Join the original • Rights and responsibilities
It’s impossible to make informed decisions with incomplete data, and leadership requires being open and receptive to all pertinent information. Leaders and managers, having the right to access essential data, should understand that mission-critical information can be frustrating, discouraging, or even catastrophic. Agreeing to shoulder the responsibilities of a leadership position is an implicit indicator of one’s willingness to receive and process discomfiting information and to maintain one’s composure—i.e., professional decorum—simultaneously.
Emotions will be triggered, some more intensely than others; it’s unavoidable. Still, how one deals with those emotions as they occur is always a choice. Effective leadership requires emotional maturity, a quality that’s painfully lacking in those the author identifies as faux-pros (“faux professionals”), who often mistake directness for aggression. They also tend to make business decisions based on their emotions, which typically does not result in positive or profitable outcomes. Ignoring important information for the sake of one’s comfort is not an option—anyone who believes otherwise will only succeed in self-sabotage.
All crew members are responsible for maintaining situational awareness and ensuring that the next person up the chain of command is promptly updated with any new information that could impact production. They may not see “the big picture”—the context necessary to gauge the information’s importance—but respecting leadership’s right to timely and accurate information ensures that all parties involved in a project work within clearly defined parameters toward the same goal. Failure to do so may justify being relieved of one’s responsibilities. In the military, one may be removed from an assignment, demoted, have wages garnished—or all three—yet remain contractually employed. Civilians just get fired.
• Silence is neither polite nor professional
In a misplaced effort to be respectful and considerate, especially toward department heads, a director, or producers, one may be tempted to soften the blow by gently framing what may be perceived as “bad news” to make a situation seem less damaging. Or worse, leaving out alarming details—perhaps to bring them up “at a better time,” but more likely with the futile hope that the troubling issue(s) will “just go away.” While such soft-pedaling may be rationalized as considerate of another’s feelings, prioritizing emotional comfort over professional integrity and effective problem-solving is counterproductive and grossly inconsiderate of a leader’s right to complete and accurate information.
When circumstances that affect the outcome change, no one should be disadvantaged because crucial information was withheld from them. It must also be understood that there’s a difference between telling the truth and just being factual. Truthful delivery requires full disclosure. A lie of omission is still a lie and can be just as damaging as intentionally misleading someone or saying something patently false.
Countless excuses can be made for withholding vital information from those who need it most. Few, if any, can be justified in the name of professionalism or politeness. Such behavior may be rooted in an experience with a previous manager or another authority figure in one’s life who was easily offended, unable to control their emotions, or was quick to blame others for problems that arose because they refused to accept responsibility.
Regardless of industry, avoidance and surrendering to fear of conflict are unacceptable in the workplace, especially if such behavior manifests in those ostensibly “in charge.” Anyone known to engage in avoidant and calculated non-confrontational behavior cannot be trusted with essential responsibilities, to say nothing of mission-critical tasks, nor should they occupy any leadership or management positions. This is not a value judgment on the author's part, just a professional assessment based on their own experiences, having witnessed the complete failure of several business ventures into which considerable time and capital were invested—enterprises with real potential for profitability that could have led to more significant professional opportunities for all involved. Responsibility for most of those failures lay with people with avoidant and fearful personalities in positions of authority—typically because the venture was originally, or in part, their idea. Unfortunately, their need for control, inability to trust, and unwillingness to acknowledge their limitations prevented those projects from realizing that potential, unable to progress beyond their initial formation, or even barely getting past the planning stage.
• Obstacles to understanding
When meeting in person, greeting each other with a handshake is practically universal. It’s a gesture with prehistoric origins. Since one cannot grasp the hand of another while also holding a weapon, it’s understood to be a demonstration of peaceful intent. Still, not all weapons are tangible, and physical interaction is impossible when interacting online.
In the parlance of computing, a “handshake” is an automated process of establishing protocols for communication between devices—a process that most people don’t even consider when they send an email or text message. The need for people to demonstrate the nature of their intentions remains, but when initial communications are primarily text-based, adopting a mutually understood framework can be much more complicated and nuanced.
The ability to arrange “conference calls” can be helpful, and video conferencing brings us closer to the familiarity of in-person meetings. However, despite increased camera resolution and internet bandwidth, reading a person’s affect and body language can still be challenging when their presence is limited to one of many streaming images on a screen.
As online collaboration continues supplanting real-world interactions, individual perceptions can become distorted. It’s not the medium of the internet itself that creates these distortions but the myriad worldviews and implicit biases of every individual.
The best way to mitigate these challenges is to establish a baseline protocol of professionalism and communication using the language and culture of business. The ease or difficulty with which one can adapt to this protocol varies from person to person. Like learning a new language, some will pick it up quickly; others need more time. Some can turn it on and off, while others never figure it out. Some just learn to fake it well enough to convince others they know what they’re doing.
