Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech and a lot of you guys probably know.
Speaker 1: I live in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America,
Speaker 1: and my hometown has become something of a second Hollywood.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are a lot of times when there's
Speaker 1: actually more film production going on in my home state
Speaker 1: than in California, and the reason for that is largely
Speaker 1: economic in nature, Georgia has created tons of tax incentives
Speaker 1: for film and television projects that make it cheaper to
Speaker 1: shoot here in Georgia than in other places, and the
Speaker 1: fact that we have a major airport, which is in
Speaker 1: fact the world's busiest airport, probably doesn't hurt either. Practically
Speaker 1: every week I pass at least one film crew in
Speaker 1: production somewhere in the city. Uh. In fact, just between
Speaker 1: my house and work, there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: locations that have been used for various film shoots. I
Speaker 1: rarely know what film they're working on because they typically
Speaker 1: use codes to designate the projects and they aren't obvious
Speaker 1: references to the film, but I do know that right
Speaker 1: across from my own house, I've had movies like Goose Bumps,
Speaker 1: Hunger Games, Baby Driver, and Bad Boys three Shoot there.
Speaker 1: You can even see my house in the background of
Speaker 1: a couple of those movies. But anyway, that got me
Speaker 1: to thinking about the terminology of film and film sets
Speaker 1: and how that relates to technology. And you could argue
Speaker 1: this is a little tangential, but I really love digging
Speaker 1: into this and kind of demystifying what all those roles do,
Speaker 1: because you if you ever sit through the credits of
Speaker 1: a film and actually paid any attention at all to them,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen some job titles that might have been
Speaker 1: a little confusing, like key grip or gaffer or the
Speaker 1: famous best Boy. Maybe you've wondered about the difference between
Speaker 1: producers and executive producers or directors, and there are lots
Speaker 1: of phrases and words used on set that could be
Speaker 1: a little bit confusing. I'll do another episode in the
Speaker 1: future about some of the terminology that film folks use,
Speaker 1: but today we're really going to explore the origin of
Speaker 1: the names for various roles the cast and crew of films.
Speaker 1: Now to give you the bad news early. In many cases,
Speaker 1: the origin for those words hasn't really been well documented.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of theories, for example, where best
Speaker 1: boy comes from, but those theories range from plausible to
Speaker 1: what is more likely a best guest or maybe wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at the terms to describe
Speaker 1: the people who work on films. Some of this is
Speaker 1: gonna be really simple stuff. Some of it you probably
Speaker 1: already know, and some of it might be new to you.
Speaker 1: So here we go. Let's start with the executive producer
Speaker 1: or executive producer's role. Now, if you were to compare
Speaker 1: a movie with a company, you could say the executive
Speaker 1: producer is like the CEO of the company. It's the
Speaker 1: job of the executive producer to hire or more likely
Speaker 1: oversee the hiring of producers, directors, and the talent that's
Speaker 1: going to star in a film. Uh, they might be
Speaker 1: more connected to the film and serve other roles. It's
Speaker 1: possible for an executive producer to also do something else,
Speaker 1: maybe direct the film, maybe a writer. In the case
Speaker 1: of some of the Marvel films, you occasionally see some
Speaker 1: of the actors listed as executive producers. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you could have executive producers that never visit a set
Speaker 1: at all, that have no connection to a movie once
Speaker 1: it starts shooting. Rather, they're managing multiple projects back in
Speaker 1: the home office of the movie studio. They also are
Speaker 1: often in charge of getting funding for a film. Now,
Speaker 1: on an independent film, an executive producer might be funding
Speaker 1: the film largely through their own assets. They might be
Speaker 1: personally funding that movie. But in other cases you might
Speaker 1: have executive producers who are whining and dining potential investors
Speaker 1: to fund the production of a film. They're usually in
Speaker 1: charge of making sure that the money needed to pay
Speaker 1: for the production is available, and they're also the ones
Speaker 1: you do not want to take off if you have
Speaker 1: to go and tell people that your film is going
Speaker 1: over budget, because that means you're gonna have to ask
Speaker 1: for more money than The executive producers are the ones
Speaker 1: in charge of it, and they might have some pretty
Speaker 1: tough questions for you as to why your film is
Speaker 1: costing more than it was projected. Now, not all films
Speaker 1: have executive producers. Some only list producers in their titles,
Speaker 1: and they can do many of the same roles that
Speaker 1: executive producers follow. However, producers tend to be on set.
Speaker 1: They don't always appear on set, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them do work day to day on set supervising the
Speaker 1: production of the film, making sure things are going well
Speaker 1: and that nothing unexpected as happening that could impact the
Speaker 1: timing of the film or, because time is money, the
Speaker 1: budget of the film. All department heads in a film
Speaker 1: production ultimately report up to the producer, and the producer
Speaker 1: also works with the director to try and make the
Speaker 1: director's vision a reality, or in some cases, the producer
Speaker 1: will work with the director in order to talk that
Speaker 1: director out of an idea that could be too expensive
Speaker 1: or too difficult to pull off. The producer also is
Speaker 1: in charge of making sure other departments are operating within
Speaker 1: that budget that's set for the film on that day
Speaker 1: to day basis, and the producer is involved through the
Speaker 1: entire process all the way from pre production before any
Speaker 1: film is shot at all, to the distribution of the
Speaker 1: movie to theaters. Some film projects are really really big
Speaker 1: and require multiple producers, particularly if there are different crews
Speaker 1: that are filming in separate parts of the world, so
Speaker 1: you can have co producers who are all of the
Speaker 1: same level. They are sharing producer credit, so it's not
Speaker 1: like one producer is over the others, but they're all
Speaker 1: overseeing different parts of a production. You can also have
Speaker 1: an associate producer or line manager. These are sort of
Speaker 1: the next in command, kind of the lieutenants of the producers.
Speaker 1: They oversee specific tasks, usually designated by the producer, so
Speaker 1: they they If you don't like the lieutenant analogy, you
Speaker 1: can think of them as a vice president of a company.
