Teacher Central: Of Schedules and Studio Bookings

On Monday all LVL5 productions held a mutual production meeting in order to coordinate crewmembers and equipment and fine-tune our individual schedules.

With the other twelve productions going on in our course, the subsequently reduced access to actors and locations, as well as the tremendous amount of equipment bookings, we were massively reduced in our schedule choices as it stood.

Whilst we tried to get the film studio – and especially the green screen within it – we quickly had to learn that it would not be ready in time. Although the train set, which covers most of the green screen, would start to be taken out by the 27th, it would not be finished until later on the 28th. And even when it would be ready after that, we would neither have access to equipment nor actors, which rendered this option futile.

Scheduling Issues

For our Teacher Central project, and since we had been a bit behind compared to the other groups in regard to the schedule, this meant that only the 22nd, 28th, and 29thof March would be our days for principal photography, which luckily coincided with empty slots in the new photography studio’s calendar. Since it was obvious that these slots would fill up quickly with each day closer to the deadline, I asked our producer Craig to book these dates out so that we would have them secured, to which he agreed.

After progressing through the week and a lot of green screen editing practice for the Teacher Central project on my part, on Thursday – during our production meeting – our producer sadly informed us that we would not be able to have full days but only half days. This in turn meant, that it would require us to get a busy and quick production done, as the 22ndand 29thof March turned out to be Fridays – days on which university closes three hours earlier than usual, leaving us with a time frame of only 13.00 to 16.00.

However, although it seemed difficult, it was still possible if we all pulled together and possibly even tried reducing the number of shots on the storyboard. Thus we collectively decided to go for it. In order to have a backup plan of sorts in place, I then proposed that we should try to possibly get an additional evening after 17.00 on one the other days up until our Easter break. However, when I then inquired how the bookings were standing, the producer had sadly forgotten to book out the days.

As I inquired further and asked our producer to have a quick chat with our technical demonstrator for photography, it furthermore turned out that the photography studio we required was already booked out on these days, but that other days would possibly become available. However, this required our technical demonstrator to have another look during the course of the day. I then asked our producer to keep at it and get the booking done and out of the way with as soon as possible, even online if need be. He confirmed he would do so.

Today then, I again called for an emergency production meeting, as it had finally turned out that the three days in question had indeed been completely booked out in the meantime. The only occasion that remained now was the evening of 21stof March. Since this would not have been enough with three videos and all the 73 shots in total, during the production meeting we collectively decided to reduce the load from three videos to one, as we would otherwise struggle.

I thus proposed to take the first video that centres on character creation, as I felt it made for a good start, seemed rounded in itself and as a single piece, and – luckily – only had twelve shots, instead of roughly 35, as the other two videos would. We then collectively decided to take this one.

However, since our lecturer/client specifically asked for green screen to be implemented and since this first video did not contain any green screen action, we furthermore quickly added a few changes to the script to make ample space for the use of a green screen in there as well.

In order to secure the booking and finalise the schedule, I then asked our producer whether he has finally received confirmation of him booking out the 21st. However it turned out that he had not yet booked out the slot. I then asked him to do it immediately, both in person and via email, to get the last slot secured.

I then pre-emptively filled out the equipment booking form for the evening, passing it by our sound operator and camera operator before passing it on to our producer, who was on his way to the stores – and the booking of the studio space anyway.

With this done, and with the verbal confirmation of equipment and studio booking done, our producer was finally able to get a schedule in place.

My Learning

Apart from the really intense editing spree and learning curve, I think the most important bit I learned in this production this week was again how fundamentally important successful communication and confirmation is. Although I operated under the understanding that the studio booking had already been done for the three days mentioned above, it quickly turned out that this was a misunderstanding.

A misunderstanding that could have easily been settled, if I had enquired more intensely about it and insisted on it more. Although it would have required me to – what I would consider – challenge or even contest the producer, I feel that the project would have benefitted from it if I had just made sure to confirm the booking early on. We would have been able to settle on a schedule earlier and would not have had to strike two thirds of the workload if I had picked up on the possibility of a verbal misunderstanding sooner.

Next time, I will make sure to double-check; just in case.