Taylor the Disney Coordinator
This episode with sit down with a Disney Coordinator and find out what it takes to work for the mouse.
Transcript
This is Film Center.
Speaker:Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:My name is Derek Johnson II and this is Film Center, your
Speaker:number one place for studio news.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And today we are joined by Taylor, also known as TayMakesMagic.
Speaker:Hello!
Speaker:Hi, how you doing?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:I am doing great.
Speaker:I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Also, we do have to say we just heard you drove two hours to come do this recording.
Speaker:Which is, I, this is a little embarrassing for us because as our listeners know,
Speaker:We take the show on the road, meaning that her needing to come to us, it
Speaker:defeats the purpose of the show.
Speaker:So next time it won't be like that, Taylor, I promise.
Speaker:I got to come on an adventure.
Speaker:I am so glad to be here.
Speaker:Tell us where you're coming from, that it took two hours.
Speaker:I am all the way in Anaheim over in Orange County, right
Speaker:by the happiest place on earth.
Speaker:We all know.
Speaker:Oh, Disneyland.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You So we met Taylor at Comic Con, L.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:Comic Con just recently today it is December 11th.
Speaker:So Comic Con, L.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:Comic Con was what, last weekend?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not this past weekend, but last, this last weekend.
Speaker:First to the third.
Speaker:First to the third.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Taylor, if you guys keep up with our any of our social media or any
Speaker:of our personal posts, she was the Venom cosplay that was killing me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's who she is.
Speaker:But you work at Disney, don't you?
Speaker:I do!
Speaker:And by the way, that was still one of my favorite photos from that day that I took.
Speaker:So I'm so glad we got to do that.
Speaker:It was very fun.
Speaker:It was very fun.
Speaker:But yes, I do work at Disney, and I am going on almost three years.
Speaker:Three years.
Speaker:You work at what do you do at Disney?
Speaker:I am basically a coordinator.
Speaker:At Disneyland, I get to do all sorts of really crazy things ranging from
Speaker:events to educational workshops to just general entertainment stuff.
Speaker:And what are you working on right now?
Speaker:Can you say?
Speaker:Yeah, right now I'm just doing basically what we like to call
Speaker:abnormal entertainment offerings.
Speaker:Essentially anything that's not part of your typical Park schedule, like
Speaker:things that are not the parades.
Speaker:Oh, not the parades.
Speaker:Because the parades are usually like everyone bases what they do off of,
Speaker:is it before or after the parade?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So it's like guest groups that come to perform ranging from
Speaker:like middle school to colleges.
Speaker:And recently we had a group of seniors come and perform and do some dance.
Speaker:It was really cute.
Speaker:Oh, that sounds really awesome.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's really exciting.
Speaker:What were they singing?
Speaker:The group today was singing all sorts of musical theater tunes.
Speaker:It was pretty great.
Speaker:They were very excited to be there.
Speaker:A lot of our, a lot of our listeners, they are, so they work in the industry
Speaker:and or they want to get into the industry now, Disney, we're going
Speaker:to, a lot of our listeners know, I used to work at Disney world.
Speaker:She works at Disneyland, even though they are related.
Speaker:These are two completely different.
Speaker:I specifically chose Anaheim over Florida because I did not
Speaker:want to deal with the humidity.
Speaker:So props to you!
Speaker:It's so bad.
Speaker:It is it's you take a shower, and when you get out of the shower, you'll
Speaker:sit on your couch for two minutes, and you need to take another shower.
Speaker:You're already sweating.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't really mind the humidity.
Speaker:He's from Louisiana.
Speaker:We're gonna ignore him.
Speaker:You're used to it.
Speaker:You were born used to it.
Speaker:I'm a California kid, right?
Speaker:I'm spoiled.
Speaker:He was born with the abilities.
Speaker:And both of his parents are from Louisiana, aren't they?
Speaker:True, yeah.
Speaker:True Louisiana.
Speaker:He's not a He's not a Born and bred.
Speaker:Born and bred.
Speaker:You're meant to be in the humidity.
Speaker:I'm No, I'm weak.
