Unexpected Fruit

Conference calls are conversations between directors and agencies about how they are going to give the client the commercials they want.  Every once in a while, Doug would have me transcribe a call, but I would get them infrequently enough so I could not find my groove.  I feel that this infrequency is Doug’s forte.  When I do something wrong, Doug never tells me what I did, instead he just keeps me off the job for a while and then puts me back on in hopes that I have guessed what I had did wrong without him having to be a jerk about it.  Or so I think, I mean honestly, I wouldn’t know, he never tells me.

Aside from the guessing game I am forced to play, I like conference calls for a number of reasons, the first being that I get to have headphones on.  With the headphones, I can either pretend like I don’t hear Missy—which is always a blessing—or I can do some ninja detective work (eavesdrop) in an inconspicuous way by unknowingly pressing pause to listen to conversations.  Secondly, I get to brush up on my typing and writing skills, which I am always up for.  But lastly, and most important, I learn a lot about the intricacies of the commercial process from these conversations between pretentious directors and the agencies. 

Transcribing calls is not rocket science: you listen, pause, and type up the conversation in a coherent manner.  Now typing up dialogue was a strange to me at first.  People really don’t speak in a coherent manner!  Typing out a conversation word for word, makes no bloody sense at all!  Who knew people spoke in such an unreadable manner?  Anyway, at least I finally I get to contribute a little bit of “Chloe” into this process, even if it is just a slight manipulation on a conversation that I am not a part of.  It’s a start.  

Another fruit in the conference call tree of knowledge is listening to effective and ineffective directors work their magic.  The ineffective directors are the one’s who can’t get over themselves and offer too much of their ideas.  Their ideas are usually way off the agency’s course and too wordy; some directors have even turned in treatments that are like forty pages long!  I wonder why they didn’t get the job?!  The effective director is the guy who makes the agency feel like their input means something, while successfully enforcing their own view.  To hear these directors at work is really something.  These guys direct the dialogue without a script!  Well, maybe they have already concocted the script, but they sure as hell did not pass it out.  What I mean by this is that they already know the answers/excuses that the agency is going to give them, and they have their counter-arguments ready.  It’s much like writing a paper, or anything effective.  Aside from the major douchbagery that accompanies this skill, I have got to say, as someone who hopes to write one day, I totally respect them for it.  Uh-oh, I’m getting sucked in!

  In short, I learn a lot from these calls, but I still don’t know what the heck I was doing wrong this point.  As Doug was printing out the call I just finished, I noticed that he had made some adjustments.  While he was waiting for it to print out, Missy was hollering for him.  He walks away and I pick up the hard copy of the call–to appear to have it ready by the time he gets back,but really I am investigating–and I notice that he deleted the entire first page.  Turns out he didn’t want any of that, “how’s the weather?” conversation.  I really wish he would just tell me what the heck I did wrong so it could save us both some time, but, I would never get to be a ninja if he did that.  I guess bullshit is prevalent on the good days too.