Speaker 1: So they might oversee a secondary film crew that's capturing
Speaker 1: footage that's going to be inserted into the film. You know,
Speaker 1: a film crew that's going to be focusing on stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't require the director or any of the main
Speaker 1: talent of the movie to be in it. A line
Speaker 1: producer tends to be the person specifically supervising the budget
Speaker 1: of a film, so they're very much taking a close
Speaker 1: look at the numbers. You can also have task manager
Speaker 1: producer who are in charge of specific parts of a project,
Speaker 1: and then you also have coordinating producers producers. Their job
Speaker 1: is to make sure everyone involved in the production of
Speaker 1: a film remains instep and informed of what's going on,
Speaker 1: so that no one is left behind. If something changes
Speaker 1: or there needs to be a shift in scheduling or
Speaker 1: anything like that. A production manager, for example, is in
Speaker 1: charge of supervising the production budget to the various departments,
Speaker 1: and that includes scheduling of crew and equipment and covering
Speaker 1: crew salaries. They report their needs to the line producer,
Speaker 1: who then make sure that those needs are met or
Speaker 1: comes up with a really good reason why they can't
Speaker 1: do that. There are also production secretaries. These are people
Speaker 1: who assist with paperwork and administration needs. And there are
Speaker 1: production designers who work with the director to get a
Speaker 1: sense of what will be needed to achieve the director's
Speaker 1: artistic vision. And at the bottom of the production hierarchy,
Speaker 1: you have production assistance who perform basic tasks for the
Speaker 1: production side, such as distributing hand radios to the various
Speaker 1: departments or running errands for the production staff. Um they
Speaker 1: don't tend to run errands for anybody else. They're specifically
Speaker 1: meant for the production staff side. So you can think
Speaker 1: of the the sides of a film being the production side,
Speaker 1: which is talking, you know, all the stuff that's necessary
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody else has what they need to
Speaker 1: make the movie. You have the the creative side, which
Speaker 1: would be like the director and all the talent, and
Speaker 1: then you have all the crew who are doing the
Speaker 1: actual physical work to support that. So you kind of
Speaker 1: have like these three columns in a way. Now I've
Speaker 1: mentioned the director a couple of times, but what does
Speaker 1: the director actually do. Well, that's the person who is
Speaker 1: the lead creative artist on set. So ideally the director
Speaker 1: sets the vision for the film. Was the film going
Speaker 1: to look like, what is the tone going to be?
Speaker 1: What sort of reaction is the film supposed to evoke
Speaker 1: from the audience. So ideally, if someone is watching the film,
Speaker 1: how should they feel from scene to scene? You know,
Speaker 1: if it's a horror movie, you need to feel uneasy
Speaker 1: and fear and tension. If it's a comedy, you need
Speaker 1: some tension offset by laughter which relieves that tension. These
Speaker 1: sort of ideas. So the director is the person who
Speaker 1: says this is my goal, here's how I'm going to
Speaker 1: achieve my goal, and then has to communicate that out
Speaker 1: to other departments in order to make that a reality.
Speaker 1: They're also in charge of directing the talent to get
Speaker 1: the performance the director has in mind. Talent is the
Speaker 1: word used to describe all the actors in a in
Speaker 1: a film. Um, it's also the word that tends to
Speaker 1: be used to describe me as a podcaster, and I
Speaker 1: find it funny to be referred to as the quote
Speaker 1: unquote talent, but that's just an industry term. So the
Speaker 1: directors are in charge of making sure the actors are
Speaker 1: giving the performance that the director had in mind in
Speaker 1: order to create the movie that they want to make. UM.
Speaker 1: They work closely with the heads of the other creative
Speaker 1: departments to achieve this specific vision, and they might work
Speaker 1: very closely with the writer in some cases calling for
Speaker 1: script revisions. If the director feels that they need to
Speaker 1: move in a in a different way to achieve the
Speaker 1: overall goal, they might say, well, our goal is to
Speaker 1: creep out the audience because this is a horror movie.
Speaker 1: But this scene is messing things up because it's it's
Speaker 1: changing up the pacing, it's I want to keep increasing tension,
Speaker 1: and this one kind of relieves the tension in a
Speaker 1: in a point where I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 1: Let's do a rewrite that can happen. The director will
Speaker 1: frequently work well beyond the filming stage and even have
Speaker 1: a hand in the editing department. That's a pretty big
Speaker 1: departure from how directors work in live stage theater. Typically,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about stage production, you know, a play
Speaker 1: or a musical or something like that, the director will
Speaker 1: step way once the show opens. So the director is
Speaker 1: heavily involved with a theatrical show all the way up
Speaker 1: until opening night and then tends to step back, and
Speaker 1: at that point the management of the show largely falls
Speaker 1: to the stage manager. But with a film, even after
Speaker 1: all the performances have been completed, after everything's been captured
Speaker 1: on film or digital video, directors will often play a
Speaker 1: part because so much of a movie can be shaped
Speaker 1: in the editing department. And I'll talk about editing more
Speaker 1: at the end of this episode. Now you've probably also
Speaker 1: seen credits for things like assistant director, often shortened to
Speaker 1: a D. You might have seen first a D and
Speaker 1: second a D. Now, these aren't assistants to the director.
Speaker 1: They're not like running off to grab coffee or anything.
Speaker 1: They're rather very important members of the creative team. And
Speaker 1: typically it's the first assistant director's job to take a
Speaker 1: shooting script, break it down into scenes, and then create
Speaker 1: a shooting schedule in an attempt to build the most
Speaker 1: efficient production approach as possible, which is why films are
Speaker 1: typically shot out of sequence, which means they're not filmed
Speaker 1: in the same chronological order as the scenes play out
Speaker 1: when you watch the finished movie. So you could go
Speaker 1: and watch a movie and you might see an opening
Speaker 1: scene that was actually shot months after the final scene
Speaker 1: of the movie. Uh. You know, it doesn't play out
Speaker 1: that way when you watch it, but that's how it
Speaker 1: was produced. During filming, the first assistant director determines the
Speaker 1: shooting order, and again, the goal is mostly to figure
Speaker 1: out what's the most efficient means for us to make
Speaker 1: this movie because time is money, So one way the
Speaker 1: first a D might do this is to take note
Speaker 1: of all the locations needed in the script and try
Speaker 1: to group similar scenes, like scenes they're set in the
Speaker 1: same location together so that over the course of several days,
Speaker 1: the crew and talent can knock those scenes off the
Speaker 1: shoot list, and once it's done, assuming that they have
Speaker 1: their confident that they're done with that location, they can
Speaker 1: reich that's set and uh and not have to worry
Speaker 1: about again, and that gives other crew members time to
Speaker 1: build and dress the other sets that are going to
Speaker 1: be needed. In upcoming scenes and have that way to
Speaker 1: go as soon as the first group is done. Now,
Speaker 1: this isn't always possible. Sometimes two scenes in the same
Speaker 1: set rely on drastically different set dressing. For example, if
Speaker 1: you have a big action movie in which characters are
Speaker 1: in one location before something catastrophic happens, like a massive explosion,
Speaker 1: and then you might revisit that scene later in the movie, well,
Speaker 1: obviously that's going to look dramatically different, so you may
Speaker 1: not shoot those two sequences back to back. You may
Speaker 1: have a break between while you're changing out the set. Now,
Speaker 1: the first a d also helps manage the schedule for
Speaker 1: the talent, the crew, and the equipment needed each day.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hear this said over and over again because
Speaker 1: this is a huge endeavor. If you're talking even for
Speaker 1: a small film, it's a big it's a big issue.
