Admin

The Production Manager - Roll on the wrap party

March 31, 2009

This past week has been non-stop and I’m exhausted. Fortunately I had time off between my last production and this one so I have the stamina for it…barely.

From what I can ascertain there are a couple of different problems affecting the production, two minor and one major. The minor ones involve an LA crew working with a NY production team; there have been several handbags at dawn moments between the DOP and Producer. Another issue is that the team seems more interested in getting jiggy with one another than actually working but that is a different matter.

The number one issue we are having is the talent attempting to drive the narrative; very politely but firmly insisting we shoot certain events. We are not preventing them from attending any meetings, I mean that they want us to break the schedule and actually get these meetings on camera because they feel it is part of the show. This wouldn’t be so bad if not for two things 1) it undermines and frustrates the producer who is responsible for making sure everything shot in the field makes linear sense for the edit and 2) it totally fucks the schedule.

Don’t believe me? Try this:

To slot a 10 min on-camera meeting into a fully scheduled 12 hour day, I need to free up approx 1.25 hours, which means trimming other meetings and cutting cameras to enable the team to be in two places at once while praying mightily for no major traffic problems or other hold ups.

Because talent insists on traveling separately, even from one another we’re not able to do a traditional (and convenient) point and shoot. The team therefore needs to arrive 30 minutes before to set up and another 30 afterwards to de-rig, load the gear and move to the next destination. At the moment, the schedule is so tight we have PAs setting, lighting and de-rigging with camera and sound rushing in to literally point and shoot before running off in a cab to the next location. It’s real fly by the seat of your pants stuff and a hell of a lot of work for thirty seconds of camera time, that doesn’t drive the narrative and may not make it to the screen.

Imagine having to slot two of those in per day, at the last minute, into an already over stuffed schedule and you can begin to imagine my week. Thank goodness tomorrow is the last day.

Roll on the wrap party, I’ve earned it!