Many of the hair-trigger creati ve decisions you will make will be during the highly volatile production period. These decisions will set the course for the philosophy of your producing. Your knowledge of the details of your budget combined with the details of production choreography as reflected in your production board will give you the wisdom you need to keep the project on the creative track.

It is almost never cost effective to shoot projects in story or script sequence. The burden of maintaining consistent creative performances is the responsibility of the director who must be attuned not only to the demands of production, but also to its effect on the talent in front of the camera. Your skill as a creative producer lightens this burden. Your total objective is to be creative and to permit, encourage and nourish the director and cinematographer to be as creative as possible. This must be your primary focus and one that your production board will help you achieve.

Another priority is, through your production team, to creatively make sure they complete each day’s work within the prescribed and planned hours. To do this you must consider several factors. One concerns the first day of the project. There are three basic doctrines for scheduling the first day. The first is to schedule work that is very easy to complete so that the director and production company will feel satisfied about getting the project off to a good start. The second theory is to schedule difficult work on the first day, pushing the director and the production to finish what is planned. The logic behind this blueprint is that if the work is completed and the project is still on schedule, everyone on the production crew will know that they can complete any other day in the schedule. The third theory is to schedule a day that is neither too easy nor too hard but comfortable, with the idea of completing the days work. This planned logic opines that if the first day is completed, when the schedule becomes tougher the director and the production crew will be able to handle it easily.

These three choices should be discussed amongst you, your director, cinematographer, first assistant director and production manager. The final decision, however, will be most important as the outcome of the first day of the production schedule sets the tone for the rest of the schedule. If you end the day behind schedule, the psychological factor for the production company will be one of trying to “catch up” and the director will be under pressure to make up for being behind. This may affect the creative decisions made on the set. At the same time, if the day is too easy, the production crew may adopt a lazy attitude on the project and expect that the rest of the schedule will be equally problem-free. This too may affect the creative decisions made on the set. The first day of the production is a day when everyone is getting to know everyone else. Grips and electricians are trying to find where equipment is stored, the assistant directors are getting a feeling of how the director and cinematographer work, the Camera Department is trying to get its working relationship in place, wardrobe and props are learning the particulars of the characters in the story and many actors are meeting one another for the first time. Although some of the people may have worked together during planning or with one another on other productions, they are not as yet into the rhythm of the project. It takes time for individual crewmembers to know the idiosyncrasies of one another and reach a comfort level for working in a harmonious environment. This is called the “ease factor.” Your hope is that the ease factor sets in as quickly as possible, because it is one of the building blocks of a successful production.

There are some production issues you should stay away from on the first day, because they rely heavily on the ease factor already being present.

First—delay the stunts. Stunts often involve a lot of rehearsal and onsite planning and execution. When they involve actors rather than stunt people, the stunts may take even longer to stage. Stunts can be complex and are better planned later in the schedule.

Second—avoid shooting love scenes early in the schedule unless the love scene is motivated by the characters meeting one another for the first time. Love scenes are tough to do well and you want the actors to be as comfortable as possible with one another before asking them to be intimate.

Third—stay away from sequences that involve dialogue in moving vehicles. The production techniques for these scenes are different and complex and take a lot of time. They are better suited for later in the schedule when the ease factor has been established.

Fourth—stay away from special effects. Special effects are time consuming and may result in Murphy’s Law when scheduled for the first day of production.
Fifth—keep away from crowd scenes. Working with large numbers of extras is difficult enough; doing it on the first day of the schedule only reduces the odds of completing the first day’s work.

And you must complete the first day’s work. It should be a constructive day and a day in which people learn about one another. It should be a creative day and one that goes well. At the end of that day, your cast and production people have to feel good. They must know the train that they are on has left the station and it’s going to be a congenial ride.

The rest of the schedule will depend on a variety of factors, the most important of which is which sequences your director most wants to spend time with in telling the story. These are usually (but not always) the scenes where the director needs to focus on the actors’ performances rather than the production elements surrounding the actor. They are sequences that are emotional or passionate and demand the director’s uninterrupted attention and concentration. The schedule should be planned out with those sequences in mind regardless of the script page count. Producers on theatrical projects try to complete two to three script pages each production day. Producers on television productions plan on four to five pages each production day (and sometimes seven or eight). Many independent producers plan on completing anywhere from two to five pages a day depending on the elements of each boarded sequence. Budget restrictions and creativity will always be the driving force in terms of the daily page count.

Shooting on location versus in a studio is another scheduling factor. Studio production is controlled, which allows you to move the production elements quicker. But you will also have the problems of set construction, rigging and striking to contend with. Locations may give you more realistic picture value, but they have their own related problems, making this a major factor affecting the production schedule. A location is selected primarily for creative reasons but you should consider the logistics of the location as well. What is its accessibility? What are the restrictions of its use, its cost, and its production limitations? Productions shot on location all share one great truth; it is impossible to move a production company more than once in any day and still complete the production day. Even one “company move” becomes problematic, because when you move a production company in the middle of a shoot day you are inviting Murphy’s Law in the front door and offering milk and cookies. As a result, most location projects attempt to board out by location groupings first, both interior and exterior, and then by day and night sequences in a location. This could play havoc with actors’ schedule and the SAG budget, so you need to monitor the day out of days as the board shifts due to locations.Most projects have primary and secondary locations that are needed to tell the story. The primary locations are ones that you will focus on either finding or constructing. If you can find secondary locations within the immediate vicinity of the primary location, you will save yourself a production move and therefore valuable production time. You should consider this option even if it means making the shoe fit the foot by selecting an alternative location other than the one written in the script.

Interior day sequences always take longer to set up than exterior day sequences, and interior night sequences take longer to set up than interior day sequences. (Note: Interior night does not have to be shot at night.) Exterior night sequences always take the longest to set up because of night weather conditions and the additional crew and equipment that are often needed. Exterior night sequences are also more difficult for the production crew to get accustomed to because their internal clocks are thrown off. But since it is a creative necessity, it must be prepared for very conscientiously within the structure of the production schedule. Care should be taken to make sure that the crew and cast are given the pertinent number of hours between workdays (or nights) to avoid potential burnout. Too little time off can result in forced work calls, an increase in cast and crew payroll, and a diminished crew performance that will affect the creative contribution. To allow for this, if exterior night work is mixed with either interior or exterior day work during a week, the production board might schedule out the exterior night work towards the end of the workweek, rather than the beginning of the workweek. Or it might make more production sense to start the week with an early call time and each successive day make the call time a little later so that by the third day you are scheduling some of the exterior night work and increasing it during the remainder of the workweek.

The time of year you shoot will have an impact on the schedule. If the project boards out with more exterior day sequences than exterior night, it might make sense to shoot the project in the spring or summer when there are more hours of daylight in the Western Hemisphere. