The language of set

The world of a film set is a mysterious and wonderful place to those on the outside, and it is a world that has developed it's own language and culture. Anthropologists should study this culture, sociologists should write about it, and if Ebonics get's its own additions to the dictionary - then film sets should too. The sheer fact that you can overhear "Go grab me a butt plug," with the ease others might as for the salt to be passed at the dinner table, should tell you something. Let me give you a few simple examples...

You wouldn't want to be traveling and not be able to ask someone a simple question like "Where is a bathroom?" In the same way one of the first things you need to learn on set, as with learning any language, is how to communicate about that same need. Now film sets are full of people on Walkies, in fact a herd of PA's (production assistants for those of you who don't know) will have to keep up with an elaborate code of information passed through those walkies. In a situation like that you can't say that the lead actor is in the bathroom when people start asking for them! So the simple code for going to the bathroom is "I'm going 10-1." Or "I'm going 10-2" (if it's a #2). Or "I'm going 10-1 for a while" (if you're actually feeling sick and may be gone for a bit more than the allotted 60 seconds). The fastest way to tell that it's a PA's first gig is when they tell you they are off to the bathroom... clearly they have not learned their first language lesson.

These language lessons get more advanced depending on the department you work in, with the clear PhD's to be found in the Grip & Electric departments. These guys are incredibly difficult to understand at times. They have names for every piece of equipment that they work with, every connector to put those pieces together, and every kind of coffee/cigarette/soda-break they can invent. It is in these departments that things get extreme as the "butt plug," which disappointingly is just a simple piece of equipment for a light stand. They chat on and on about "3-fer's" "quacker clamps" "duckbills" "apple boxes" "stinger's" and "C47's" and none of the rest
know what they are saying. It's only the chosen few who ever need to delve this deep into this mysterious language.

As a sage of a gaffer once said, "Get me a baby baby on a pigeon on a pancake with some schmutz on it and kick her in the side of the face with it." --Guy Vergolini (clearly an advanced student of the film language)