Wanna' read along? Here’s a machine-generated transcript you can use. Yes...expect a few mistakes, especially with funky industry terms, interesting names and tagging whoever's talking. If something sounds weird, trust your ears. But...sometimes that really is what we said!
Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke.
Confused Woman: Biagio-WHO???
Biagio: This episode. It’s episode 55 and we’re talking about questions. Three secret steps to ask questions in Hollywood without sounding dumb. The right filters to run your questions through before asking them. And is there any such thing as a dumb question? Yes, there is. Music. Courtesy Dave Pelman music Dave Pelman.com. Hey everybody. She is joke. He’s Biagio, we’re married. We make unscripted film and television and want to help you do the same.
Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.
Biagio: Hey, Joe, you sound normal again.
Joke: I know, so do you.
Biagio: I know it’s pretty. It’s. We’re, like, almost healthy for the first time. I feel like in in months, maybe all year.
Joke: I know I just finished taking all my medications this weekend, so yeah, we are like, freshly healthy.
Biagio: Yes, we’re freshly healthy. And boy, we just we just came out of a killer schedule. I mean, we were delivering so much stuff all at once. I’m happy to say all of our networks are happy. We’ve been getting back word on all of our first cuts and everything is going great. So you’ll be seeing all that on TV soon. How did you survive this last batch of notes on right joke? I mean, the notes have all been pretty good from the network so far.
Joke: Yes, absolutely. What was that laugh?
Biagio: Well, you know, you never you never know. Here’s the thing. When you’re waiting for network notes, you just never know what they’re going to be because you never know what they’re going to even even if you’ve talked everything out ahead of time and talked it through, you just never know what a network is going to come back with or or question or wonder about or or decide that they’ve gone in a new direction. But I think overall, out of this last batch, for the most part, I think everything went pretty, pretty smoothly.
Joke: I agree, I think that, I mean, we’re dealing with three different networks, and all three have a very distinct style of giving notes that they do very different from each other. So, you know, but that’s part of the process. So overall, everything is looking good on all of them. So it’s fine.
Biagio: Yeah. I’ll put a link in the show notes to the podcast. We did about about network notes, because I think that that’s a very useful podcast for anybody, whether you’re getting notes from a network or just notes from a producer or anybody who’s giving you notes, period. Just dealing with notes is its own whole psychology. And sometimes when you get a crazy note, you might you might have a question. You might, you might, you might have questions. You might have questions about a lot of things when you’re producing film or television or just trying to break into Hollywood. And it’s funny because we stumbled across an article joke, did what was it called, the Seven Arts of Hollywood or something?
Joke: Yeah, I think it’s like mostly set etiquette, but it was in Filmmaker Magazine, and there was one part of it which was the art of asking questions, which is something that seems really simple, but it isn’t. There’s actually an art to it. So we figured we take it and expand on it for this week’s podcast.
Biagio: Yeah. Because listen, not only do our podcast listeners often ask us questions. Our employees often ask us questions. Our network executives often ask us questions.
Joke: We also often ask questions to any and all of the above.
Biagio: That’s that is true. However, there is. It was funny to see the article and I will link to it in filmmaker. We’re going to go ahead, as I said, and sort of put our own twist on it, but we’ll link to it. But I think that there’s some really smart things that you should know about asking questions honestly so that you don’t look dumb or you don’t look like a newbie, or you don’t look like a totally clueless. Because I know we’ve all been taught in school, there’s no such thing as a dumb question. There is. They’re definitely is such thing as a dumb question. And unfortunately, the people who taught us that there’s no such thing as a dumb question will probably not the smartest anyway.
Joke: Now, now, in their defense, that was probably before such thing called Google.
Biagio: That’s true before Google, before the internet. And I can also understand. Listen, a grade school teacher want you to ask a question if you have a question. But that’s in grade school. So there was three main points that their article listed. And we’re going to flip them on the ear and start with what we think is the most important. So so here you go Hollywood secret how to ask questions without sounding dumb number one.
Joke: Can I answer the question myself?
Biagio: Yeah, it was a good question to start with. Before you ask anybody else, is it an answer you yourself could find the answer to if you just took 30s to try?
Joke: And sometimes it’s as simple as, you know, searching your emails or frankly, for some of you listening, listening to some of these other projects. True. If you only listen to one podcast and then ask me questions about the other podcasts, it’s like, you know, please do me the courtesy and just go listen to them. But, you know, a lot of times it’s it’s can you answer this question yourself? You know, and from a very simple standpoint, it is, you know, can I just do the research myself and find out, is this something that I really need to bother someone with, or is this something that I can find out myself?
