really like, how was that, like how well, how did you get started really in the industry? And secondly, like how did you fall into becoming a first aid AD, primarily?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so through Through. This goes back, but it is important through high school. I was in a Video club through. The high school is kind of like the video news program that most high schools it seemed to have. But we did a lot of like cool entertainment segments and Nice, we always trying to do something new, like a little bit of sketch comedy, a little bit of news. I hosted the news like the school news segment, but At the end of the day I was the person also putting the whole thing together and kind of like an a spider-man, where you see the little newscast, yeah right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, essentially. So I did a lot of that through high school so I was already. It wasn't like I just kind of hit the ground running just because I liked film. I had been editing Basically full-time, a 15 minute piece every two weeks. So I was in the kind of workflow cycle. Even just through doing school regular schoolwork, and and Right in the interim period between high school and the beginning of college I started picking up a couple of extra like editing gigs and editing jobs and that was kind of how I got my break in just a little bit with people who were who were doing some film projects and I was like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 2:As I said, I met Anthony through one of my former jobs and we started doing that stuff, but it didn't really go anywhere Until after I really kind of left school. School for me was Everything kind of. I went in kind of just wanting to be a director and that's what a lot of people who do film I think want to be. I don't think anybody goes into school Wanting to be a gaffer. I could be wrong about that, but most of the people that I Went into school with wanted to be a director or they wanted to be a screenwriter.
Speaker 2:Which is totally cool and I fully understand that, and so did I. I fell into that same category, right. But through some of the classes I went to Brooklyn College, by the way and through some of the classes that I took there, I started to realize like, oh, there's, there's a lot of other things that you can actually do on set. That was never explained to me, and one of the classes was taught by this guy, tom Riley. He was a union first assistant director. He is, I guess, a union first assistant director. He worked on like 19 of Woody Allen's movies and he did a bunch of other movies on top of that. And he had a class which I didn't know really he might treat all of his classes like this, but the class I took from him was just called current cinema and criticism, which sounds like it's just like you go to the movie theater, watch a movie and you talk about it. But it wasn't that. It was. He showed movies that he had worked on and then talked about how he Scheduled them and like logistically, plan them all out. And that was like an eye-opener class for me, because I was like, wait, this is a whole job, like the the ad has previously on Through all my other short films that I'd done through school were really just like the person that just kept the day moving then Taking this class was. It was an eye-opener and reading his books and saying like wow, okay, there's actually a lot to this and I've always been kind of in the leadership role in a bunch of different situations, so I've said that sounds like a cool job. I want to kind of pine for that. So Like for a couple years I was just doing like right at the tail end of school I was doing just whatever I could to get on set.
Speaker 2:I did sound for a while that was like my majority of my work to be on set. But I also did like I gaffed, I gripped, I did everything but camera. Basically I just I got myself out there and I got enough on enough sets with enough people that I got the word back that like hey, I'm actually like I I learned to be an ad. Like I Trained under a couple people. Like I would love to give ading a shot with your next production.
Speaker 2:I took a couple free gigs and I think that that's like taboo for some people, that taking free gigs of just to do it Right, but I did it at the jump because I didn't really have any other option of how to like get to the position I wanted to and it and it. It won't work for everybody and I can't make that a blanket statement, but it did work for me because I did enough free gigs and specifically for certain people I did free gigs enough where then people were like, oh I just want to hire you because you did a good enough job, that on ABC production, that I'm gonna hire you. Foot going forward. And then just from there was the network. Just network grew.
Speaker 2:I meant more and more and more and more and more and more people and more people just started recognizing me as the ad or a person who can be trusted as an ad. And now we're at the point where just you know it's, it's full-time ad ad work. So really to summarize, it was like I did a bunch of work in a bunch of other departments, from editing and sound and all that stuff, tried to find my footing on set, found what I wanted to do, and then Kind of transitioned when I knew the moment was right or I wanted to get out of the departments I was already working in. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the start.
Speaker 1:Well, no, that's great and it sounds like it's a. In a big part, it's a ton of networking, of course, yeah, a ton of, you know, putting your best foot forward. And yeah, like you said, the free, the free gig type of thing. I know it's such a sensitive topic for some people, but it's honestly a reality for a lot of people. In the beginning, you know, yeah, I think people are just. You know, yeah, I think people just get messed up. That's like you shouldn't just continue to do it. You know it's a goal is to get some footing down and then you work your way out of it you know you can't get exploited by it.