Speaker:So something that's quite interesting about what you do compared to what
Speaker:a lot of our listeners might do when they're working on films and
Speaker:television is that your stuff is live.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Meaning that there is no takes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No room for You have to, and if, whenever mistakes happen, you just
Speaker:have to act like they didn't happen.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:You have to pivot immediately.
Speaker:So what does it take to be a coordinator?
Speaker:What kind of, what did you, I'll ask this, what is your background that allowed
Speaker:you to prepare for something like this?
Speaker:Yeah Nicholas and I were talking about Kind of my career history and
Speaker:my personal history of just how I got to where I am and I have always
Speaker:been called a renaissance woman.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:I've dabbled in so many different things Oh, we talked about I've
Speaker:worked with horses in the past.
Speaker:I have a psychology degree.
Speaker:I've worked in recruitment with health care like And now I'm doing
Speaker:essentially the equivalent of stage management for live events.
Speaker:Just as a real quick recap.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You learn how to ride horses.
Speaker:You have a psych degree and then you also did stuff in the health industry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:She's a spy secretly.
Speaker:She has all the training.
Speaker:So tell us.
Speaker:So we were talking about the story of how you went from a recruitment manager.
Speaker:To a coordinator working at Disney.
Speaker:And when he says we, he means previous to the show, but yes, continue.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before filming this show.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So can you please tell us the story about how that happened?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So of course I have the cliche story of growing up in LA.
Speaker:And wanting to work at Disney eventually, because it was such a
Speaker:quintessential part of my childhood.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Who wouldn't want to?
Speaker:Cause especially when you're a kid, it's just so big and magical.
Speaker:I remember telling my parents that when I went to Disney, I was like,
Speaker:yeah, I'm going to work here one day.
Speaker:Every kid.
Speaker:Every kid wants to work at Disney.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Back home, it's Applebee's.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:That sounds eventful too.
Speaker:That might be just as crazy.
Speaker:And it seems more attainable actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker:Work for McDonald's.
Speaker:Key to life is lower your expectations.
Speaker:But yeah, I basically Grew up in L.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:County moved to Santa Barbara for high school and college, and then I
Speaker:started that job with the healthcare organization in recruitment,
Speaker:and I just was not feeling it.
Speaker:I was, I did not like it.
Speaker:What about it were you not feeling?
Speaker:I am a big people person, and so since it was on the tail end of the pandemic,
Speaker:like the height of the pandemic I was in an office by myself and I was
Speaker:just like, yeah, really isolated.
Speaker:You were dealing with just numbers.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I was not having it.
Speaker:I would talk to people on the phone for maybe five minutes, sit
Speaker:on a zoom meeting and that's it.
Speaker:That sounds like terrible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I do love organization.
Speaker:I love paperwork.
Speaker:I'm a nerd like that, but I also want to have that interpersonal
Speaker:connection, so I just started looking.
Speaker:And throwing things at the wall, applying for things at Disney.
Speaker:And What made you say Oh, okay, now I'm gonna start applying
Speaker:to Disney, compared to prior.
Speaker:Was that just your breaking point?
Speaker:You were like, okay, I'm done.
Speaker:I want to go do something that I actually want to enjoy, basically.
Speaker:Kind of.
Speaker:I loved my co workers up in Santa Barbara, but I had already
Speaker:been keeping my eyes out.
Speaker:Because I was like, okay, I've graduated college.
Speaker:would like to start seeing if there's a door that I can
Speaker:stick my foot into with Disney.
Speaker:And they had a posting for a stable attendant at Disney.
Speaker:Background of horses.
Speaker:Horse girl.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For a while my friends called me professional horse girl while
Speaker:I worked there and I almost put that on my linkedin Did you really
Speaker:think I should have you should?
Speaker:I mean you have to be in the right industry for that, right?
Speaker:You know i'm saying if you work in a glue factory and it
Speaker:says professional horse girl.
Speaker:I'm, not sure how positive that might not be Actually, you might get hired.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:I don't know what the implications are Right, you work in a glue
Speaker:factory, but you were a horse girl.
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:Yeah, how are you getting that glue?
Speaker:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker:That might be what I heard you extract from the horse that
Speaker:you're getting the glitch from.
