The Most Hated Person On Set

It’s easy to spot the most loved person on set.

For most, it's the fancy-ass celeb who just showed up in a Maybach GLS 600. Some look up to the director (you know… for obvious reasons). Others fawn and faint over the stylist, the MUA, the set designer, or some such job title.

My favourite people on set are the spot dadas; quiet, underrated, yet somehow seamlessly running the show behind the scenes (literally and figuratively).

But did you know, there’s also a MOST HATED PERSON on set?

It’s the person who takes retake after retake, dissatisfied with how the 40 other shots turned out. It’s the dude who keeps the crew on set long after the celebrity is gone, just to ensure that all the I’s have been dotted and teas have been sipped. It’s the pain in the ass crazy person who decided that maybe 50 product demos are not enough, maybe… we need a 51st one… you know… just to be sure.

Long after the actor has packed up his party & parade, the Director-DOP duo have scratched their creative itch, and many, many hours after the AD is literal seconds away from calling it a wrap, there is this one miserable, scum-of-the-earth, completely-clueless and creatively-bankrupt person who somehow still has the audacity to say, “Should we try that again? This time, maaaaaybe more premium….” And they linger on that ‘maybe’ just a little bit longer so you know that the poor thing hasn’t the slightest idea of what they mean or what they sound like.

Meanwhile, the cast and the crew are all exchanging secretive smirks that are somehow loaded with all-caps sentences about how devoid of any actual creativity this miserable soul is.

And so, at this point, it’s quite easy to tell that the MOST HATED PERSON ON SET… is the client. 

What most people don’t see, however, is that like the Director, the fancy-ass foreign DOP, the stylist, the MUA, the technicians, the set designer, the sound designer, the chef, the gardener, the housewife on the 7th floor across the street from set, the milkman who has nothing to do with any of this, the client too is really intent on making a great ad.

The only difference is they’ve also got to figure out the thing that no one else on set is thinking about, i.e., selling the damn product.

And so, maybe the most hated person on set is actually... just doing their job.