Most will try to adapt, offering and seeking accommodation to achieve mutual goals. For example, everyone is prone to switching back to their default emotional settings when triggered. The technological disconnection offered by interfacing virtually can act as a buffer, allowing the professional to take a needed moment to process, reset, and pick up where they left off.
Unfortunately, the same virtual interface can be used to disguise intent, enabling overly ambitious amateurs and faux-pros to operate in bad faith, taking advantage of the sincerity and trust of others for personal gain.
When disingenuous entities are exposed—often betrayed by their own incompetence—they may double down, supplanting their public-facing identities with the digital disguises they’ve fabricated.
Novices and amateurs in their immediate orbit—especially ingénues and loyal sycophants—may not recognize it, but actual professionals see them for what they are.
• Collateral damage
When building a business, the only thing worse than developing bad habits is encouraging others to embrace them. Bad advice is the stock and trade of faux-professionals and working amateurs, offered freely and with the confidence of those who put their own interests ahead of others and get away with it long enough to call it a “career.”
The film industry is just one of many economic sectors that have emerged from a nation founded on the exploitation of labor and a complete absence of respect for the humanity of millions of forcibly displaced people and their descendants. While legislation has been enacted in an attempt to address those injustices, at least on paper, there has been no shortage of ingenuity in finding and exploiting every loophole to perpetuate them. For every subsequent law aimed at closing those discrepancies, others come to light and are promptly abused.
The exploitation of labor is not a byproduct of the capitalist system we’re forced to navigate; it’s a defining characteristic. Despite the efforts of organized labor to protect the interests of working filmmakers, far too many amateurs trying to “get their foot in the door” are so busy “faking it to make it,” that they may not realize how much they’re lack of respect for their colleagues—and themselves—is contributing to undermining film production as a practical career path.
Romanticizing the idea of “suffering for one’s art” is a problem seen in many creative industries, ironically appropriating the language of labor unions to normalize exploitation as “paying one’s dues.” Unscrupulous faux-pros, larping as movie moguls, are more than happy to accommodate the naivete of amateurs, justifying unethical—even illegal—behavior by literally saying, “If I don’t do it, somebody else will.”
In a community geographically linked to a faith tradition that ostensibly values industry, espouses moral principles of honesty and fairness,* declared adherents in the film community—trying to insinuate themselves into the actual industry—have been noted to act in bad faith, misrepresent themselves, withhold pertinent information, engage in manipulative behavior, and blatantly deceive others for their gain. Yet, they appear to not be weighed down by their conscience. The rationale they employ to sleep at night is simple: They convince themselves that what they do isn’t wrong, “it’s just business.” The author knows this because a former business partner once said it to their face, after a blatant attempt to surreptitiously buy-out other partners for controlling interest in a company that had yet to generate any revenue—and never would.
Having witnessed this habitual behavior over the years, the author thinks it persists to some extent because it’s practically ingrained in Utah culture. While most people prefer to avoid confrontation, even if their job requires dealing with people directly, “ghosting” the people with whom one is expected to communicate seems almost pathological among Utahns—so much so that our state has been described as “...the global headquarters of passive aggressive nonconfrontational conduct.”
The author previously discussed how avoidance compromises effective communication during production and observed how a lack of transparency can sabotage otherwise promising business ventures. It’s hoped that recognizing the cultural component to this behavior will prompt some degree of introspection in members of the film community who remain optimistic about pursuing a career in a rapidly changing industry. Of course, culture has been described as “...the beliefs that people hold about reality...”
One of the most prevalent examples of blatant disrespect that the author has personally experienced and continues to observe in some Utah filmmakers is avoidance. From people who cut off communication with team members over perceived slights, to individuals who hold grudges for years against others with whom they have had no direct or meaningful connection, personally or professionally. While they represent an objectively inconsequential minority, they have a disproportionately negative impact on the community, with an inevitable ripple effect on the local film industry.
In their own efforts to mitigate this behavior, when interacting with the film community online, the author has always tried to identify problematic behaviors, rather than any people exhibiting them, out of respect for their right to consider their actions privately. Nevertheless, individuals who recognize those behaviors as consistent with their own often feel called out, even targeted, by the unflattering description, which may potentially elicit an emotional reaction, usually embarrassment.
Of course, how they choose to process that emotional trigger is their responsibility, not the author’s. Ideally, such a moment might prompt a period of self-reflection, perhaps even leading to personal growth. More often, however, some will allow themselves to become angry and lash out publicly, thereby outing themselves and revealing their unprofessional habits to a community that may otherwise have been entirely unaware of them, including people who may have considered working with them, at least up to that point.
The author has spent over two decades trying to build Utah Filmmakers™ into a brand that inspires confidence and respect. They don’t just want the organization’s name but the words themselves—Utah filmmakers”—to be associated with Professionalism, Integrity, and Respect. Ironically, despite having had a generally positive impact on the community, the biggest obstacle to accomplishing that goal has always been the existing reputations of just a handful of Utah filmmakers.
| *Full disclosure, the author identifies themselves as an active member of that faith. |