Speaker:You ask him nicely.
Speaker:So when you.
Speaker:First got hired for the stables for those of the first some people who
Speaker:haven't been to Disneyland Which most a lot of there's actually a lot of
Speaker:people who haven't been to disneyland.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, they're quite a few What's going on with the horses over there?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They do special events If you've ever seen like the fairy tale weddings, they
Speaker:pull cinderella's coach And there's also a daily operation with what we call
Speaker:the Main Street horse drawn streetcars.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Where like Main Street is like that turn of the century sort of technology.
Speaker:That's the daily parades, right?
Speaker:The daily parades go through the land.
Speaker:Yes, it does go through Main Street.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But when the parades are not happening, there's Basically a trolley on tracks,
Speaker:that's horse pulled that I got to work on.
Speaker:It looks like a set, like a, like a 1950s set.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A little bit.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They have they have like little Easter eggs on the windows.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's so cute.
Speaker:It's really cute.
Speaker:So you dealt a lot with that section, like carrying the horses and things like that.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So how does that then relate to Dealing with, cause those
Speaker:are dealing with live animals.
Speaker:What was that?
Speaker:Live guests.
Speaker:Live guests.
Speaker:Who are not paying attention to their surroundings and have a
Speaker:2000 pound animal coming at them.
Speaker:And they're just trying to take a selfie in front of the castle.
Speaker:And we're like, Hey, you got to move.
Speaker:We can stop the horse, but also.
Speaker:So everything in Disneyland is like a show.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Everything needs to be perfect.
Speaker:You yourself are a cast member.
Speaker:So it's just live quote unquote, because the park is a show.
Speaker:How do you deal with.
Speaker:It's like improv for serious.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, how do you deal with them messing with the horses
Speaker:or how do you keep the show on?
Speaker:Yeah, it, it brings me back to what you were asking about how you pivot in a live
Speaker:situation in my current role as well.
Speaker:Where it's just improv.
Speaker:It's yes anding, but without making it necessarily comedic.
Speaker:You just have to use that skill set of taking from your surroundings and
Speaker:trying to be like, Hey, very politely, we need you to move and not do that.
Speaker:These horses are going to kill you.
Speaker:They're so friendly.
Speaker:But yes, if you have a 2, 000 pound animal coming at you with a car
Speaker:attached to the back, we can stop.
Speaker:But, it would be nice to have some, it would be nice to have some leeway, yeah.
Speaker:And a lot of the horses they put blinders on them.
Speaker:Yes, they all have blinders.
Speaker:So if a certain angle, they're literally not going to see you.
Speaker:It's actually not even their fault if you come to them from a certain
Speaker:angle, they actually do not see you.
Speaker:And they're all really hard to spook, but please don't test that.
Speaker:And they are well trained, but they're also live animals, so they are
Speaker:unpredictable, just like live guests.
Speaker:So did you get promoted?
Speaker:You were a handler of animals, and then you got promoted to coordinator?
Speaker:To handler of people.
Speaker:Handler of people.
Speaker:The funniest like, you do so well with animals, now do people.
Speaker:Now do the real animals.
Speaker:We have the pretend trained animals, now deal with the real human animals.
Speaker:Yeah, here's your test run, and you've passed that, so here you go.
Speaker:But, one of my co workers actually transferred to the stable attendant role.
Speaker:From the role that I am now in.
Speaker:Oh, so you guys just switched.
Speaker:Yeah, she she recommended that I apply when the job opens.
Speaker:So that way she could take your job.
Speaker:She couldn't handle the real animals.
Speaker:What is this, Game of Thrones?
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Is this House of Cards?
Speaker:Where it's oh, we should switch positions.
Speaker:Why don't you be vice president?
Speaker:No, hey she went on to be a manager.
Speaker:She also got a promotion.
Speaker:But Yeah I just ended up applying for this role because it aligned
Speaker:with, yes, internally cause it aligned with my skill set.
Speaker:I have about seven years of stage management whereas I had
Speaker:two years of horse experience.
Speaker:So do you previously had some experience with drama?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you think that really helped you prepare for your job as a coordinator?