Speaker 1: But for really big movies, you need a lot of
Speaker 1: people working together to organize all this stuff because you're
Speaker 1: just looking at a massive number of people, a large
Speaker 1: amount of equipment, potentially tons of props and costume pieces.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a big endeavor, and when it
Speaker 1: comes to time to shoot the big action scene, everyone
Speaker 1: needs to know who needs to show up and win. Now,
Speaker 1: the second assistant director works with the first a D
Speaker 1: to achieve those goals, and it often falls to the
Speaker 1: second a D to create what are known as call sheets,
Speaker 1: and a call sheet is a list of all the
Speaker 1: people needed on any given day of shooting. So you
Speaker 1: check the call sheet and if your name is on there,
Speaker 1: you know that you need to show up that day.
Speaker 1: And typically you have a call time as well, what
Speaker 1: time you need to be on set ready to go
Speaker 1: and uh, that's when you are called to do your job. Now,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that the director is the lead creative artist
Speaker 1: on a project, but usually big films will have other
Speaker 1: important department heads that could have just as big a role,
Speaker 1: sometimes an even bigger role on the final look and
Speaker 1: feel of a film. Them their job is to do
Speaker 1: what takes to achieve the goal that the director has
Speaker 1: set out, but they can create their own stamp on
Speaker 1: a film's feel. So if you follow the industry, you
Speaker 1: will see names of people who haven't necessarily directed films,
Speaker 1: but have taken one of these positions. You know, in
Speaker 1: lots of films, you know they've headed up at department
Speaker 1: and they've developed a reputation and you can see their
Speaker 1: impact from the different movies they've worked on. A big
Speaker 1: one of those would be the director of photography. It's
Speaker 1: the director of photography, which usually is UH shortened to
Speaker 1: either d O P or even more frequently DP. It's
Speaker 1: the director of photography's job to oversee the overall visual
Speaker 1: look of the film. So they take the director's idea
Speaker 1: of what the movie needs to be, like what what
Speaker 1: what does it need to convey? And they take the
Speaker 1: script and they determine what is going to be needed
Speaker 1: to create the best representation of the director's vision on
Speaker 1: the film or digital video that's actually shot on set.
Speaker 1: So they might recommend which cameras should be used, which
Speaker 1: lenses should be installed on those cameras, how the shots
Speaker 1: should be framed, which scenes maybe should have camera movement
Speaker 1: in them. They'll work with a team to design all
Speaker 1: of these things. UH. They will determine how cameras should move.
Speaker 1: If a camera is deemed like this, this is a
Speaker 1: scene that needs to have some kinetic motion to it.
Speaker 1: We need we need to have the camera itself the
Speaker 1: point of view changing as this scene unfolds. They have
Speaker 1: to figure out how does that work? How should that
Speaker 1: actually come across. They're also the head of the camera crew,
Speaker 1: and they work with another person called the gaffer, who
Speaker 1: is sort of the head of the electrical and lighting crew.
Speaker 1: In fact, before I go to a break, let me
Speaker 1: explain a gaffer's job and the most probable origin for
Speaker 1: the name gaffer. Now, the gaffer is the chief lighting
Speaker 1: technician and chief electrician on a film set. The gaffer
Speaker 1: works very closely with the director of photography to come
Speaker 1: up with a lighting plan for each scene. Because the
Speaker 1: director of photography knows where the camera should be placed,
Speaker 1: with the angle and what is important in the scene,
Speaker 1: so the gaffer has to figure out with that how
Speaker 1: to light the scenes so that the important stuff gets
Speaker 1: the focus of the audience. The goal of the gaffer
Speaker 1: is to take all this information of camera framing and
Speaker 1: movement and then make the lighting so that the actual
Speaker 1: effect is possible. Now, the name gaffer is one of
Speaker 1: those that still has a little mystery to it. In
Speaker 1: UK slang, gaffer is used for godfather or sometimes grandfather,
Speaker 1: and it's often a term that's just used as a
Speaker 1: general way of saying old man. But that's probably not
Speaker 1: why it's used in film a lot of people argue
Speaker 1: that the name actually comes from lamp lighters back in
Speaker 1: the old gas lamp days, where they would have to
Speaker 1: go from lamp to lamp in the streets of a
Speaker 1: city such as London and turned the lamps on went
Speaker 1: started getting dark, and turned the lamps off when it
Speaker 1: started to get bright again. And to do that they
Speaker 1: would use these poles that would have a hook at
Speaker 1: the end to be able to either light or extinguish
Speaker 1: a lamp, and those poles were called gaffs, So they
Speaker 1: used gaff poles. You could say that the person using
Speaker 1: it was a gaffer. And a lot of those lamp
Speaker 1: lighters apparently also worked in theaters in England. They would
Speaker 1: light the lights in the theater so that when the
Speaker 1: audience comes inside to your indoor theater, they can actually
Speaker 1: see what's going on. And because the gaffer is the
Speaker 1: head lighting technician, the name was transferred over to the
Speaker 1: film world and they typically oversee the entire electrical department.
