Ninja Detective

I work at a commercial production company. Before I got this gig, I, like many others, watched a commercial and never gave much thought to all the work that goes into making it.  So when I got into the business, I had no idea what the hell everyone was doing, including myself. 

As I have mentioned before, no one ever sat down and told me how things are run in a production company.  I don’t know if everyone is too busy, or if they just don’t care.  Either way, pondering the question is useless.  In order to discover what the hell is going on, without asking a million stupid questions—and yes, there is a such thing as a stupid question—you have to harness the investigative skills of Sherlock Holmes with the stealth-like abilities of Bruce Lee in that one movie, if you hope to get any of your questions answered.

After passing the Bullshit stage, Doug began giving me some real work:  “photo research.”  As soon as I walk in, Doug tells me to look for a very specific picture: a dog in a backyard, a mom tucking her son in, or a man brushing his teeth, you get the picture–pun intended. Anyway, Doug will tell me where he wants me to look for them, and I am left to it.  Not too hard, right?

After I compile the images, which can take anywhere from ten minutes to several hours, I put them on a flash drive and separate them into folders according to one thing or another.  Doug then takes the flash drive over to Missy’s office, and they go through all the pictures.  Before I am told that I screwed up, I hear Missy yelling at him.  Oh shit.    

Well, with vague direction, I often turn up vague results.  And I’m the jackass for doing what I can with the information given.  I mean, how was I supposed to know that he only wanted Cocker Spaniels in the backyard, or a blonde mom tucking in her son, or the man brushing his teeth without a shirt on?! 

Because I know Doug is not going to tell me what I did wrong and I want to fix the issue before I screw up again, I decide to focus my ninja attention on Missy’s office, which is at the opposite end of the hall, not an easy task.  As a ninja detective, one must listen to these important conversations, unnoticed.  At this point, Missy has stopped yelling (surprising, no?), so I can only hear pieces of the conversation.  “Why didn’t you look at it?  It was right there in your face and you just ignored it?! Go grab it.” 

As I was eavesdropping, I’m thinking to myself, what the hell is it?  Before I have any time to dwell on it, Doug rushes past me (completely oblivious to my cunning detective work) and grabs something off of his desk.  Shit!  What the hell was that?  He leaves, so I look over to where he picked it up from and I see there is a copy (evidence!) underneath!  I hear Missy say, “It says so right here: a fuckin’ Cocker Spaniel, right under the picture of it! They want these pictures in an hour!  Why are you wasting my time, get them.”

Before Doug exits the room, I glance over at this document, the reason that Doug is getting his ass chewed out–something that I now feel guilty for—I see the paper has a sticky on it, it has the name of the commercial on it and in big, bold letters, it tells me what it is, a STORYBOARD. 

The storyboard is why I am looking up these pictures!  And there are little descriptions under them explaining what I should be looking for!  Oh, I get it!  Now, I just have to make sure I get my slimy little hands on these things before I start looking up the pictures. 

When he gets back and before he even has a chance to say anything, Doug sees that I am already looking for pictures of Cocker Spaniels, in their backyards. 

And that kiddies, is how a Ninja Detective gets shit done!