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And my job just as a general cast member, even while I was working
Speaker:with the horses, because it's just knowing how to talk to people.
Speaker:In high pressure situations and how to kindly, but sternly say, Hey,
Speaker:you're not supposed to be doing that.
Speaker:Please don't climb over the wall and try to jump in the moat.
Speaker:We really don't want you to do that.
Speaker:That happens a lot.
Speaker:Thanks so much.
Speaker:That happens like shockingly way more than you want it to.
Speaker:And the crazy part is the skill level and pressure level is heightened because
Speaker:these people are from all over the world.
Speaker:And a lot of, not a lot of them, but there's a potential that they
Speaker:could not understand what you're saying, regardless of your efforts.
Speaker:Some people assume like that.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:I speak English, French, and Spanish, so I'll be able to talk to everyone.
Speaker:That's not true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There are different dialects.
Speaker:There's all sorts of different things.
Speaker:In addition to you already being in a loud and noisy theme park
Speaker:environment, where there are way more interesting things to look at.
Speaker:It's almost like you have to play charades with some people.
Speaker:Yeah, it does feel like that, especially if you're trying to communicate from a
Speaker:long distance of especially while I was with the horses we would be in safety
Speaker:critical positions where we couldn't.
Speaker:Leave our post, but I would make eye contact with somebody who's doing
Speaker:something silly in front of the castle.
Speaker:And I'm like, Hey, no, cut it.
Speaker:Don't do that.
Speaker:But I can't yell because I don't want to interrupt everybody else's day.
Speaker:We can make eye contact and you're like, you're not supposed to be doing that.
Speaker:Where's your parents?
Speaker:Very much charades speaking.
Speaker:Speaking of that, could you speak to, we were talking about this beforehand.
Speaker:The number one rule of Disney is not interrupting what?
Speaker:Not interrupting number one, guest flow, but also guest experience.
Speaker:Because, like you were saying, they're, it's all a giant show.
Speaker:And everything is supposed to be perfect, all the time.
Speaker:It's quite interesting once again, I worked at Disney World, so I'm sure there
Speaker:are, there's only corporate overlaps, I'm sure, between Disney World and Disneyland.
Speaker:But I do remember there are certain ways that you have to point if something,
Speaker:if some guest is doing something that they're not supposed to, you cannot
Speaker:go up there and be like, stop it.
Speaker:You need to go hire security.
Speaker:Not hire.
Speaker:You're going to tell Disney security.
Speaker:They'll call them.
Speaker:They'll call them.
Speaker:And a lot of times, Disney security is actually.
Speaker:They're friendlier up front.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Way, way more friendly than you think they would be.
Speaker:They're super nice.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I've never, I did, I was on the entertainment side, right?
Speaker:Like dancing and whatnot.
Speaker:And I also worked in food and beverage too, a little bit.
Speaker:You got both.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I got both of those roles.
Speaker:But being a coordinator, I'm sure there's some technical skills
Speaker:that you might need to know.
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:What those might be?
Speaker:Some of them are just, radio skills and being able to feel confident
Speaker:communicating with people from distances.
Speaker:When you say radio skills, you mean Saying 10 4.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:No one like radio slang.
Speaker:All the lingo.
Speaker:Yeah, all the lingo, they teach you at Disney what the specific Disney
Speaker:radio slang is, but feeling confident with that will give you a leg up.
Speaker:And then in some of my events, we end up calling the show meaning that we
Speaker:have a headset on and everybody else Who is in charge of actually pushing the
Speaker:buttons to make the lights or sound or what have you actually happen is also
Speaker:on that same channel on the headset.
Speaker:And so then you're the one who ends up, saying this happened now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Execute.
Speaker:Is there some cause I'm thinking now since you're recording, there's probably
Speaker:some things you have to memorize.
Speaker:Do you like?
Speaker:Like, how long does it take to train for that coordinator job?
Speaker:Like, how long do you shadow someone?
Speaker:Because I'm sure that Anyone who's been to Disney is going to know that
Speaker:the Magic Castle looks nothing like Space Mountain, looks nothing like,
Speaker:over, near Splash Mountain or whatever.
