Page 1 of Unscripted

1

“Poppy, this isn’t working out. I’m letting you go.”

When my boss said those words, I thought he was kidding. I thought Frank Reed, darling of the film world and the direct source of the headache that had lived above my right eyebrow for the past month, suddenly, in the seconds since I handed him his morning cup of coffee, developed a sense of humor and was joking.

Which is why I laughed. It was more of a surprised breath expelled from my mouth, really, but it was a laugh all the same.

The subtle twitch of Frank’s jaw made it clear that he was, in fact, not kidding.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, trying to regain the footing I had somehow lost in those last thirty seconds.

“I’m letting you go,” he repeated. “If you can’t make a cup of coffee the way I like, the way I specifically ask for, then how can I trust you on set? How can I be sure that you’ll get me the correct draft of the script or the right call sheet?”

The coffee. This was about his cup of coffee: Black, two sugars, as hot as possible. The way he had taken it since I started working for him weeks before; the same exact way I had just made it.

This sudden upending of my career, all because of the steaming cup of liquid in his hand.

If I were being honest, nothing about the current moment should have come as a surprise.

When I moved from New York to London to work for Frank, I thought, Here it is, my big shot.

He had made a buzzy splash onto the film scene a year earlier when his directorial debut premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. The critical success, along with an impressive word-of-mouth press campaign from a slew of podcasting film bros, catapulted Frank into his very own first-look deal with a big studio. Production was underway on his highly anticipated second film, and I had been hired as his assistant.

I had been working as a production assistant ever since I graduated college, with dreams of eventually becoming a producer. My plan had been to accrue enough hours of experience to join the Director’s Guild’s Assistant Directors Training Program, build out my resume, and eventually parlay it into a role as a line producer. Then, in the final “boss” level, an actual creative producer. But now, with this job, I could skip a few steps on that journey. It was a dream come true and the exact career move I had been trying to make ever since I first stepped foot on a sound stage six years ago.

I loved every aspect of production: the buzz of the crew, each day's anticipation of what kind of performance the camera would find, even the grueling, long hours and the “hurry up and wait” moments. It was thrilling and exhausting, and I knew, from the very first time I heard a director call out “Action,” it was exactly where I was meant to be.

So, when the call came with the job offer to work for Frank, I eagerly accepted, got myself on the first plane out to London, and geared up for the incredible experience ahead of me.

And then I met the man.

It took only five seconds to know he would be a frustrating piece of work. As I stood in his production office at Pinewood Studios on my first day, he didn’t say anything to me for ten minutes. Completely silent, weighted minutes in which I stood in front of his desk and simply watched as he typed on his computer. When he finally deigned to acknowledge my presence, he merely looked up and said, “I need the latest draft printed and each scene color coded by emotional arc.”

That was it. No “Welcome to the team” or “How was your flight in?” Just a directive and the underlying inference to get on with it and get out of his office.

So, I did. I color coded and printed and did whatever other menial tasks he asked of me, working long days and even longer nights during prep and into the start of principle photography. The only relief was that once we started shooting, Frank’s “particularness” shifted its focus from me onto the rest of the crew.

Every day was a new issue. The cast wasn’t delivering lines the right way. Lighting at one location wasn’t good enough. When we moved from shooting on location in East London to a soundstage for interior scenes, Frank stormed off set after finding that the shade of paint used on one set was not what he had chosen. (It was; I was there when he selected it.)

Through it all I kept my head down and powered on—nodding and smiling and mediating what I could—because this was the dream, and I would do whatever it took to succeed.

Of course, Frank.

You’re right, Frank.

I’ll handle it, Frank.

I thought we had a good thing going, too. I thought that, despite the demanding shooting schedule, we would make it through to the end.

Now, standing in front of Frank while he held the coffee that was apparently so poorly made it was a fireable offense, it was laughable to have thought I would ever be free from his finicky nature. Of course his whims would eventually turn on me; they had with everybody else working on the film.

I knew I needed to reply to what he had said, to say something clever to salvage the moment and make him realize it was all a big mistake. That this was a simple misunderstanding; that his coffee actually was made correctly. And yet I couldn’t think of one single word. My mind was blank, frozen by the shock of what was happening.

Frank, oblivious to my spiraling self, was already moving on, focusing his attention back on his laptop, typing notes on the shooting schedule or making rewrites to the next day’s sides or corresponding with his pen pal, the Devil. I was thinking it was likely the latter.

It was clear there was nothing left to discuss. He had made up his mind. How many times in the last few weeks had I seen this exact thing happen? Once he made a decision, it was set in stone. Standing around waiting for him to realize the error of his ways was futile; changing his mind was never going to happen.

I turned and walked out of his trailer, feeling detached from my body, as though I was a ghost floating above myself.