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Lion Eyes Film and Tv Production, Manchester www.lioneyestv.co.uk

I heard an interesting story today from a Producer friend of mine. A runner who had their first break on a film was rushing to drive the production hire car from an underground car park to the set and in their haste they scraped the side of the car completely down one of those evil concrete pillars we all know so well… SO was the director waiting to be swept off to his hotel? Was the DOP ( Cameraman) screaming for film? Did the Art department have an emergency that required such haste that my Producer friend ended up paying £600 to fix the car for?

Why no! The runner was doing exactly what most runners do, the cast and crew were gagging for tea and coffee whilst filming and the poor soul had been told to get back super-fast.

Tea is an unquestionably integral part of the business behind showbusiness. In your production office how many times a day do you gulp the golden liquid?

For all the associated glamour and perception of TV companies binging on champagne every Friday afternoon the reality is that this is an industry based on the mighty Camellia sinensis, or PG Tips, which in my opinion is the only tea worth drinking.

Seriously though. In Britain we consume over 2kg of tea in it’s leaf form per person per year! I think you can double that on sets and in production offices jump and down the country.  So why is it so important?

If you’re starting out in the industry you’re pretty much guaranteed to be making tea as part of your first TV position. Someone once told me that if you can’t make a good cup of tea you won’t get very far in the film industry. It has to be said that if you’re in the production office it is expected that you’ll be able to juggle everyone’s brew order as well the callsheets you’re stapling and the photocopier you’re wrangling.

I have seen applicants’ CVs listing tea-making next to an A level in Further Maths and Production Manager’s eyes light up!

• “ Hire this guy, definitely” Never mind that his A level could make him bring every budget in within your profit margin and your markup, get him straight onto the runner books, picking up grumpy extras at silly ‘o clock.

Look outside of this department though and I think you probably can get away with this lack of skill. Some people on the Manchester commercials scene have outright said that they made bad tea on purpose when asked so that they would never have to do it again, and therefore progress faster! Probably true!

I think more than anything, it’s your attitude that will make an impression. This rings true for our crazy industry as well as for newbies in any creative industry, be it fashion, photography, journalism, art and design. If it isn’t tea making it’s fixing the photocopier/ doing the starbucks run, knowing the best sandwich shop within a mile radius that’s open til late! It’s about being part of an effective team whose creativity needs feeding and whose stomachs frequently need nourishing!

We don’t get to pause often in our daily routine, the tea makers and sandwich bringers are the lights in our lives. If you’re lucky enough to have tea made for you why not take out some time to be the tea-maker, trust me it won’t go un-noticed. As a production assistant I’d always go out of my way to look after directors or Producers who knew how to put the kettle on.

If you’re thinking of coming into the industry though please do remember the importance of getting someone’s hot beverage order right.  Appreciate the importance of tea but not to the detriment of your own health or your insurance policy.

Rules of thumb – feel free to add your own: The Camera team will want some freshly ground Javan beans, as will the first AD, keep the sparks happy with brews and lots of sugar at regular intervals.  Water for the director and Hot chocolates for wardrobe and makeup as they don’t do caffeine! Something I have noticed emerging is the divergence from tea to herbal rubbish, this is not an exclusively female behaviour pattern either so runners take note! If you’ve never made peppermint tea for your client before please don’t put milk in it!

And most, most importantly as anyone who has ever read about Kubrick will tell you, don’t hand your victim their lovingly made brew with your grubby fingerprints round the top, it’ll just get chucked over your North Face jacket and that will be the end of your career ladder climb!

Good luck, whatever your potion.

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