Speaker 1: Now I've got some more terms to cover as soon
Speaker 1: as we come back, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: And before I continued down the road with lighting, let's
Speaker 1: jump back to photography for a second, so director of
Speaker 1: Photography is ahead of the department, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of other jobs in that group. There are the
Speaker 1: camera operators who physically control and operate cameras during the
Speaker 1: filming process. Uh. The camera operators work very closely with
Speaker 1: the director of photography, essentially kind of following the director
Speaker 1: of Photography's instructions to make sure cameras are where they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be and they move the way they're supposed to.
Speaker 1: Some sets employ specialty operators, such as aerial camera operators.
Speaker 1: This might be someone who controls a camera that's mounted
Speaker 1: on an airplane or in a helicopter, or it might
Speaker 1: be someone controlling a drone with a camera on it.
Speaker 1: And you also have other camera operators like jib arm
Speaker 1: or crane camera operators. As the name suggests, they control
Speaker 1: a camera that's mounted on the end of a movable
Speaker 1: arm to get shots from typically high elevation, to get
Speaker 1: sort of these sweeping, established, establishing shots in a film
Speaker 1: that typically is used on on jibs or cranes. Then
Speaker 1: there's steadicam operators. I did an episode about steadicams. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure, but it was a long time ago. But
Speaker 1: just to go over what that is. These are rigs
Speaker 1: that allow operators to capture smooth handheld camera shots. They
Speaker 1: free up a director to capture images that otherwise would
Speaker 1: have been really difficult or maybe even impossible to get so.
Speaker 1: Before the steadicam, the solution to moving a camera through
Speaker 1: a scene, like actually physically having the camera move through
Speaker 1: action was typically you were using if you're moving around
Speaker 1: the horizontal plane, you would lay down tracks and you
Speaker 1: would mount the camera on a moving platform called a
Speaker 1: dolly that would physically be moved by members of the crew.
Speaker 1: The dolly would allow cameras to get this sort of
Speaker 1: smooth lateral motion, but it meant you were restricted to
Speaker 1: the path of the tracks, and moreover, you had to
Speaker 1: make sure the tracks weren't really visible on camera, or
Speaker 1: it kind of ruined the illusion of fantasy. Now. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's a movie I can tell you to watch if
Speaker 1: you want to catch a little glimpse of this, Terry
Speaker 1: Gilliam's movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. There's this sequence
Speaker 1: in which the main character of the film is supposed
Speaker 1: to be executed, and the camera starts with a shot
Speaker 1: of Baron Munchausen as he stands at the execution block,
Speaker 1: and the camera starts to pull back, and it keeps
Speaker 1: pulling back further and further and further through dozens of
Speaker 1: ranks of soldiers, one after another. It seems almost impossible
Speaker 1: how far back this camera pulls until it's at the
Speaker 1: gates of the city itself, looking through all these people
Speaker 1: at the execution block. It's a really impressive shot. But
Speaker 1: if you pay attention, you actually see that the actors
Speaker 1: in that scene are moving in from the sides as
Speaker 1: the camera moves backward. And the reason they're doing that
Speaker 1: is to you not just make it look really impressive,
Speaker 1: but also to obscure the fact that there are Dolly
Speaker 1: tracks on the ground. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: ground as the camera's pulling back, occasionally you'll catch a
Speaker 1: glimpse of those Dolly tracks. Now, the steadicam freed up
Speaker 1: the camera operator to move through a scene with a
Speaker 1: camera with no tracks at all and keep the motion smooth,
Speaker 1: so the picture doesn't jerk around a lot the way
Speaker 1: it would if the camera were just being held by
Speaker 1: the operator. In recent years, we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: that sort of jerky cam handheld action that that became
Speaker 1: sort of an aesthetic. Recently, and by recently, I mean
Speaker 1: in the last ten years or so, you've seen a
Speaker 1: lot more of that, But before that there was a
Speaker 1: lot of emphasis on this smooth motion. Now, I should
Speaker 1: mention the steadicam existed long before Baron Munchausen came out.
Speaker 1: Gilliam chose the Dolly option to create a particular visual
Speaker 1: effect that would have been very hard to do even
Speaker 1: with the steadicam, so it was done purposefully. And a
Speaker 1: steadicam rig typically has a mechanical arm attached to a
Speaker 1: harness worn by the camera operator, and it uses some
Speaker 1: cool mechanical elements to smooth out motions. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I did a full episode about this, so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into all the mechanics right here, but
Speaker 1: there's some really fantastic long stead camp shots in cinema
Speaker 1: that show off what this kind of rig can achieve.
Speaker 1: One example, a famous one, probably the one that most
Speaker 1: people site when they're talking about long steadicam shots, is
Speaker 1: a scene in Good Fellas in which the character Henry
Speaker 1: Hill takes his future wife Karen on a day to
Speaker 1: the nightclub, and they passed through the kitchen on their
Speaker 1: way to get through to a table, and it's a
Speaker 1: very long scene. Lots of action is going on as
Speaker 1: the cameras moving through following these characters, and it would
Speaker 1: have been impossible without the use of a steadicam unless
Speaker 1: you were just going to deal with a very shaky
Speaker 1: kind of experience, which would have taken away from the effect.
Speaker 1: Then there are the first and second camera assistant roles. Now,
Speaker 1: these are people who helped the camera operator in very ways,
Speaker 1: such as measuring and pulling focus during a shot, threatening
Speaker 1: film into a camera if it's an actual film camera,
Speaker 1: or monitoring data in the case where you're using a
Speaker 1: digital video camera rather than an actual film camera. On
Speaker 1: some sets, there's what is called a data wrangler. It's
Speaker 1: a relatively new position because in the old days it
Speaker 1: was all done on film. But data wranglers oversee the
Speaker 1: function organizing, labeling, duplicating and formatting of hard drives to
Speaker 1: make sure captured footage gets to where it needs to
Speaker 1: be and that they're always more storage available for for
Speaker 1: the camera operators to save footage. Two, the second assistant
Speaker 1: camera operator or a cameraman is often the term used.