Speaker:But as a coordinator, you can afford to say, oh, I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So how long does that training usually take?
Speaker:Strangely enough For my role, it was about three days of what
Speaker:we call classroom three days.
Speaker:And then that's like your groundwork.
Speaker:After three days, you're good.
Speaker:Okay, go just go ahead and figure it out for like just basic knowledge.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:For when I got trained to do like the actual shows and stuff that was.
Speaker:One day of training of shadowing and then one day where somebody shadowed
Speaker:me and made sure that I know I knew what I was doing So you so seems
Speaker:like you didn't get enough training.
Speaker:You have to just figure it out.
Speaker:Yeah I was about to say it seems like it's bad to the wolves a little
Speaker:bit Yeah I guess you since you have previous stable experience.
Speaker:They were like No, I don't think they would have cared if she had
Speaker:any prior experience They're just like you can either do this job
Speaker:or you can't honestly like They, is it a lot of pressure like that?
Speaker:I wouldn't say pressure, but I would say they're gonna push you.
Speaker:Until you don't feel comfortable.
Speaker:But if you don't feel comfortable, they will give you more training.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was That's fair.
Speaker:That's fair.
Speaker:I had the leg up of knowing how to call a show.
Speaker:Because of all of my stage management experience.
Speaker:So I was like, all, I'm fine.
Speaker:It's just a matter of learning this specific space.
Speaker:How we can This specific way of doing things.
Speaker:Exactly, yeah.
Speaker:The Disney way.
Speaker:The Disney way, yes.
Speaker:Which has been the hardest learning curve for me, is that I have all of this
Speaker:experience that transfers over nicely in terms of My abilities, but it's learning
Speaker:how to apply those abilities to the Disney way because there are so many Different
Speaker:tiny departments that don't exist anywhere else except for such a large
Speaker:corporation So do you feel like that?
Speaker:This was obviously this is more like the big time version of what you used to do
Speaker:Yeah, I feel like in a way but in another way It's completely different, because
Speaker:other people might consider like Broadway, the big leagues of stage management.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which is completely different because you are on your own and you're in
Speaker:charge of all your crew, and yes, you partner with departments, but
Speaker:there's no massive corporate overlord, with all the red tape necessarily.
Speaker:There probably is some, I don't know, so maybe, yeah, but this is very
Speaker:niche in terms of it just being theme park specific, do you do a lot of.
Speaker:Is it a lot of doing the same show or is there a bunch of, she's saying it.
Speaker:No, she's saying it.
Speaker:Immediately, my brain went absolutely not.
Speaker:And that is why I love my job.
Speaker:No day is ever the same.
Speaker:One thing that I would ask you is, so I've previously been a stage manager.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then not as much as you, but I've done it before.
Speaker:Now, after a show, you usually give notes.
Speaker:Is there giving notes to the people after the show or you're
Speaker:just like that's how that went?
Speaker:It depends.
Speaker:Usually, for our shows and the way that things go, no.
Speaker:Because it's usually just a one off guest group who's coming to perform
Speaker:for one day, and then they're done.
Speaker:Oh, and then that's And then they might come back next year,
Speaker:if they'd like to come back.
Speaker:Groups are they in Disney World, once again, there might be some differences.
Speaker:But they usually range from high school bands, to I remember
Speaker:Lincoln Park was there one time.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:Stuff like that.
Speaker:Is it that, you find that huge range all the time?
Speaker:I feel like my department Usually handles more of the high school, the middle school
Speaker:to college to professional range, but not as big as like Lincoln park, because
Speaker:then that gets delegated to a different stage management department as a union.
Speaker:So you still have some ways to work your way up the ladder for
Speaker:you're like, Oh, guess what?
Speaker:Hey, I'm so you're.
Speaker:Your entry level stage manager at Disney.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Entry boss.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She's the entry boss.
Speaker:She's the new fresh boss.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The fresh boss.
Speaker:She's level one boss.
Speaker:We're working our way up, but.
Speaker:Is there another position that you, so you're working there for three years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You really enjoy your job.
Speaker:Is there somewhere that you want to be above that?
Speaker:Or are you just I'm just riding out the wave.