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest thing is you don't, you can't let yourself just fall into the trap of like, oh, I'll get a job eventually that will actually give me you know, pay me back because you know it's cool and it's it's art for everything, but it also is my livelihood. I make you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my job is being an assistant director, so I have to, I have to weigh those, those costs now, and I think the thing with that, with the, the free gigs, is like the, the, you have to know what your limit is. You kind of to know you have to play. Play the cards. If you think it's gonna help you, if you're working with a client or a director or someone that you really are interested in, like, yeah, it might be worth it. But you have to, you have to, you have to be very careful.
Speaker 1:You really have to, like you said, wave what you're getting out of it, like yeah, like sometimes, yeah, there's sometimes the way to think about it. So it's not free. It's more of a barter, like are you getting portfolio piece out of it? Are you getting a chance to make a connection? You're getting a chance to be like oh, I've worked with so-and-so you know this or that would be a good learning experience.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, or a chance to learn or do you get a chance to prove yourself to a person who otherwise you wouldn't get the time of day from you know hundred percent. So no, I think that's smart, I think, and then just that's that's great to hear. I love how you describe that. Like you know, that class itself almost sounded. It sounded like a master class. Honestly, like really to get learned for someone in the field and then go and break down their own work is Definitely like a unique environment compared to the typical Experience in a classroom where you have a teacher talking about everybody else's work and going through the textbook. So those are, like, honestly, my favorite type of teachers. I I personally went to school for audio and Definitely my favorite teachers were the ones who were working professionally While they were also teaching, you know, because they always brought that real-world Experience into the classroom and I think those teachers always make a big difference. But, yeah, no, and it's such a small world compared to some of the people we know.
Speaker 1:One thing also I would love to hear a bit about, like so I know you also have your own band, just like Indie Rock, sal.
Speaker 1:I really dig it, and you've done some music videos for it too as well, but I'm pretty. I'm also a musician of my own band out here on Long Island and I'm curious to hear, because I know for me, my Musicianship, my view of music. I'm an audio engineer by background, so it's also funny how to hear that you did some sound Yourself and, of course, usually I think, feel like once we you're trying to become a musician, you end up becoming somewhat an audio engineer. Yeah, but how has that informed your work as an AD, because I know how it's informed my work as a cinematographer, as a VP, is director, on how I view certain processes and editing and my creative aspect. It's, I feel, music, it's own language. So I feel like once you learn the language it starts to come out through other things and inform other decisions and creative outlets. Especially so I'm curious to how your musicianship, how your music and all that has, also Transcend it into your line of work, or has it not at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has. It's in interesting ways, though it's not really how you think I am little plug. My band's name is slumber, it's SLM BR and yeah, so I think the the music side of my life has kind of become just the creative expression side, because ADing is really less of a creative job Compared to most jobs in film. The music has kind of been like the outlet for for creative expression and it's always been that for me. I've been writing music since I was like 14, 15, but the it's really now become like the number one for that.
Speaker 2:But in terms of helping me for for ADing, it's actually just kind of given me Almost like an in in certain places or just kind of talking about language to people. So there are things that I know, because I've been playing on stages as a band for like seven to eight years, that most I Would assume most ADs won't know or most production might not know. Like just you know you shoot it at a stage venue. I'm gonna know certain things about what I, what are they, what's there, what the back line is like, what I'm expecting to walk into when I show up at that at that venue.
Speaker 2:But even just talking to artists for music videos. Like just having a conversation with them, just musician to musician and I don't plug my band to, like you know, the top ten artists that I work with but just kind of being able to have a conversation about like, hey, do you actually like if they're doing a performance scene and they, they need some sort of, some sort of playback option for themselves, like being able to have a, have a conversation about that. Like saying, yeah, you know, I know you might want headphones for this, or you know this is too loud, or you know you need more on the left side or like the speaker for some reason is only panning the left side and it's not panning the right side so they can't hear the vocals.
Speaker 2:Like well, the little stuff that I know just doing band and music, that that stuff does come in handy, but it's like the little tidbits, like everything else that I do, it's like the little trivia that helps kind of bring my position to the next level.
