From Tea Breaks to Coffee and Cigarettes

There are some things you expect when you start working between two countries.

Different locations. Different crews. Different food.

But what you don't necessarily expect is just how different the culture of filmmaking can be.

I've spent a large part of my career working in the UK, and now, based in Italy, I increasingly find myself moving between British and Italian productions. Almost everything around the job has its own little set of rules, and sometimes you only discover those rules when you get them wrong.

Language

In the UK, one of the great advantages of working across the country is that, broadly speaking, the language of the industry is the same everywhere.

You can work in London, Manchester, Glasgow or Bristol and English is English. There are accents and regional expressions, of course, but the technical language of a film set stays fairly consistent.

Italy is a completely different animal.

Everyone speaks Italian, but there are countless regional dialects, expressions and ways of saying things, and even the technical language changes depending on where you are. Something you hear on a set in Milan isn't necessarily what you'd hear on a set in Rome.

Then there are the accents.

As someone from the north of Italy, working with a Roman crew can sometimes involve a second layer of translation. You know they're speaking Italian. You speak Italian. And yet you're standing there thinking: what the hell did he just say?

It's not only language, either. I've found that working on films in Rome and working on commercials in Milan can feel like two quite different production cultures.

I once asked for a 6x6 frame. Coming from England, I meant six feet by six feet. The Italian grip laser eyed me! he thought I wanted six metres by six metres. My bad!

Maestro

Sometimes you're called "Maestro."

In the UK, you're generally the DP, the DoP, or just whatever your name happens to be. In Italy, someone might walk up to you and say, "Maestro…" And there's something wonderfully Italian about it. You're standing there trying to decide whether you want another half stop on the key light, and suddenly you're apparently a master of your craft. It's funny, and oddly profound.

Gaffer or grip?

Another difference that becomes very apparent is the division between the gaffer and the grip.

In Italy, there tends to be a clear line between the two: electrical work belongs to the electrician or gaffer, while metal, mechanical structures, frames, flags and similar equipment belong to the grip.

In the UK, those boundaries are considerably more fluid. Depending on the size of the production, it's perfectly normal for a British gaffer to rig a frame. In Italy, particularly on larger productions, the electrician rigs the light while the grip handles the frames, flags and support. They're simply different ways of organising the same job.

As a DP, you have to understand those differences, because your job isn't just knowing where you want the light, it's knowing who you need to ask to put it there.

Film commissions

Then there's another layer that becomes apparent when you move between the two countries: the infrastructure around filmmaking itself.

Film commissions play a much more visible role in Italian productions, particularly because of the country's regional nature. You're not simply dealing with Italy as one filmmaking environment. You're dealing with regions, municipalities, locations, permits, local crews, and the various structures that support productions coming into those areas.

Coming from the UK, where you can think of the country as one relatively connected production territory, the Italian system can feel much more fragmented, but also much more local. And that's something I've actually come to appreciate. The location you're shooting in isn't just a backdrop; there's often a whole local production ecosystem around it.

Every region has its own film commission, and each offers different incentives depending on your project. Veneto, for example, has a program to cover location scouts, where they'll physically take you around and dedicate their time to your project's needs.

And then there's lunch

This is probably one of the biggest cultural differences of all.

In the UK, lunch on a film set tends to be treated as something you need to get through. You grab a sandwich, find somewhere to sit, and eat it fairly quickly. Then it's back on set. There's a very British sense of “right, let's get this done and get back to work”.

In Italy, lunch is different. Lunch is actually almost always lunch. You sit down. You eat. You talk. You have a proper meal. There's a recognition that this is part of the working day, but it's also part of life. It isn't that an Italian production is less serious about work, it's that the relationship with food, socialising and taking a break is fundamentally different.

I learned this particularly well on one British production shooting in Italy. The call sheet had quite reasonably specified that no alcohol was to be consumed during working hours, fair enough. Then we went to lunch at a local restaurant, and the Italian crew sat down, looked at the menu, and almost immediately started ordering wine.

From the British production's perspective, this obviously wasn't what the call sheet meant. But from the Italian perspective, having a glass of wine with your pasta, sitting at a table with your meal, wasn't some wild act of rebellion. It was lunch.

Hold for sound

Italy is loud. Besides the sets themselves, where crews are certainly more animated and vocally present than their British counterparts (perhaps espresso is to blame) there's another kind of loudness you quickly become familiar with.

Generally speaking, you hold for sound a lot longer here. Soundies are often at the mercy of a teenager riding a two stroke moped that never arrives and never seems to leave. That's just one of many examples, beyond your usual airplanes and lawnmowers.

Be nice to sound. It's a hard craft over here.

Top tip!

If you're new to Italian movie sets and all of a sudden you hear the 1st AD scream at the top of his lungs  "MOTOREEEE!"  you're not in danger. We're about to roll cameras.