Speaker:I, cause right now you're at, huh?
Speaker:Yeah, cause right now I do love that no day is the same.
Speaker:Whereas I know that if I go into one of the roles that's actually
Speaker:listed as stage manager, quote unquote, that is going to be Calling
Speaker:the same show over and over again.
Speaker:And yes, obviously, it's still live theater, things are gonna go crazy,
Speaker:things are gonna be different, but it's gonna be a little bit more
Speaker:monotonous, for lack of a better word.
Speaker:I'm sure it's still eventful, I'm sure it's still awesome and fun because
Speaker:you get to know the people and the performers that you're working with.
Speaker:But I also really enjoy the aspects of my job where I
Speaker:don't know what's coming at me.
Speaker:I don't know who I'm gonna meet today.
Speaker:I don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker:I don't have the opportunity to give notes.
Speaker:But I have to problem solve in the moment.
Speaker:Yeah, I think also it's the thing is it's a different type of anxiety because as a
Speaker:stage manager while you're watching the show, the crazy part for me was whenever I
Speaker:was doing it, you would watch these actors jump huge sections of lines and pages.
Speaker:And you'd pray that everyone else catches on.
Speaker:Fasten up, they would jump like 10 pages and then they would jump back 20 pages.
Speaker:Yes, I was about to say.
Speaker:You have to, and you have to like notate that.
Speaker:And then at the end of the show, you have to tell them like, and then the thing is
Speaker:they make it seem like nothing happened.
Speaker:Because the audience has no idea.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And you're just like, how are you doing this?
Speaker:See you, see, I lucked out.
Speaker:Both of you had like serious.
Speaker:You're you're currently a stage manager.
Speaker:You had some stage manager experience.
Speaker:When I didn't even, first of all, this was not stage managing, but when I did
Speaker:stuff in the circus, it was just like, Hey, if it's wrong, someone falls.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:That's, if you do something wrong, somebody dies, right?
Speaker:So there's no go back.
Speaker:And but for you guys, it's like people have that fluidity
Speaker:to go back and forth, right?
Speaker:Potentially.
Speaker:So is there actually, and they all love getting notes.
Speaker:What is it like telling someone like, Hey, come here.
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:What is your game plan?
Speaker:Let's say that.
Speaker:Let's say that one of us messed up.
Speaker:We Improv it.
Speaker:So no one noticed and really ruin it, but it's off.
Speaker:What is your first go to thing?
Speaker:You like the positivity sandwich or no, that honestly it irks me, but.
Speaker:I do, I respect people who do it well.
Speaker:I have just seen too many people do it poorly where they're like, you're great.
Speaker:Here's a really bad thing that you did.
Speaker:You're still great.
Speaker:And I'm not how that works.
Speaker:That's absolutely not how that works.
Speaker:This is what you did.
Speaker:Don't do that again.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I know the audience didn't notice, but I did and the people upstairs, if they,
Speaker:if say they told me, if you do that again, that's it have some words for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, my, my favorite thing to do is to genuinely just reflect it back
Speaker:to them for a minute and say, Hey.
Speaker:How do you feel about today?
Speaker:I was just about to ask that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was just about to ask so professional way of doing it.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:How do you think that went?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And they were like what would you have changed?
Speaker:That's one of my favorites because most of the time.
Speaker:Hopefully.
Speaker:They're aware of it, and so I feel like it'll cement a little bit better if
Speaker:they have the opportunity to reflect for themselves instead of me walking up to
Speaker:them and being like, hey, you screwed up.
Speaker:Hey, guess what?
Speaker:They'll block that out, most likely.
Speaker:Because they won't be receptive to it.
Speaker:And that's my psych theory coming into play.
Speaker:So relaying it to So here on Film Center, we talk a lot
Speaker:about the film movie industry.
Speaker:Yeah, and interestingly enough I was just telling Nicholas this Sometime
Speaker:before I think it was a few days ago that there are a lot of things that
Speaker:overlap between theater and being on set yeah, right and something that's really
Speaker:necessary is the Production manager the unit of the unit production manager.
Speaker:So I was like, oh he's like a stage coordinator, right?