Speaker 1:I totally, I totally hear that, because it just gives you that extra level connection. Like you said, especially working with music videos, I feel like as any person on production Working with an artist the second you can kind of communicate in their language. They also just immediately like Relax a little more. Yeah, because I think, because sometimes, because they all they know is that so they're trying to talk to you in your language and they're struggling, but when you can meet them on their level, they're also like oh, oh, you know, you know, you know, you know, and it's, and it definitely helps make things flow easier and better, because then they feel more comfortable telling you as they would say it. And Then, of course, you can also now you become more of an asset to communicate to the other people on the crew. You know almost translate funny enough, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I definitely can see that and plus, I think people can always relate to Musicians and like when people, that's always a connecting point, I feel with people. It's like, oh, you play music.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's art, isn't? It's not a contained box. You're never gonna work on something and then just like, oh, that's it. You know just gonna keep it in this little hole and just that's, that's it doesn't affect anything? No, of course not. Like painters are seeing the things that they want to paint in real life, or you know just abstractions of what they're going to paint in real life.
Speaker 2:And you know, as a songwriter, I'm walking down the street in work, I'm coming up with little like the amount of times that I've written a single lyric Just from something that either happened or I saw it work. Just I type it in the notes app and just keep moving on. Right, so it works in the opposite way too, right? So you know the the filmmaking is influenced by the people who are around them. And if these people that around them not not just me, but the artists on set, or just the talent, the models, all these people that are artistic people, inherently it's gonna color. It's gonna color the discussion in a certain way, and that's kind of why I like New York is Just operating and living and working in New York is there's so many creative people and working on set.
Speaker 2:As I said, I did a job with 80 extras. Like, all of these people are creative people in some way. Yeah, even if the only thing they do is modeling, they're still modeling in in for a music video. Right, let's say there, it's just it. There's constantly creativity. Sometimes you can get run into trouble because then everybody has an artistic thing to say and everybody has a creative thing to push, but it generally it's positive because, again, most people are trying to make something that's cool.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, yeah, there's that, there's that undertow Common alley just flowing and it's a synergy because everyone's, you know it's like, hey, we're all in here because from one to one level or another, there's a level like a creative person who wants to try to Make a living out of that To a certain degree or another Is there, it. Is there any particular project? I know you've had amazing opportunities to work with a ton of brands and artists this year. Is there any particular project from this year that you're, particularly we're we're very excited to be a part of or are very excited to be a part of currently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. There's so much stuff. I do a lot of really fun projects. I mean a lot of really interesting people. It's kind of cheating because it was December 2022, but that is still technically within the last 12 months.
Speaker 1:I'll give it to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll take it right. One of the things I'm most excited to finally share with people when it's done. I did a. I did a fan project Turned into feature film, basically called. It's called stalker. The subtitle is shadow of the zone. It was a crowd-funded project that kind of became this, this big film project. It was pitched to me as a short but, as per our, as per our production members, I won't say more than this. But it's it's. It's not short.
Speaker 2:And reading the script when I read there so, like this is not a short film and it's excellent, I'm glad we did it, but we basically the. The project ended up being we went down to South Carolina for three and a half weeks and we shot a, we shot a, we shot a movie. We shot a movie in South Carolina, one location on an abandoned nuclear facility, which was kind of an interesting location to be on. We lived on the campus.
Speaker 1:In South Carolina.
Speaker 2:It's. It's basically become. It's basically become like a government training facility.
Speaker 1:They use it for like tactical Things and when you say nuclear, you mean like a power plant, or do you mean yeah, like they it was?
Speaker 2:it was Shut down, I think in the 70s or the 80s or something like that, but it was. It's a wild location with a lot of really cool looks for the property and for the film that we were going for. But yeah, it's a, it was a military sci-fi film and we just lived that film. We lived it. So, again, we lived on the campus, there was nothing around and we were almost completely isolated, with the whole crew there, and it was Stressful as hell. I got COVID on the job and we kept working through it because we had to and he had no other option and and it was. It was a lot of fun. It was really cool.
