The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
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38 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2024 that are not as strong, then I tend to take them off the frontline and put them in deep prep on something else." Some occasions where a team member has to be fired are more straightforward and clearer cut. For example, "I've had security guards sleeping on duty or security companies adding extra things like more shifts in that were not agreed," says Bentley. "It's part of my job to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb." GETTING HR INVOLVED … OR MAYBE NOT One of the biggest challenges for both sides of the firing process is that unlike in most other industries, there is very rarely an HR person or team available to get guidance and support from or official policies and procedures in place. The only time HR get involved is usually when it's a bigger budget project where the studio or major film company will have an HR team on hand. Fantasia tells of an office coordinator who was used to working on small projects and found the transition to a major Marvel movie tough. "She always had the TV on in the corner of her screen. I told her to turn it off. But each time I returned to the office, it would be on. So, I went to the production manager, we talked to the studio HR and they told me how to let her go, with someone in the office to witness and everybody else out of there. We did it the way we were supposed to." Boydston, who's worked on several studio projects, says, "The studios always want to get involved in any firing decisions because they don't want to be opened up to lawsuits." On smaller budget projects, it's basically at the discretion of the line producer or SLM to decide on the right course of action when dealing with inappropriate behaviour or people struggling. "It can be a bit of a Wild West, especially with challenging hours and conditions," concedes Tridgell. She says the younger generation are helping change practices by taking a stand, for example, refusing to work on weekends "which is something that would've never crossed my mind to say. But interestingly in the case I'm thinking of, it actually worked and the production coped fine. They also tend to report bad behaviour better when they see it." WHAT TO SAY The hard part of firing is finding the right words. Doyle tends to keep it simple. "I'll go, 'look, we've tried and tried, but it's not working, so today's your last day.' The reactions have varied from very angry to relief, especially those who wanted to be let go because they had another job they wanted to work on." But firing is rare. As location teams often work on daily or weekly contracts, the common approach is for the supervisors to let the team member go at the end of the week or once a location is finished, rather than dismissing them on the spot. "It's a more kid gloves kind of approach and allows them the honour of finishing the job," says Doyle. "But I'll then put them on the list so that the top guys know not to hire that person." This is also a more humane approach for those crew members whose performance is affected by external factors. "I had one guy who was getting divorced," shares Doyle. "His wife was having an affair with another crew member. That was a tough one. The difficulty was he was being late for work and a bit of a loose cannon. So, I had to shorten his contract. It's the nature of the business unfortunately." "Most of us are Type A personalities focused on getting the job done," says Nelson. "But our high stress, fast-paced production world is made up of flawed humans who all have issues. It's vital not to lose sight of the actual humans in our department in our quest to close the deal or complete a task. You never know what people are going through in their personal lives and no matter how poor their performance, you don't want your actions to be perceived by them as 'the last straw' that pushes them over that edge. Firing someone may be necessary but it requires compassion, sensitivity and situational awareness for all the humans involved." FERMIN DAVALOS/LMGI – US PAUL BOYDSTON/LMGI – US STEVIE NELSON/LMGI – US "It's about building a team and using their strengths, some are good with paperwork, others with people. But there will come times when I need them to do those other tasks that perhaps they're not so strong at and they have to do them. I'm quite tolerant to a point, and then I'm not tolerant." Interestingly, he points to how things are very different now to how they were 30 years ago, especially working with younger people. "You have to be far more tolerant of their point of view. You try to tell them how to do a job, because you're giving them a shortcut of 30 years' experience, and they will instead decide to do their own thing. Unfortunately, this means it won't always work out for them, which is frustrating." –Robert Bentley