Speaker 1: Tends to be in charge of loading and unloading film
Speaker 1: for film cameras. They're often also referred to as the
Speaker 1: loader as a result, and they're also usually the person
Speaker 1: who is the slate or clapper and that or they
Speaker 1: oversee that task. Maybe they're not doing themselves, but they're
Speaker 1: ultimately in charge of making sure it gets done. So
Speaker 1: let me take a quick aside to talk about this.
Speaker 1: The slate is that clapboard you've probably seen in either
Speaker 1: behind the scenes footage or in television shows or films
Speaker 1: that show the production side of some sort of movie
Speaker 1: or TV show. Uh, this is the little board. It's
Speaker 1: it's white and black. Typically it's got a little uh
Speaker 1: lever that goes up and can slam down and make
Speaker 1: a clapping noise. It's got stuff written on it now
Speaker 1: typically the clapper slate or clapper board, or there's dozens
Speaker 1: of names for this thing has the information on it
Speaker 1: about the scene and take that's being shot at that time.
Speaker 1: A take is another attempt at filming a scene, and
Speaker 1: some directors like to do lots of takes so that
Speaker 1: either they get exactly what they want or they have
Speaker 1: a lot of different options to pick from once they
Speaker 1: get to the editing phase of film's production. Some directors
Speaker 1: are pretty quick to move on as soon as they
Speaker 1: figure they got more or less what they need, so
Speaker 1: they'll only do a few takes unless something really messes up,
Speaker 1: and then they'll do another one. So the board typically
Speaker 1: has whatever the scene number is and then the take
Speaker 1: number on it um and probably some other information on
Speaker 1: there too. It might have the associated film role on
Speaker 1: there if the film is actually shot on film, probably
Speaker 1: has the date, probably has the name of the director
Speaker 1: and the director of photography, and maybe some other information
Speaker 1: as well. Now, the purpose of this, the reason why
Speaker 1: we have clapboards in the first place, is one to
Speaker 1: help editors synchronize audio with the visuals and to be
Speaker 1: able to just associate the audio that's been captured with
Speaker 1: the visuals that were captured. So whomever is running the
Speaker 1: clapboard will actually say the scene number and take number,
Speaker 1: maybe a little more information such as which can is
Speaker 1: being used before clapping that little movable arm down on
Speaker 1: the board. They say that so that the audio version
Speaker 1: once once we know that sound is rolling, has a
Speaker 1: record of that take, and the film, which we also
Speaker 1: know is rolling, also has a record of it, and
Speaker 1: then you can sink the two up the clapping motion
Speaker 1: is the que that editors used to synchronize the video
Speaker 1: or film with the sound. You see the lever come down,
Speaker 1: you know that that should be associated with the loud
Speaker 1: clap noise on the audio track. You make sure those
Speaker 1: two line up, and then you've got your audio synchronized
Speaker 1: with your visuals. Without that, you would have a really
Speaker 1: hard time making sure the two were in line, and
Speaker 1: everything would seem a bit off. You know, people's mouths
Speaker 1: would be moving, but the sound they would make would
Speaker 1: not be in line with their talking, and that would
Speaker 1: be very off putting. All right, Now back to the
Speaker 1: camera crew. There are people who work closely with the
Speaker 1: camera crew called grips. They also work closely with the
Speaker 1: lighting and electrical crews. Now, they themselves are not electricians.
Speaker 1: So what do the grips do and what is a
Speaker 1: key grip? Well, first, let's talk about where the name
Speaker 1: comes from. Generally speaking, most people think that the name
Speaker 1: comes from the stage theater world, but this time we're
Speaker 1: talking about the American stage, not the English stage. And
Speaker 1: in American theater it was shorthand for the stage hands
Speaker 1: who would help move scenery during a show. So between scenes,
Speaker 1: maybe the curtain comes down, or maybe there's a scrim
Speaker 1: or something that's hiding the upstage from everybody. The grips
Speaker 1: come in, they grip the scenery, and they haul it
Speaker 1: off to wherever it needs to go. Now in the
Speaker 1: film world, they do a little bit more than just
Speaker 1: lug stuff around. The grips are responsible for acquiring, building, maintaining,
Speaker 1: setting up, and breaking down all the equipment that supports
Speaker 1: the cameras, and that includes stuff like tripod dollies, cranes, jibs,
Speaker 1: the dolly tracks, and other rigs. They might have to
Speaker 1: build rigs that can hang from supports or be mounted
Speaker 1: to a vehicle, or otherwise help support a camera if
Speaker 1: there isn't a market solution out there already. In the
Speaker 1: case of dollies, they are also the people who push
Speaker 1: the dolly along the track as the camera operator captures
Speaker 1: a shot, at least if you're not using a motorized dolly.
Speaker 1: They also work with lighting crews to hang lights and
Speaker 1: set up lighting rigs, though the actual electricians on the
Speaker 1: lighting crew work with the lighting itself, so again the
Speaker 1: grips don't end up working the electrical side of it.
Speaker 1: They work on the physical. Let's get this to where
Speaker 1: it needs to be. The key grip is the head
Speaker 1: grip in charge, sort of the the foreman or supervisor
Speaker 1: of the department, and frequently will end up working with
Speaker 1: the main camera in a film production, so the key
Speaker 1: grip and the gaffer worked together closely to make sure
Speaker 1: the lighting and the camera support are all in lace. Now,
Speaker 1: both the key grip and the gaffer can have a
Speaker 1: position under them called the best boy, and this is
Speaker 1: where a lot of mystery comes back into play. The
Speaker 1: best boy position isn't really just an assistant. Typically, the
Speaker 1: best boy is responsible for doing stuff like hiring the
Speaker 1: crew in their respective department, whether that's in the grips
Speaker 1: or in the electrical and lighting department. They schedule the crew,
Speaker 1: they coordinate between departments. They might oversee you equipment rentals.
Speaker 1: They can oversee the day to day operations of those departments.
Speaker 1: So they are the supervisors under the foreman. So where
Speaker 1: the heck did the term best boy come from? Well,
Speaker 1: one popular but probably apocryphal explanation is that comes from
Speaker 1: the early days of film production, before all the roles
Speaker 1: on set had been established and unionized. So but back
Speaker 1: in those days, you had a lot more lucy goosey
Speaker 1: collaboration between the lighting crew and the grip crew, and
Speaker 1: in those days goes the story you would have the
Speaker 1: key grip or the gaffer asking one another to lend
Speaker 1: someone from the other team to help out on their team.