Speaker 2:We did some stuff that we shouldn't have been able to pull off, given our crew size and our budget and all that stuff and and the time we, we, we shot in it was, it was three weeks, we were there, basically total, and we did not have a Lot of leniency on that. And it was we, we, we got through it and it was. I can't I'm trying to avoid, like some of the yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah specific details, but the project should be out semi soon. From what I'm being told and I I have not seen a single thing basically from it. I've seen a frame or two and all of the cast is is so great. They're always posting BTS photos, but it's the thing I'm like most excited to see that I've worked on. It's like one of the features that I've done that feels like wow, this was like an effort, but we we got it like we locked that in.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, awesome. Yeah, I'm already sold military sci-fi right up my alley done. But, um, oh, that's so cool. You know, it's always funny to me how I'm Asking this question, like most of the time it's that project that was like Crowdfunded. You know, everyone got together. It's not the biggest or craziest screw, but it's like, yeah, we just did this in three days or we did this and like, really like crazy circumstances and you guys just put everything you had on the field and it makes the most exciting Projects. And sometimes you you surprise yourself when you're under that kind of pressure and then, I'm sure, getting sick on the job and everything. But you guys were already stuck together, so, yeah, so, since you guys are all isolated, you were basically quarantining, quarantine anyways, yeah essentially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, the we were, we were down, down in it. A couple of a couple of the key crew members got COVID and it was. It was a little bit tough, but we were in the woods for like the majority of what we were doing, so we just stayed back. I called it from you know, safe COVID, safe distance away? Yeah, basically, and I don't use a megaphone, that's like one of my big things, I try really make a phone Basically ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I that's a huge stigma for me, like I think. Unless it's absolutely necessary, I try not to use it because I think that if you're trying to command attention, people should actually listen to you and not hear like a bullhorn or whatever.
Speaker 1:I got you.
Speaker 2:It's a personal thing, but I just I like not using it, so that way people can kind of like hear me and they're looking for the person actually talking.
Speaker 1:That's respectful. Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's like, um, it reminds me of when teachers are like you know, they refuse to speak up. So it's like, well, I'll wait till you guys are at a talking volume. I'm really continued class, yeah, but no, it's, it's a. It's a smart psychological thing. I dig that. What was the? What would you say is probably the, and so when does that release, by the way, you know?
Speaker 2:It was, I was told, a premier date, and then it did not happen. So we're waiting. We're waiting, standing by for it. I'm very excited for it, which is why it still falls within these 12 months we're gonna.
Speaker 1:Where can people keep track of it? So that's a good question.
Speaker 2:I believe if you just go, if you, if you find stalker shadow of the zone it, they all the updates should be. I think they mostly do kickstarter Updates and stuff that they have to okay.
Speaker 1:Awesome. What would you say, is probably the biggest crew you've ever had to work with.
Speaker 2:Oh boy um Biggest crew size. Uh, Probably, I think, the biggest I've had like. Under me First is like a 70, 75, which?
Speaker 1:is a lot it.
Speaker 2:I haven't gotten to the triple digits yet. That's really like the union level stuff. Like, yeah, any project I've ever been on that really requires that many people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, I mean, 75 is still pretty big. It's a lot to think about for a like Was that for like, a commercial or for a two-day shoot? Yeah, there's a two-day commercial shoot.
Speaker 2:A lot of g&e. That's really why, like, you start to balloon the numbers when you have 15 members of g&e On the shoot, and then you start to like, start breaking it down. You have 20 p A's, or you know it's like you start to get crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, wow, yeah, 20 p A's. But.
Speaker 2:I gotta get those lockups.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's a crazy number. So and um, but commonly what would you say is like the average crew size for most of these.
Speaker 2:Uh, For non-union productions that I work mostly in and around, I'd say the average crew size is anywhere from like 35 to 45 somewhere in that range Like that's, that's kind of common. I, I do, you know I'll. I'll take jobs that are Eight people, eight to 12 people, and we're just kind of running around the city. I get a lot of those, especially with new york. People just want to see the city right.
Speaker 2:They just want to go through brooklyn and minhat and just kind of see as many of the skylines and the cool iconic things as possible. So I'll get a lot of the shoots where it's just like, hey, just, we just want to see, if it's a commercial, the product and this you know, or if it's a music video, the artist in this space and just live in in new york like I do a lot of that stuff. But the stuff that's not that, or maybe a little bit more in studio or bigger setups or more elaborate things. Yeah, typically around 35 to 45. Um, but you know it again.
