Production Diary of a Producer: The ACTION! Shoot
Today, the long-awaited (and somewhat dreaded) day had finally come: We were filming for ACTION!
While everything had gone wrong in the pre-production that could possibly go wrong, the film production today turned out to be quite nice after a rocky start. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
More Pre-Production Struggles During the Week
During this week, it seemed that we would finally be able to film on this weekend. We’ve had our actors confirmed, the location confirmed, and even accepted the reality of a bad weather and a continuous shower throughout the day. I’ve managed to borrow a gazebo from the producer for Builders, Adam, finalised the call sheet and not only created a viable schedule with lots of safety shots, but also managed to drum up a transport plan for cast and crew.
Until late Wednesday night, when disaster struck again. This time, it did in form of an occupational hindrance for one of our main actors. As it turned out, that actor, working in hospitality, had been called in to work for all the remaining weekends in December and thus could not participate anymore. While I was most grateful for his foresight and decency to inform us about the issue, this also meant that we would either need to reschedule, recast, or rewrite the script.
Since time was beginning to run out (we would only have until 14 December to get this commercial filmed), we decided that rescheduling again was not an option, even less so regarding the fact that we would lose more hours of light and encounter even more difficult weather along the road. So upon informing my crew about the loss of one actor, I asked our director Lynley to rewrite the script just in case we would not manage to drum up another actor in the remaining timeframe from Thursday morning to Saturday morning.
On Thursday, we then discussed the issue with our lecturer and, on our behalf, he asked another befriended actor of his to fill in for us. And the actor indeed came back to him, being interested and eager in the role we had to offer. So I emailed him at the address given and waited for him to reply.
In the meantime, while we were waiting, we worked on our contingency plan and asked a voice-actor friend of Lynley to record the lines of the missing actor, as they could still very well serve as a voice over without compromising on the story. And after giving him the required technical specs for the audio files, he came back with a splendid, noise-free recording that we could put onto the clip later on.
I then asked Lynley to take care of the meal orders from the diner that we would frequent, since I was taken up by the update of the call sheet that I had to undertake. For now, we were not only one actor short, but we also had a strike action occurring on Saturday, which meant that one of our other two actors would not be able to make it to Preston Park.
While I had looked up their connection online prior to scheduling and found trains that would connect and bring them to Preston Park, one of these trains got cancelled for one of the actors, which rendered the shoot impossible on the budget that we have. For picking up the actor and bringing him back home would have cost more than both train tickets combined.
So I had to reschedule the shoot to Sunday, which meant that I would not only have to update the details for the weather, but also create the schedule around the possible arrival times of our actors and schedule sensibly, which took quite a long time.
After that, I booked out the equipment, had my risk assessment and location information form checked and countersigned and darted off to finalise the paperwork for the shoot on Sunday, making sure that everyone was on the same page. The new actor that we would have received, sadly did not come back to us. And as he has not gotten back to us until Saturday 17.00 – my personal deadline for me to be able to move on and make the final preparations – I then decided to finalise the call sheet and send it out to cast and crew.
Today: The Shoot Day
Today started at 5:30 for me. Since Katie and I were supposed to be picked up at 8:00 by Hannah, my lovely production assistant for this endeavour, I had an early morning to make sure I have all the relevant equipment, props, and essentials for the crafty table packed and ready. This entailed, amongst others, a thermal flask with a volume of 3 liters, filled with hot water. So while I put the kettle on, I also packed the food items for the crafty table, double-checked on all the props and all the equipment I had a last time, and layered up for a rainy day outside.
Except it wasn’t rainy.
While it had certainly rained during the night, the weather was rather clear and the air fresh. After Hannah had picked both of us up (and what felt like to be tons of equipment and food), we drove into a lovely sunrise with a lot of mist. The weather seemed to be stable and despite the fact that drizzle was forecast from 6:00 until 10:00, not a single drop fell from the sky.
When we finally arrived at Preston Park, the temperatures were still quite chilly, but we were eager to get started. Until, we hit the road within the park itself, that is. For the consequent rain of the past week had rendered the terrain really wet, and slippery, and the amount of fallen leaves did not help our cause.
Due to this fact, we had to forfeit the location we had settled on in the first place, as this was only reachable via a – now literal – slippery slope and just too dangerous to operate in. We thus moved to our number two location that we had found on our way to the first location. Whilst our director and cinematographer were settling on the exact spot to use, Katie, Hannah, and I made sure to set up our unit base to get going. For, we had already lost 15 minutes in the search for another location.