Speaker 1: So the gaffer might go to the key grip and say,
Speaker 1: I need somebody to help us out. Send over your
Speaker 1: best boy. So in other words, send over whomever's on
Speaker 1: your team who's really good at what they do, because
Speaker 1: I need someone who's going to pick up what I
Speaker 1: need them to do very very quickly, and we got
Speaker 1: to get this done. And that was generally placed as
Speaker 1: this is the origin of the term, and that eventually
Speaker 1: the term began to be used for the supervisor of
Speaker 1: the grip or electrical teams, the idea being that whomever
Speaker 1: is doing the best job is going to get promoted
Speaker 1: to supervisors, so they're the best boy. Now, the term
Speaker 1: is likely apocryphal, or the very least, there's no real
Speaker 1: source to support it apart from hey, you know, that
Speaker 1: sounds like it makes sense, So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: after the fact reasoning saying, well, it's probably because of this,
Speaker 1: but there's no documentation to show that that's actually how
Speaker 1: it happened. And there is an alternate theory, one that
Speaker 1: also doesn't have a ton of documentation to support it,
Speaker 1: and it's that the term comes from sailors. And this
Speaker 1: requires me to talk for a second about the relationship
Speaker 1: between sailing and film. So the general wisdom goes that
Speaker 1: back in the old days, theaters, as in stage theaters,
Speaker 1: would frequently employ sailors who were between jobs. So the
Speaker 1: sailors would be looking for work while they're on land
Speaker 1: and they don't have another UH expedition or whatever, they
Speaker 1: don't have another job lined up, they get hired on
Speaker 1: to do work in theaters, working in the rigging, so
Speaker 1: they're rigging up scenery pulleys and UH curtains and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. And it was similar to the work
Speaker 1: done on sailing vessels with sales and and ships rigging,
Speaker 1: So the sailors would do this stuff and move scenery around.
Speaker 1: And this is, by the way, the also the UH
Speaker 1: the possibly apocryphal reason why there's a superstition in theater
Speaker 1: that it's considered to be bad luck to whistle if
Speaker 1: you are backstage at a stage theater, and the reason
Speaker 1: for that is that the sailors would, as the story goes,
Speaker 1: use whistles. They would whistle to one another to signal wind,
Speaker 1: to move scenery, or otherwise mess with the rigging backstage.
Speaker 1: So if you were backstage and you were whistling, you
Speaker 1: might accidentally command the sailors to do all sorts of
Speaker 1: funky and possibly dangerous stuff with the scenery. Now, I
Speaker 1: have no idea if that's actually true, because the theater
Speaker 1: world is even worse at documenting its mythology and terminology
Speaker 1: than the film world is, and of course many film
Speaker 1: terms would grow from the theatrical world. But anyway, according
Speaker 1: to this alternate theory, in the whaling industry, it was
Speaker 1: apparently common to refer to a member of the crew
Speaker 1: as the best boy. Beyond this fairly vague description, I
Speaker 1: can't find much more, and there's not really any evidence
Speaker 1: to support the assertion, apart from the fact that sailors
Speaker 1: occasionally worked in the ors, and that possibly the term
Speaker 1: made its way from the sailing industry into the theatrical
Speaker 1: industry and then onto the film industry. Whatever the case,
Speaker 1: the best boy positions are important, and while the name
Speaker 1: indicates a gender, a best boy can be anyone, whether
Speaker 1: they identify as male, female, or other. And I've got
Speaker 1: a few more positions to talk about and some other
Speaker 1: terminology to get through. But first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: So we've got a few other big departments to talk about,
Speaker 1: like the sound department. This includes people like the sound mixer,
Speaker 1: the boom operator, and the sound utility expert. Their jobs,
Speaker 1: as you would guess, is to capture sound during recording
Speaker 1: and organizing all those recordings so that they can be
Speaker 1: mixed later in the editing process. They also typically try
Speaker 1: to capture important sounds and eliminate distracting stuff like background
Speaker 1: noise and room tone. Sometimes that's done at the time
Speaker 1: of recording. Often it's done in the editing phase. And
Speaker 1: related to this group are python wranglers. That's a term
Speaker 1: jokingly used to describe people whose job it is to
Speaker 1: help manage the cables on a film set so they're
Speaker 1: not in the way. They also work obviously with the
Speaker 1: electrical and camera departments, so you've got people who are
Speaker 1: just making sure that stuff is is kept fairly organized
Speaker 1: so that it doesn't cause a problem and doesn't end
Speaker 1: up making a big mess, so that when you're striking
Speaker 1: at the end of a day or at the end
Speaker 1: of a shoot. Uh, it doesn't, you know, take up
Speaker 1: even more time. Now, while I'm talking about sound, I
Speaker 1: should also mention a d R, which stands for additional
Speaker 1: dialogue recording or additional dialogue replacement. I've also seen some
Speaker 1: sources say a d R stands for automatic dialogue replacement,
Speaker 1: But additional is how I normally see it. And honestly, uh,
Speaker 1: the practice has been around longer than automated systems. But
Speaker 1: this is a technique in which an actor rerecords lines
Speaker 1: of dialogue in a studio in order to get a
Speaker 1: clean audio version of the line. The actor times their
Speaker 1: delivery to work with the captured footage, because obviously you
Speaker 1: can't just create new footage, not without the use of
Speaker 1: computers anyway. And so it's sort of like lip syncing,
Speaker 1: but in reverse. Instead of instead of mouving words that
Speaker 1: have already been recorded, you're recording new words, but you're
Speaker 1: doing it to time it with previously recorded visuals. So
Speaker 1: the actor has to time their delivery to work within
Speaker 1: that captured footage. And this can be done to correct
Speaker 1: for poor audio recording from the onset or on location audio.
Speaker 1: Let's say there was some extraneous noise that was too distracting.
Speaker 1: You could re record the audio in studio and have
Speaker 1: it inserted there, Or it could even be done in
Speaker 1: an attempt to change the performance that the actor gave
Speaker 1: by having the actor give a different read on the lines,
Speaker 1: maybe a different emotional take or a different emphasis on
Speaker 1: certain words. And and it's done well. The audience never
Speaker 1: even notices it. They don't notice the difference between something
Speaker 1: that was recorded on set versus a d R. If
Speaker 1: it's not done well, it could be super distracting, like
Speaker 1: it might not quite match up with the mouth and
Speaker 1: it seems really weird. Uh. Then you have the art department.