Speaker 1:it scales, scales, yeah, production needs of course. Yeah, okay, no, awesome, um, yeah. With that I mean like so as a first ad, you know. So you're trying to, obviously, I guess, as the crew scales up, you're probably your prep time scales up. I mean, in a lot of ways I mean you got a batman, this stuff a lot, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Yeah, prep time is an interesting is an interesting game because, um, I try to get as much of it as I can. I try to. I try to plan for as much of it as I can. I do get a lot of my work Within a week or two of the job that happens, so I don't typically get a lot of, uh, a ton of lead. Um, one of the features those have been those are always like the things that have the most prep time.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, because those have to have the scripts already laid out. Yeah, they do a ton of pre-pro for those things, but 100, and that's why I like doing features.
Speaker 2:Basically more than anything, because I can give myself the time to kind of like Sit down and go through it all. Besides, the fact that structurally for Planning out a feature is kind of one of the things I like most about the job, um, just kind of being able to shuffle things around and problem-solving that way, um. But in terms of other prep time, it's really. It's really an interesting game, um, because prep days can land on scout days for other jobs or hey, this client is only going to be in town the day before this job, and now we got a scout like literally 12 hours before this job happens.
Speaker 2:But oh wait, I am still shooting on something else, and so we have to figure it out. I I've recently, especially this year, have run into that a lot. Um, and it's, it's been an interesting challenge to kind of Problem-solve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes I know other eds will like have a second and they'll put their second on the scout Um so that way they can relay the information back to the first Um I've seconded. I've been the scout person to be the second on the actual day of the job. Um, I've done every version of it. It's really just about what does the job actually require and how much Can you possibly get out of it. I just try to talk to the producer and the director as soon as I possibly can With everything and just kind of again ask all those questions about how much you can get out of it Everything and just kind of again ask all those questions that I possibly can, first before we even talk about being there on location or do anything like that, and then when we get to location scout it's like okay, so we know what we're talking about. Now let's kind of like put it all in context basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's always a battle to get as much prep time as I can for some of these, with some of these productions.
Speaker 1:No, 100%. I mean, um, actually, you know something that would even help me as someone who is constantly, you know, dealing with multiple departments. You know, and a lot of the heads of these departments, like your director, your dp, your, the lead electric, the lead gaffer, all these guys right, sound, um, because everyone and the actors and stuff I had in the casting director and those people who are super supervising um, what is it? What are maybe some of the things you kind of wish they would already have unlocked that would make your life easier, like I'm sure that there's multiple times that you have to like almost make sure you're on top of From certain people, to be like because you know it's going to interfere with what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And I feel like, because sometimes I get this feeling, um, we usually do smaller crews, so sometimes I am, we're doing our own directing and dp'ing simultaneously and I know sometimes it's like With some of my regular season guys, they kind of already know how I like certain things and different things like that, so so it's like they're already kind of on top of certain details, but you're popping in, of course, with different people all the time, and so it's like if there is there things that you feel like you know make the day go smoother If the dp or the camera ops already had this on lock ahead of time, or the director kind of had to sell, or the script supervisor or whatever, um, what do you feel like? Some of those things that was like you know that this would be, this would be helpful, you know, make everybody like, if you want to be a dp, that every ad comes in contact and loves you because you're like, oh, I already got on lock, like what are those things? If you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a couple um, and none of them all of them are in good faith Um of course, of course always. Number one is always read the call sheet. You'd be surprised at how many people don't read the call sheet enough to know like what stuff I've specifically put in there. So that way, like it answers questions that people might have had before the whole call sheet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, read usually the call sheet that I put out. If I, if I'm doing this call sheet, there's a schedule on it or at least like a reduced schedule. So at least we have the order of events, locations and stuff. So all the easy basic questions are out of the way, right? Um, and then kind of supplementally, like the shot list and the schedule, like read the schedule that I have hopefully spent a ton of time putting out and creating, and then the shot list is not for me, but anybody who works with me knows I have to bully the shot list from them, from the lowest to the biggest productions.
Speaker 2:I've had trouble getting a shot list in my hands accurately to the time of production. So that's like my number one thing Like I just need. All I wanna know is what you wanna shoot. I'll make it happen. No matter what you give me, I will try to make it happen. But I need to know what your expectation of the day is, because if you give me a shot list that has 80 shots and it's a one day shoot, it's not gonna happen, or at least it's gonna be. We're gonna have to move either very quickly or we're gonna have to shoot it in a way that is a little bit more flexible than maybe you were anticipating, right, like that's. It's a third of my repertoire of how to approach a job. Is that shot list my only other like? I guess not only, but I guess one of the other things I could say to most departments is just, people giving me accurate times, right, knowing your job enough to know how much time to give me.
