I have thirty years in TV however, so I have a quite accomplished ability to deal with people without names.
I remember reading somewhere that people who work in TV just call everybody the same name due to there being so many people to work with. Is this true? If so, what is the name?
It depends.
There's the traditional "darling" which actually doesn't happen that often, especially in Manchester.
Camera operators are frequently called by number, even though their name is usually displayed along with the number - e.g. "Two, give me an MCU, Three give me a closeup" etc.
Vision Engineers are "Racks" - usually shouted with an exclamation mark, and usually when someone notices that the iris is fully open (or closed!) on a shot.
Lighting Directors are "Lighting", in the sense of "We're just waiting for Lighting to get their programming done" even though the programming is done by the Console Operator whilst the LD is on the floor, and the Electricians are mostly "Sparks" apart from the Gaffer. The Moving Lights Op is often invisible to the production team unless they switch them off.
Then they get noticed.
Stagehands are "Stags" or "OompahLoompahs", Support Engineers are "Engineering", Sound Supervisor and minions are "Sound".
A roomful of people of any description is "Chaps" - a non-gender-specific form of address in this instance.
Specialist operators are invariably called by their company name - Lumina, Round One, etc. for scoring, GFX or pixel screens.
Master Control is "MCR" regardless of who answers the phone, etc., etc.
Then there are the nicknames - camera ops get this a lot. Anyone called Harris is "Bomber", Tony is "Tiger", the surname Bacon means you get called "Rasher" and so on, and these are put on the display instead of actual names in a lot of cases.
In short, there's often one name for a group of people rather than a person, and a person may not be called by their actual name most of the time.