Speaker 1: This falls under the command of the film's production designer,
Speaker 1: who helps determine the look of a film outside of
Speaker 1: the camera and lighting departments. So those departments are all
Speaker 1: focused pun intended on how to light and capture a scene.
Speaker 1: But the production designer is in charge of the groups
Speaker 1: that make all the stuff that goes into those scenes.
Speaker 1: Like they select locations for location shoots, they build sets, uh,
Speaker 1: they dress sets, they design costumes. They set the physical
Speaker 1: look for the characters with makeup or prosthetics. Visual effects
Speaker 1: teams are part of this too. So under the production
Speaker 1: designer you have a lot of other people. Uh. The
Speaker 1: art director is in charge of craftspeople who work in
Speaker 1: set design and graphics. They also head up the illustrators
Speaker 1: who might work on a film. They're really important through
Speaker 1: the entire phase, including pre production. Uh. They might help
Speaker 1: with designing animatics and storyboards. That helps the director bring
Speaker 1: a vision into realization before committing stuff to film. So
Speaker 1: you could say, like, I'm thinking of having the camera
Speaker 1: in this particular position, and this is how I'm imagining
Speaker 1: the the scene playing out. You can have an artist
Speaker 1: kind of draw out what they feel that the director
Speaker 1: is saying and sort of build out a comic book
Speaker 1: or even crude cartoon version of whatever the action is
Speaker 1: going to be. It can also be a really collaborative
Speaker 1: process with the director of photography to really figure out
Speaker 1: exactly how it's supposed to look. That also gives the
Speaker 1: director of photography and a chance to rethink their position.
Speaker 1: They might say, you know, now that i'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: I think that actually putting the camera over here would
Speaker 1: look better. Let's see what that might look like and
Speaker 1: have the illustra to go back and change things out.
Speaker 1: It's time consuming, but it's less expensive than finding out
Speaker 1: once you're there on set and you've set everything up.
Speaker 1: The set designer is the person who is in charge
Speaker 1: of overseeing the entire set construction job, from concept to
Speaker 1: full build out. UH. This often happens in a sound stage,
Speaker 1: which is a controlled environment within which a film can shoot,
Speaker 1: so you're isolated from the outside world you have fewer
Speaker 1: distractions that can come in. But set designers also can
Speaker 1: build sets on locations where you have slightly less control,
Speaker 1: but you can have more authenticity In those cases, the
Speaker 1: set decorator's job is to furnish the set with all
Speaker 1: the important props and elements that make it seem like
Speaker 1: a real place. So a set decorator working on a
Speaker 1: film UH that takes place and say an old, creepy mansion,
Speaker 1: might use a collection of objects that could be in
Speaker 1: a warehouse that the movie studio owns, or it could
Speaker 1: be rented from a business that's specifically caters to the
Speaker 1: movie industry. Or they might even crawl through various antiques
Speaker 1: and oddit these shops in order to find what they're
Speaker 1: looking for. If you listen to my episode with the
Speaker 1: Stranger Things crew, you heard them talk about the challenges
Speaker 1: of filling a set with appropriate props and set pieces
Speaker 1: that dated from the nineteen eighties. Now, while the set
Speaker 1: decorator determines which pieces are going to go in, there's
Speaker 1: a crew called set dressers who are actually in charge
Speaker 1: of placing those items within a set according to the
Speaker 1: vision of the creative team. Now, as you can imagine
Speaker 1: these films, sets can have hundreds of props in them,
Speaker 1: which means someone needs to keep track of everything, and
Speaker 1: that job falls to the props master. A prop is
Speaker 1: really anything that isn't an actor, a piece of scenery, uh,
Speaker 1: some film equipment, or a costume. It's pretty much everything else.
Speaker 1: They tend to be portable or at the very least movable. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some people will actually only use the word prop to
Speaker 1: mean anything that an actor actually interacts with within the film. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if there's a book that an actor
Speaker 1: has to pick up and and look through, that book
Speaker 1: would be a prop. But maybe there's a stack of
Speaker 1: books that are on the set that the actor never touches. There,
Speaker 1: just set dressing, And they would argue, no, that's not
Speaker 1: a prop, that's scenery. But it's all largely academic. The
Speaker 1: props master has to keep track of all these things,
Speaker 1: and so typically has an organization system to know where
Speaker 1: props are in order to get hands on them when
Speaker 1: they are needed for any given scene. Often they are
Speaker 1: also prop builders on staff as well, as that name suggests,
Speaker 1: they build any props that you can't otherwise find, So
Speaker 1: in some types of films, like science fiction or fantasy,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of props that you really just
Speaker 1: can't find in stores, so you have to make them
Speaker 1: from scratch, like Star Wars with lightsabers. Lightsabers, I hate
Speaker 1: to tell you, aren't a real thing, so they had
Speaker 1: to build them. Likewise, costumers can end up making outfits
Speaker 1: for cast that are a combination of pre made pieces,
Speaker 1: some of them bought right off the rack from stores
Speaker 1: or off and secondhand shops. Other stuff might be made
Speaker 1: to order for the film itself, unique pieces that were
Speaker 1: specifically made for the movie. In addition to those positions,
Speaker 1: you have special effects artists who may work on practical effects,
Speaker 1: meaning those effects that happened within the real space and
Speaker 1: use physical objects or c g I effects. In the
Speaker 1: case of c g I, most of that work tends
Speaker 1: to happen far from the action of the actual shooting location,
Speaker 1: and it can stretch well into the post production phase
Speaker 1: of a film. Practical effects are pretty nifty, but they
Speaker 1: also can be fairly expensive, and if things do not
Speaker 1: go well, they can end up pushing a film behind schedule.
Speaker 1: A famous example of this would be the mechanical shark
Speaker 1: in Jaws. I did a full episode about that shark
Speaker 1: with Chris Palette years and years ago. The shark's name
Speaker 1: is Bruce. Anyway, that ended up being a huge headache.