Speaker 2:Another big AD stereotype is just like walking up to the genie guy standing on a ladder and saying like 15 minutes and then walking away and it's like, well, that didn't help anybody. Like that didn't help you because you're looking bad in front of them. You didn't ask them how long they needed, right? So, and if this doesn't work, so for me it's like asking the keys, like the keys of every department hey, how much time do you need? And obviously, if it changes or fluctuates, that's fine. It happens all the time and things change and whatever. But if X department tells me, hey, 10 minutes, and then I come back in 10 minutes and then they're like, oh, actually 30. It's like, well, that was a bad estimate. Like what happened between the last 10 minutes that changed it to triple the time that you told me. So just knowing your department and your job enough just to communicate accurate with me. I'll be cool with you no matter what you tell me. I just want to know the number so that way I can kind of like build the rest of the day because I can shuffle things around right If we have a blood wound coming from all the way down your arm, all the way here and I estimated that for an hour and we talked about it to be an hour and then we get there on the day and we realize, oh wait, the skin isn't gonna like it's not gluing correctly.
Speaker 2:I've had this happen exactly before. It's actually gonna be like a two and a half hour move. Great, cool, I want to make this happen. I want this to look dope when we go out and get it in camera. What else can we shoot? What else can we rotate the date around to get this thing here? I'm not gonna wait two and a half hours for big blood gash as long as I don't have to.
Speaker 2:So it's accurate times or like a killer on set if I don't get those as often as I can, but it works both ways. Like I have to communicate that with the crew Like, hey, I really need this is my time parameter, this is what I'm looking to get done before lunch or within this period of the day. Can this happen? And if the answer is no, we have to redirect. And ideally most of this happens before we're even there, on before the shoot day or shoot days. But if we get to the day and we realize that's really not possible, how do we adjust? What can we do? Yeah, and that just talks with the director, the producers and everybody around.
Speaker 1:No, I think. I mean, I think all those are really great points. I think it really comes down to again, infective communication, but in the sense that, like you're putting things out there to smooth the day out as far as the schedule call sheet, different things like that. So of course, if people are coming back to you with questions that were answered previously already in those sheets, you know it slows everything down, because then you're trying to reiterate something that you've already have the document for, you know, and they're now like why aren't they in position? They didn't know they had to be. It's like because it's on the schedule, but they didn't look that far because they thought they only had this position. So they saw their name, it's here, that's it. That's all they saw. But of course it doesn't work like that, I feel like. So I think that's definitely as a crew member in general. If you're just fully aware of what the day is supposed to look like, then you look like a valuable asset on any crew. I think. If you're already on top of like, oh yeah, I know the whole schedule, I know you're where everybody else is supposed to be too. It's like the shot list thing is an interesting point, but I can definitely see that that is 100% like your, your a lot of your decisions are dependent on that. So, definitely, being on top of that and knowing your job well enough to give realistic times, and also, I think that also plays into I think people tend to try to underestimate and over deliver because they want to, they want you to not look at them badly and they, they get that.
Speaker 1:Self-consciousness is like, oh, I'm not the bad actor here, so, but what really happens is when you can't deliver on the time, you say, then you become the bad actor without, when you're trying to avoid it. But it's even better if you say it's going to take me an hour, but it took you 45 minutes, and it's like, great, 15 minutes ahead of time, like, but you're trying to just problem solve. You're not like trying to attack anyone, it's just like I just need to know so I can, like you said, we can shift this whole thing over. It's like, oh, I can get, okay, now I know if I have to wait an extra hour. It's like, well, I have enough time actually to do this now, so we're going to go do this, you take the time you need. Finish that, because we're a team, we're trying to work together and make this thing happen as best as possible, and I'm going to try to hinder your job, so. But of course, you can't do that effectively if you're getting ineffective times for sure.