Speaker:Yeah the production manager has to make sure all the extras are
Speaker:there and they're there on time and then they have to coordinate.
Speaker:Okay, make sure the stars are over here, but then they delegate
Speaker:to PAs and things like that.
Speaker:And one thing that I've always noticed that shows a really good pre PM is
Speaker:they know how to delegate people.
Speaker:To things that they are good at like first says, let's say Steve's an
Speaker:introvert, but he's good with numbers.
Speaker:I'm not going to then tell Steve, Hey, go hang out with all the extras and
Speaker:rally them, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:But he might be great with, Oh, I need you to go, pick something
Speaker:up or something like that.
Speaker:Figure out logistics for this one thing.
Speaker:How do you know who to delegate to?
Speaker:I think it's exactly that, is making sure that you have built
Speaker:that rapport with your crew.
Speaker:Is there having relationships really important?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:So important.
Speaker:And I feel like it's something that gets overlooked.
Speaker:Where, I don't know, at least in my experience, I've seen times where managers
Speaker:or just anybody who's in charge of a team, regardless of title, will just
Speaker:look at like concrete achievements.
Speaker:And they won't look at the person as a whole where they won't
Speaker:take the time to say, Hey, what do you think you're good at?
Speaker:What makes you happy?
Speaker:What do you like to do?
Speaker:In this role specifically, not like outside of work.
Speaker:We'll meet outside of work if you have time.
Speaker:I want to be the bowling coordinator.
Speaker:Don't you need that?
Speaker:But.
Speaker:But trying to find that marriage of what somebody's good at and what
Speaker:they enjoy doing, and then trying to delegate them to something that's
Speaker:either exactly that, or adjacent, or similar, or something that you think
Speaker:is a thing that could help them grow.
Speaker:Something that they're decent at, but show a lot of potential.
Speaker:Decent but have potential.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But have potential.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Speaking of Figuring out and marrying both things together What was working
Speaker:at Disney like during the strikes?
Speaker:Oh, it Was that Can you talk about what that was like?
Speaker:Yeah, it Was it any different?
Speaker:It was interesting for me, because our department doesn't handle
Speaker:any Union performers directly.
Speaker:But we could see the aftermath the ripples.
Speaker:Because I was driving by the studios, not work related, but, they're all
Speaker:of the protests and the strikes were over there and just seeing how that
Speaker:affected the events as a whole and slowly rippled back to our department.
Speaker:How would they ripple?
Speaker:Every once in a while, our department gets tapped to do like the holiday
Speaker:special, the holiday spectacular the ABC one that But that's ABC.
Speaker:Which is networked.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:That got cancelled.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We got, we didn't end up doing that.
Speaker:There were just a couple of like little tentative things that
Speaker:got pulled, and just one by one.
Speaker:They would disappear.
Speaker:And so then what do you, so then what do you as a coordinator put on when
Speaker:you have a show to put on and it's not the one that was, it's canceled.
Speaker:So what do you do?
Speaker:We just, we went with our other daily operations of just working
Speaker:with our guest groups and trying to give them a good experience.
Speaker:If they would ask about anything, what would you tell them?
Speaker:I luckily I did not have to, I did not have to even.
Speaker:mention it.
Speaker:Do you think they were so caught up in it being Disneyland that Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:'cause I, I had a lot of feelings about it and.
Speaker:I, my, my views may not align with Disney's at the time.
Speaker:Oh, no, we went outside of Disney.
Speaker:Was it Disney?
Speaker:We yeah, we were outside of Disney the first day.
Speaker:This, we were the first day.
Speaker:And then we also went outside of Paramount.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we were.
Speaker:All right, actually dj had to tell me like hey, man, what are you guys
Speaker:you're saying we were harassing I was not there was no we it was you Who was
Speaker:going to look up to the car's windows?
Speaker:It was just like, and dj was like hey, man, what are you doing?
Speaker:Like you're getting in front of the cars But to be fair the reason
Speaker:me and I can't say I did nothing but nicholas was like the leader
Speaker:He was the leader of the hypnosis.
Speaker:And part of the reason is because we thought that they
Speaker:weren't striking well enough.