Speaker 1: But practical effects, when they're done well, can seem more
Speaker 1: quote unquote real than c g I effects, and some
Speaker 1: film snobs like myself tend to favor practical effects over
Speaker 1: c g I in most cases because if c g
Speaker 1: I isn't done well, it just looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a video game to me. Now, you've also got makeup
Speaker 1: artists who have a pretty challenging job. Even with a
Speaker 1: simple film that has no need for special effects makeup,
Speaker 1: those artists have to make sure an actor's look is
Speaker 1: consistent throughout the film, depending upon whatever the film scene
Speaker 1: calls for, So they have to keep a record of
Speaker 1: all the different looks that the actor goes through in
Speaker 1: the course of a film to make sure that they
Speaker 1: stay the same from scene to scene, and if you're
Speaker 1: shooting scenes that are sequentially far apart in the in
Speaker 1: the finished film, it may be that the actor has
Speaker 1: to undergo some sort of transformation, and it means that
Speaker 1: you might have to have a record of several different
Speaker 1: looks to make sure you replicate exactly the right one
Speaker 1: for whatever scene is shooting that day. If the film
Speaker 1: calls for special effects makeup, there's an even bigger job
Speaker 1: ahead of the crew because they may have to work
Speaker 1: on a single actor for several hours to get everything
Speaker 1: ready for the camera. There are also location scouts and
Speaker 1: location managers. Their job is to seek out the real
Speaker 1: world locations where a film can shoot. I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of location scouts come through my neighborhood um and
Speaker 1: location managers talking with me as well about using the
Speaker 1: area for for shooting, and they have to handle all
Speaker 1: the real world issues that come along with that, including
Speaker 1: possibly working out deals with homeowners so that they can
Speaker 1: use a location for for a shoot, and that ends
Speaker 1: up getting to be a really complicated job. You've gotta
Speaker 1: be a real people person to be a good location manager.
Speaker 1: But there are tons of other roles as well. If
Speaker 1: a film requires stunts, there's a stunts department. That's the
Speaker 1: group to make sure that any potentially dangerous action on
Speaker 1: camera is done safely and with trained professionals to minimize
Speaker 1: risk to the performers, to the crew, to the equipment,
Speaker 1: to the production. There's the craft's Services group. Some people
Speaker 1: argue that's the most important group on any film set
Speaker 1: it because they feed everybody, They bring all the food. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then there's the transportation captain who has to handle all
Speaker 1: the logistics of getting everybody and everything to where it
Speaker 1: needs to go. So they need to make sure that
Speaker 1: all the talent has their transportation to get to the location,
Speaker 1: that all the crew is knows where they need to
Speaker 1: be and how they're going to get there, that all
Speaker 1: the equipment is ready to be shipped there, and there
Speaker 1: are there are trucks to do it. Um. I can't
Speaker 1: even imagine the stress that goes with that job. Also,
Speaker 1: they tend to be the first great people on location
Speaker 1: and the last people leave, and they have to be
Speaker 1: because they're in charge of getting everybody to where they
Speaker 1: need to go. In post production, there are also lots
Speaker 1: of other jobs they're folly artists. That's the sound effects group.
Speaker 1: There are there's marketing, there's publicity, there's accounting, there's casting.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is pretty self explanatory. I do
Speaker 1: want to end this episode talking about editors. The editor's
Speaker 1: job is to take all the footage, all the aftured sound,
Speaker 1: all the A d R, all the effects reels, all
Speaker 1: that stuff and make a movie out of it. Now,
Speaker 1: movies are made in editing. The editor can have just
Speaker 1: as much impact, or potentially even more impact than a
Speaker 1: director on the final feel of a film. The editor's
Speaker 1: job is to piece that film together and to select
Speaker 1: takes from all those shoot days and to put them
Speaker 1: in the proper sequence to tell the story. And they
Speaker 1: have to do that also by adding in the correct
Speaker 1: sound and all that other stuff. So it said that
Speaker 1: a great editor can turn a decent film into a
Speaker 1: fantastic film, and they can turn a fantastic film into
Speaker 1: a masterpiece. A bad editor can take something that you
Speaker 1: know has good raw material and turn it into a
Speaker 1: total mess that's almost unwatchable. Some directors work very closely
Speaker 1: with editors to craft a final piece that best represents
Speaker 1: what the director had in mind, and so they take
Speaker 1: a very tight hand with it through the whole process.
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino is famous for this. Some times producers will
Speaker 1: step in the way and they'll prevent a director from
Speaker 1: having too much influence on the final edit of a film.
Speaker 1: The producer might say, you know what, your creative vision,
Speaker 1: it's not so good, so I'm not gonna let you
Speaker 1: do that because it's gonna cost me money, and then
Speaker 1: they make the editor do all the work. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: producers are the ones steering the editors. They can get
Speaker 1: really messy. There are tons of stories in Hollywood about
Speaker 1: how these stories play out, and most of them are ugly. Now,
Speaker 1: I think, out of all the positions on a film production,
Speaker 1: I respect the editor most of all because they cannot
Speaker 1: create a new scene or anything like that. They can't
Speaker 1: make something out of nothing, but they can take what
Speaker 1: was shot and shape it, so that has a really
Speaker 1: powerful effect on an audience. Sometimes just cutting a scene
Speaker 1: short can do the trick. Or switching between different takes
Speaker 1: to get the best reactions from the various actors in
Speaker 1: the scene will do the trick. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to go overboard on praising editors because obviously everyone on
Speaker 1: a film set is important. They all contribute to the
Speaker 1: success of a film, but really the editor helps take
Speaker 1: all that stuff and create a final picture. And that
Speaker 1: is the rundown on the basic rolls behind the scenes
Speaker 1: on film productions. Like I said, I plan to go
Speaker 1: into the the various sayings in terms used on film
Speaker 1: sets to describe the process of making films in a
Speaker 1: future episode. Um, after a couple more episodes, but for now,
Speaker 1: let's say it's a rap now. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, you can
Speaker 1: write me an email. The address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can pop on
Speaker 1: over to our website that's tech stuff podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: There you are going to find the archive of all
Speaker 1: of our older episodes, links to our social media accounts,
Speaker 1: as well as a link to our online store. And
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Tex Stuff
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.