Speaker 2:So the yeah, I say it to everybody all the time like we're here to make art and I just want to get you to see the family or eat dinner at home tonight. You know it's like it's it's it's very easy, but it's just like the general structure of the day only works if we can do that and there's a big asterisk on everything. I just said the only thing is like people who've worked with me multiple times know the drill.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they get the vibe quickly, like if I'm walking up to them, they know what they answer, you know, they know what question I'm about to ask them, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's like a saying like the season Big shout out to everybody who, yeah, big shout out to my, to my frequent flyers, on my, on my regular crew, that everybody knows who you are. Respect everybody.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. So what do you feel? What does the future look like for you? What is the direction you're trying to head in, ultimately, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's an interesting question. It's one I ask myself daily. I, I I've seen myself a D for a long time. I like the job a lot and I would love to do bigger and bigger projects, Like I would love to eventually be an AD on, like an action movie. Some of the stuff I've I've gotten tastes of it I've done fight, choreography, I've done car stuff. You know I've done some stuff in in my role and I've been very thankful to. But I want to do bigger and bigger stuff and I I'd love to get to the level where I'm doing some crazy blockbuster film. That'd be just cool to do at least once. Right.
Speaker 2:But I also it's a very stressful job and my partner doubles me on on some of the stuff where she's concerned about this statistic. But it's an unfortunate statistic that, like ADs, don't have a huge life expectancy. It's a terrible. It's a terrible stat but it's. It's a very stressful job and it gets to you and I feel it now at my age, which is relatively young, and I know that I don't want to just burn myself out for, you know, 30, 40 years just doing this like nonstop, especially because I've already been doing it, basically right this, even before I finished school I was doing production works. I don't want to just go full, full ramp all the time.
Speaker 2:One of the goals I would have for myself is like direct a little bit, write and direct to doing my own things.
Speaker 2:It was subbing out between ADing, so like when I'm not actually in progress shooting something of my own, I'm ADing. And then when I can, or when I have the next project ready to go and I'm like, yeah, I feel good about this, taking some time and doing some directing or some music or whatever feels natural to me, but just being able to still feel like I have that creative outlet, like I always have that creative center. Because, again, ADing is it can be creative, but it's not as a job. You're not looking at it like. You're not being asked as an AD to input creativity. You're going to be there, You're probably going to give creative solutions to problems, but it just comes with the territory. I'm sorry. So, yeah, I always want to make sure that there is that alternate for me at some point, just to flip off, Just be like hey, you know what I just got off of a six month feature. I'm going to go and write for two months just to do something, just to kind of be in a separate space.
Speaker 2:I love that and that to me feels comfortable for me in my future. As of now I don't know. Life and family might change that Never know, Then we get a whole different situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I absolutely love that. I mean, I feel very similar to just like always maintaining that creative outlet, because when work is still work, even if you're on the creative side, you know what are you doing for somebody else. It's their creative. It's not your creative essentially, but it's still. It's just maintaining that for yourself, I think. So it's an important part of a holistic life. So I love that and definitely, of course, like you know, exploring other avenues, like you said, taking a step by step. Yeah, no, with all that, I do want to thank you for coming on today. I think we have. I could be asking you like a million more questions. Honestly, there's so many great projects.
Speaker 2:You ask whatever you want. I know you have your time too, but you can ask me whatever you'd like.
Speaker 1:No, I appreciate that, but that is the time we do have for today, so I appreciate you coming on. You, please, real quick. Just let everybody know where they can find you, where they can pursue your creative efforts, and just keep track of what's going on with Nick.
Speaker 2:Sure, so you can find me on most platforms, but generally my central platform is Instagram. It's just my name, but it's a little long. It's Nsassiromano, so N-S-O-S-S-I-R-O-M-A-N-O. That's kind of like my portfolio, like Work Hub. It also has my Vimeo link in there if you want to see any of the directing stuff that I've worked on in the past. And, as I said before, I'm in a band and you can find us at Slumber Music SLMBR Music and find us on Spotify and whatever else at Slumber. Yeah, we play shows all the time in New York too, so that's fun when we mix some video stuff and whatever. And, yeah, if you are a New York production member or not, if you are in anywhere and are in need of an AD, I would be more than happy to talk to you about your next project.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Awesome. Well, thank you so much. As always, you can always find us at Vision Maker Podcast and our other creative members at Vision Maker Productions. Thank you so much and have a great night everyone.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me Talking to you again today.
