I was an assistant director one time and I never want to do it again
One of the grips pipes up “Hey, just be aware there are a few anthills out here. Be careful.”
The job of the 1st AD (assistant director) on a movie set is to keep the film on time — it requires organization, efficiency and a cool head. Murphy’s Law has thorough jurisdiction over film sets; it is likely chaos will ensue and you have to be the calm in the storm, a bastion of equanimity.
In college, I was working with a mission organization in Ethiopia and was tasked with being the first AD for a short film in the capital, Addis Ababa.
The city is an expansive mix of tin-roof shacks or modern buildings, roads paved with precision by the Chinese government or deeply riveted mud quagmires, large blue taxi vans and little 3-wheeled covered rickshaws called Bajajes. It was the rainy season; every afternoon you could set your watch by the 3 o’ clock rain shower.
Our crew of 10, a mixture of locals and internationals, arrived at the soccer field where we were shooting which was behind an orphanage. There were patches of green-yellow grass but mostly we could see the bright yellow highland dirt lit by the morning sun.
I went about my task of being organized, efficient and coolheaded by helping us prepare the site to shoot. The field we were shooting on was covered in rocks that would make it difficult for our actors. Truly covered. There must have been a hundred little rocks (and a Hyena’s skull) that were all capable of destroying ankles.
There were two grips nearby and I gave them the task of clearing the field. Given that we were in Ethiopia with a mission organization, I wanted to practice that servant mindedness that Jesus talks about all the time, so I pitched a hand. I was thinking ‘This must not be so bad and hey, I’m showing that I’m not too big to do little tasks, look at me.’
One of the grips, Sean, piped up “Hey, just be aware there are a few anthills out here. Be careful.”
I hadn’t noticed the slight stings on my leg before, suddenly they felt like tiny jabs with a sewing needle. I looked down at my foot which was in the middle of a destroyed pile of sand and ants the size of nickels were pouring out of it, climbing passed my gold toe sock and up my leg munching as they went. Pinpoint pain soared up my leg from a hundred places and the ants were moving so fast I couldn’t sweep all of them off before they disappeared up my pant leg. I was wearing jeans that were extremely tight in the thigh — the ants that had progressed that far were shielded from the violent, panicked, thrashing I unleashed through my gasps and screams.
I tried. And I tried. But I couldn’t get the ants out of my pants. There was nothing else for it: I was going to have to strip down to my skivvies.
But I was in the middle of a field at an orphanage in Ethiopia I had never been to and didn’t know where the bathroom was (side note: as an AD, I should have known where the bathroom was).
I spied the nearest building with an open door and sprinted for it beating my pants leg the whole way. The crew that had looked to me as a leader 10 minutes before all watched a hysteric, chubby, white guy sprinting across the field yelping and then disappearing in a random classroom which thankfully was empty because my pants were off the moment I was inside (I think my boxers had chili peppers on them. That’s not relevant to the story, but there you go).
I’d lost the fight on being coolheaded.
I spent the rest of the day finding rogue ants in all kinds of places and having to go inside to pull them out. But we finished on-time and efficient and we stayed fairly organized, even with the 3 o’clock rain shower.
I went 2-for-3. Not bad.
So, Here’s the rules I learned for AD’s:
1.) Be organized, efficient and coolheaded.
2.) Always know where the bathroom is.
3.) Rule #1 does not apply when you have ants in your pants.