However, as we were about to set up and Lynley and Nathan were fetching more equipment, a charity group had set up their table that was in rather close proximity to us. We did not think much of it, as they were still far enough away from both our set base, as well as our location, and as there was still a lot of space left for both of our groups to safely operate in without disturbing one another. However, we experienced a major hiccup in our schedule and production plan when we suddenly approached by one member of said group and kicked off that bit of land.
Being the producer of this commercial, I tried to negotiate with the lady, explaining the situation to her and asking whether it was possible to share that piece of land, given it was rather spacious for both of our purposes and our groups. I explained to her that I had gotten permission from the senior manager to film then and there and that our project was for a commercial, and that we would be unable to reschedule due to the costs attached to it.
However, it seemed that not even the slightest compromise was possible as the lady kept on claiming she had booked in her event for months and paid dear money and insinuated that she would get the managers to kick us out otherwise if we didn’t comply. Since I was not keen on losing our location literally in the last minute (and since I could not offer Preston Park the money they would lose again if the other event fell through), I faltered and went to look for Lynley and Nathan, to find another location.
By the time we found them, settled on location number three, and brought all the equipment down there, we were already behind 45 minutes in our schedule. Whilst setting up, we had a park manager coming up to us and apologising for the inconvenience we incurred earlier on with that lovely lady from the charity. However, when we finally received our first actor and had set up (still half an hour behind schedule), we were happier with the outcome as the ground was less slippery, rather level, and the location itself more beautiful, with less traffic of people around.
And after filming the first two shots, we were even ahead of schedule by about seven minutes.
The rest of our shoot then went by rather smoothly. The risk assessment has not been much of a trouble, and while I kept an eye on our schedule and reminded everyone of the remaining time for each shot and the type of shot scheduled next, I was also in charge of taking care of our actor’s wellbeing, using the light meter and using the clapper board.
All in all, our main actor was eager to work with us, the thermal flask provided enough hot water for the entire cast and crew, we made good use of the emergency blankets – which turned out to be an excellent idea as they were really needed by our main actor, even in his shorter downtimes of about five minutes –, and we even managed to finish our shoot on time. I send out Hannah to fetch our second actor and the meals, and when they came back, our schedule has lined up so perfectly, that we did not encounter any unwanted breaks, but could work seamlessly until the end.
After our shoot, whilst Lynley and Katie were retreating to Hannah’s car to check whether they could do an ad hoc ADR session (Katie had requested one just in case and I scheduled it, also to at least get some additional lines delivered by both actors on set to give us more variety for the narrator’s off-screen lines in post), Hannah, Nathan, and I stayed back to start wrapping up, when it just about started to drizzle.
We quickly packed everything up while at the same time drying the equipment with additional towels that I brought, when our actors finished their impromptu ADR session and could be sent home. I paid them their travel expenses (or, rather, I paid one of them as the other kindly suggested us to keep it), gave them their still warm meals for wrap up and send Hannah to drive them to their train station.
At about 14:20, after bringing all the equipment back to Nathan’s car, we still had to wait for Hannah to come back and for the film camera battery to completely drain (with these old batteries, I was advised to only charge them when they are completely empty), so we decided to have a late lunch and feasted on the meals while we waited. When Hannah came back and had her lunch, and when the video assist on the camera had finally drained the battery, we set off on our ways back home to Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, content with how the day panned out, regarding all the previous pre-production issues we consistently encountered along the way.
Now, these are the final tasks left for me to do as a producer on the ACTION!-project:
Overseeing the return of equipment
Finalising payments of petrol costs
Finalising the budget lists (both real and mock)
Scanning the relevant documentation
Uploading said documentation
Holding the last two production meetings to keep track on remaining tasks such as e.g. the editing process
My Preliminary Self-Evaluation as a Producer
Finally, after having experienced the producer’s role with full force, I can definitely say that I have not only learned much but also grown a lot. In the beginning, I was a bit weary of the task ahead, especially since I feel that I usually do perform rather poorly as soon as I officially carry responsibility for other people. I somewhat dreaded the production in the beginning, as it was obvious that it required me to being able to negotiate with a lot of people in a language that is not my mother tongue and possibly, even to piss people off (regarding a film shoot outside, in a park, during the beginning of winter, with possibly shitty weather).
Regarding the outcome and the lovely experience I had today, I was proud that I had managed so well, especially regarding all the setbacks that kept coming at me. Finally, I feared that I would experience much more emotional and mental stress and furthermore experience much more trouble with my time management, regarding the fact that the producer’s job is rather time-consuming and communication-heavy. However, I’m proud that I took on that personal challenge of mine, even though producing will not become my most favourite job role in the film industry.