Biagio: And by the way, nothing is more precious really in any industry, but in our industry for sure, nothing is more precious than your time. We are booked solid from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed working our butts off just to be able to make sure we can see our kids and scrape out a little family time when we can. And so when people waste our time with stupid questions that they should be able to find the answer to themselves, not only is it is it taking up time that we shouldn’t have to give, it also makes us sometimes think less of them, especially if they could have just found the answer themselves?
Joke: Yeah, and it’s one of those things where, listen, if it’s a question that you think only I can answer because it requires an opinion or a judgment call, then obviously ask us the question. But what really gets us is when you ask us a question that anybody can find the answer to, for example, do you know what the weather is going to be like? Yes, actually I do. I don’t know it off the top of my head, but I can look it up. Did you like me to look it up for you, or could you just look it up yourself?
Biagio: And to be clear, that’s the kind of question will often get from a misguided production assistant or, you know, somebody who doesn’t realize that we’re a little busy executive producing the show. And so we don’t necessarily have the answer to what the weather will be like today or the directions to get to a location, something that can be answered quite easily with numerous free phone apps at the least.
Joke: Right. So that was number one is really just figuring out, hey, is this a question I should bother anybody with? Or are the resources out there for me to find the answer out myself?
Biagio: Yeah. Whether you’re asking us or someone you’re working with or potential employer or a current employer, just run it through that filter first. Okay. How to ask a question. Secret number two.
Joke: Am I asking the right person?
Biagio: That’s a that’s a good one. And we sort of touched a little bit on that in the last section. But go ahead and expand.
Joke: I think the main thing here is, you know, in production in particular, there’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things. And so sometimes you look at somebody who has a higher title than you and you’re like, oh, I’ll just ask that person that question. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that person even deals with this or even has the answer to it. Or maybe they do, but it’s not really what they specialize in. And so now you’re asking them to switch brains. And so it’s one of those things where it’s like really figure out who the right person is. So a lot of times Biagio and I get asked questions about payroll and time cards. And the truth of the matter is we have an executive in charge of production who deals with that. Most of the times, we actually don’t know the answer to that question.
Biagio: I will say all the time, I don’t know the answer to that question. I always feel sad when or bad when a POW walk up to me and be like, listen, I’m trying to fill out my time card correctly and like, I’m not the person to ask.
Joke: But but it can be something as simple as, you know, something that may have something to do with a different department. That was a lot of some things or, you know, anything. Really.
Biagio: Yeah. Just just, you know, like, you don’t need to go straight to the owner of a company to ask a question about payroll or to ask a question about, you know, wrap time or schedule and also the reverse.
Joke: You don’t go to the PA to ask a question. You know, that you find really important because the PA may not have the answer to that, you know, so, you know, go to the person that you believe is most likely to have the correct answer.
Biagio: And if you’re not sure who that person is, if you really don’t know, if you really can’t intuit who you should ask, then my suggestion would be to ask the person who is one position above you to start right?
Joke: And by the way, I have no problem with anyone approaching us with, hey, I’m not sure if you’re the right person to ask. Maybe you can send me in the right direction. I have a question about X.
Biagio: Yeah, that’s fine.
Joke: And I’m more than happy to be like, I can’t help you or what’s your question? I’ll answer it right now.
Biagio: Yeah, I think that’s a fine way to approach anybody. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that. You’re not sure that. And I’m not backtracking out of my previous statement that there’s no such thing as dumb questions. I mean, if you’re, you know, if you’re not sure who to ask, you know what lunch is today, I anyways, whatever. I can’t think of a good example, but the point is try to figure it out, people. All right, so secret number three.
Joke: Is this the right time to ask my question?
Biagio: Beautiful beautiful point.
Joke: So this just requires a little bit of common courtesy and just being aware of the situation. If you see someone is really like intense and focused, that’s probably not the right time to ask them, you know, hey, where are we going next? Because they’re probably dealing with something really important. So, you know, it’s figuring out who’s the right person, but also really what’s the right time to ask this question. And sometimes, if this is a question that you think is going to be like require a longer answer, if it’s like, hey, I really want to talk to you about my career options, you know, schedule a time for that question.
Biagio: Don’t ask in the middle of a shoot, right?
Joke: And be like, you know, say, hey, I really enjoyed working with you. Is there any chance that I could pick your brain about something? Do you mind scheduling 20 minutes where I may ask you some questions? You know, that’s a good way of going about it. Rather than, you know, as you’re both standing there watching for, you know, something to start filming being like. So I was wondering, how did you get into the business? Not not the right time, not the right place?