Speaker:However, they were all just chillin on the side, and I was
Speaker:like, what are you guys doing?
Speaker:Are we all actors and writers?
Speaker:Like, how are we not being really creative about the way that we're harassing.
Speaker:What would your character do right now?
Speaker:How are we not being creative?
Speaker:Gotta give them the method.
Speaker:Act a little bit.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:How are we not being creative about how we're harassing these people?
Speaker:. Like I was walking and I had one writer.
Speaker:My sign was gimme some money so I can feed my ducks.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And there was a creative, there was like a illustrator or somebody like that.
Speaker:And all I had was just the sentence.
Speaker:So what he did is he drew a duck.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:On my, he was a really good duck actually.
Speaker:Yeah, it was duck really?
Speaker:It was a suit.
Speaker:And then everyone was like, oh, you drew that duck.
Speaker:And he was like, it's a great duck, right?
Speaker:And they were like, yeah.
Speaker:He was just like avoid the question.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:And so I would just, I, everybody was just chilling off to the side.
Speaker:I was like, what are we doing?
Speaker:Let's get in this.
Speaker:. And I was just like.
Speaker:Honk the horn, very funny.
Speaker:And I think that as a stage manager or as a stage coordinator, you might also feel
Speaker:the same way when the, I, we covered this previously on the show that I actually
Speaker:was not going to strike and then that they don't really have a reason to.
Speaker:And they haven't for a very long time.
Speaker:But because of the events of this year, they're planning on it.
Speaker:Ayanci also covers makeup.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you see that, if they do, not saying that they're guaranteed,
Speaker:but, we learned after that episode.
Speaker:Have you heard any grumblings of it?
Speaker:There, there was a moment a couple months ago.
Speaker:Mid WGA strike that we thought we were going to have to shut down our operation.
Speaker:A shutdown at Disney's that's huge.
Speaker:They don't shut down for anything.
Speaker:There was a minute where our department was thinking What was preceding
Speaker:the potential moment of shutdown?
Speaker:Just all of those grumblings.
Speaker:Everyone was talking about it.
Speaker:Everyone was talking about, oh, it might be happening this next week.
Speaker:And that's really short notice, especially if you have, a
Speaker:whole week of events planned.
Speaker:So that was a brief minute where we thought we were gonna have to.
Speaker:Just cancel everything.
Speaker:So I would imagine what you're saying is that it was a lot easier to handle
Speaker:it at Disney because everybody was in the Disney haze of everything.
Speaker:A little bit.
Speaker:But since our techs are union, if they had, if they, they
Speaker:decided not to be there Exactly.
Speaker:Everything would've come to a screeching halt.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Were the texts acting different?
Speaker:Is that why you were like, oh, it might happen?
Speaker:Like but it was also just, subtle things posted on social media or like just
Speaker:word of mouth of like little whispers that, hey, this might be happening.
Speaker:Keep your be prepared.
Speaker:Just keep your ears open, huh?
Speaker:But yeah, but on the guest front, I think you're right that people.
Speaker:Sometimes, at least the groups who come to us are so excited
Speaker:to just either be performing or doing a workshop that they forget.
Speaker:So they just leave it behind.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:They're in Disneyland now.
Speaker:The outside world no longer exists.
Speaker:The land of the lotus eaters.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's been really great having you on the the show.
Speaker:Is there anywhere someone people can follow you?
Speaker:We didn't even get to talk about her cosplay.
Speaker:We talked about her shot the whole time.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Is there anywhere people can follow you?
Speaker:Yeah, I am on Instagram as TayMakesMagic, which is the most Disney cast member thing
Speaker:I could ever name myself, but that is me.
Speaker:Hey, it works if it works, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I have more than Disney on there.
Speaker:Aiming to add more.
Speaker:So super fun.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:Guys, this has been film center.
Speaker:I'm Derek Johnson.
Speaker:The second Nicholas Killian and I'm Taylor, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See y'all.
Speaker:This has been film center on comic con radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at film center, news.
Speaker:com sign up for our newsletter and get the Hollywood trade straight to you.
Speaker:You can follow the show at film center news on all major platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next week for a.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
