“Your mission, Baker, should you choose to accept it, is to (rescue some convoluted and poorly planned show). As always, should you or any of your audio crew be caught or killed, my client will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This email will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Baker.” Cue music, and another harrowing impossible mission begins.
Fortunately, none of my impossible mission team has ever been killed, at least not on one of my shows, but we have certainly been caught and tortured. Usually, the torture is my own self-inflicted flagellation for accepting the mission in the first place, but it’s easy to be lured into the impossible when someone is presenting a large bag of money to complete the job. I thought that as the Mission Impossible team never turned down a challenge, that I shouldn’t turn down a challenge, either. I would rise to the task, get the job done and be the unsung hero. It wasn’t until well into my career that I realized I could actually turn down job offers — regardless of the cash rewards. It also dawned on me that for the television and film shows, I was only privy to the missions that the IM team accepted, considering that watching Mr. Phelps refuse a job really wouldn’t be much of a show.
No Cloak, No Dagger
Granted, my assignments are never as dangerous as removing a leader from their country, nor do they carry the weight of averting global disasters, but try telling that to a client once the job has been accepted. As far as they are concerned, the world will come to an end if they can’t do their show.
Unfortunately, they have probably accepted a big a bag of money from their client without knowing that it would be a mission impossible. So, in a fit of panic, they are now looking to pawn off the responsibility on some unsuspecting sound company. Being that I am very suspecting while realizing that my superpowers are limited, I have no qualms about saying “no” after the email self-destructs. Interestingly, clients are persistent and don’t easily accept a negative reaction to their impossible demands. Possibly, nobody else would accept their invitation to attempt the impossible, so they are clutching at straws by badgering me.
Be Strong
However, whatever the reason might be, I have learned to be strong. Whether it’s due to my age or my incredible wisdom, I now tend to be more conservative in my ambitions, and I lean towards the improbable missions rather than the impossible. I know that “Mission Improbable” is not as sexy sounding as “Mission Impossible,” but at this point in my life, I’ll leave the sexy and impossible part to someone who still needs to prove themselves. Also, my superpowers and patience are not the same as they used to be. The problem is, as I see it, that once an unsuspecting, neophyte (or just hungry for anything) production company accepts the terms to the impossible mission, it becomes their problem and they have to deliver it while the client can, in so many ways, wash their hands of their own impossible creation.
I have realized that there is no honor lost by refusing an impossible mission, and in many cases, the client will call back to see if I might cave in and accept the mission when offered a bigger bag of money. Letting them know that more money is always better, but that it won’t solve the problem at hand, I then take that opportunity to try and downgrade the impossible to the improbable. It’s amazing how flexible people become when they are desperate, and quite often, my negotiations reduce the untenable situation to a plausible one. I have written about stupid gigs before, and to be clear, the difference between an impossible gig and a stupid gig is that the stupid gig is the one I agreed to do.
One Real-World Example
Just recently, I received a call from a client who was working with well-known search engine company and they wanted to stage a seven-piece band in Times Square on a 24’x8’ flatbed truck with upright truss on the stage for bannering. Plus, they planned to have a 60K generator on stage left of the flatbed. When all would be said and done, the seven-piece band would have about 12’x8’ of stage on which to set up and play. They weren’t able to set up the stage until 1 p.m., and the band needed to soundcheck at 3 p.m. for a 4 p.m. show. Knowing that this was undoable, they decided on a strategy to set up the stage and gear in another parking lot at 10 a.m., do their check, strike the gear and move everything to Times Square for the 1 p.m. set up. I was to bring, not only the backline, but a Quantum 338 console for FOH and an SD10 for monitors, split, distro, a d&b audiotechnik V8 line array stacked four over two per side, a couple of d&b monitor wedges and PSM1000 in-ears. Again, I let the email self-destruct and then said I would not accept the mission. That, of course wasn’t the end of it, but rather the beginning of negotiations.
They were very clear that they needed to do this event, but after explaining my reasons for refusing the impossible, they must have regrouped and come up with a new plan because they then came back at me with a load-in time to Times Square of 10 a.m. and that it would now be a DJ playing and not a band. Gear could be cut back; time could be had and stage room was granted. A simple negotiation had turned the impossible well beyond the improbable to a mission probable. No sir, my days of heroics are over, and as much as I would like to fancy myself as the good guy saving the day and accepting the impossible mission (cue music) dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum dum, I have grown rather traditional in my approach to putting on events and shows with no need to prove myself anymore by overachieving. Like I said, it may not be as sexy, but I’ll stick with being the team for mission improbable.