Biagio: Yeah. Absolutely not. I heard something once. Somebody said, you know, my father taught me that interrupting somebody deep in thought is as rude as interrupting them in the middle of a conversation. And I think that’s a good point. A lot of times, directors, producers, editors, people in a creative position are clearly deep in thought, trying to figure something out. And that’s the wrong time to bust in and interrupt them. You know, again, another thing about thinking about is there’s the right time to ask a question. You need to be sensitive to what’s going on around you. Like joke said, is it going to require a long answer? And by the way, is it a question that you really need to ask right now? Like if it’s a question about a shoot that’s two weeks down the line and clearly everybody is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Now’s not the time to ask a question just because you’re curious.
Joke: I think also the right time speaks to the environment that you’re in, right? So if you guys are on set and there’s other people on set and you want to ask a question that the answer may be sensitive to some of the people on set, you don’t ask it right there in front of everybody. You know, you find the time or you say, hey, I’m sorry. Can I take you aside? I have a question to ask you. So you you change the time, you change the environment. You change the situation in which the question is asked. Because there’s been a few times where, you know, someone will come on set. It doesn’t even matter what it’s a P, a or a DP. And they’re like, hey, quick thing about this, should I do X or Y? And it’s like, oh no, there’s no executive standing right here. This is not a conversation for me to have in front of the network or, hey, there’s a piece of talent right here. This is not the conversation we want to have in front of the talent. So it’s just sometimes questions should not be asked in, you know, when there is an audience. So, you know, the right time is also finding, you know, the right environment.
Biagio: And by the way, all three of these things tie into something, you know, many people would call common sense. My wife over the years has come to deem common sense as.
Joke: Uncommon sense.
Biagio: Uncommon sense. And I think she’s right. But, you know, if most people would just stop and take a breath and think before they ask a question, a lot of times that would eliminate 95% of questions being asked that are just inappropriate, either at the time to the person that are being asked of, or because the person should have just figured it out. So to wrap up three ways three steps to basically ask questions without sounding dumb. Number one, can you find the answer yourself? If you can, please do. Number two. Are you asking the right person? Don’t ask the wrong person to answer a question. Ask the right person. And if you’re not sure who the right person is, the best place to start is with somebody who is literally one position ahead of you. You know, whoever, whoever, whoever’s that person you answer directly to. Start with them. Don’t go directly to the top. And number three, is this the right time to ask a question? Just think about it. You don’t want to ask a question at the wrong time, because all you’re going to do is confuse everybody around you who are, you know, manically concerned with something else at the moment.
Joke: I’m going to change it to the right time and place.
Biagio: Sure. Right. Time and place. Why not? Yeah. All right. There you go. There you go. So hopefully that’s going to help you next time. You’re either trying to get a job in Hollywood or working a job, or working on a film set, or working on a video shoot or whatever. I really think that everyone’s day will be more productive. If people would just learn the house and wise of asking questions.
Joke: And I don’t think this should scare anybody from asking questions. I think asking questions is is really good and it’s really important. But these are a couple of safeguards you should put in place so that by you asking questions, you don’t come across as a newbie or inconsiderate or, you know, just not aware of your environment. So, you know, ask questions smartly.
Biagio: Yeah. I mean, listen, me and joke have made well over 100 hours of television. We still ask questions. We ask questions all the time. You have to ask ask questions so that people can come to a common understanding, find some common ground. But we do observe these three rules and probably many more and asking questions. And, you know, I mean, after all these years, we kind of have a sense of what a dumb question is and what isn’t. But I do think that these, you know, three short little guides will help you to to be in the right most of the time. Yes. And not be one of those person who constantly peppers people with annoying questions because you’ll put them through these three filters and and everyone will love you. There you go. That’s it. That’s it. Well, thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. I can’t wait to tell you about all the new TV we’ve got coming out. I think at the end of August we’ve got something. We still can’t say where it is yet because we haven’t been announced. We’ve just got all kinds of stuff coming up, so stay tuned. It’s going to be a really exciting back half of the year for us as far as the stuff that we’ve been shooting finally airing. And in the meantime, we’ll be back in another two weeks with another one of these. So thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Remember, if you’d like to pitch us a show, put just one of your own shows, possibly team up with us, just go to producing unscripted. Read our free guide How to Pitch a Reality Show and sign up to pitch your ideas to our portal. It’s that simple. So until two weeks from now. Bye bye. Bye bye.
Unidentified Voice: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
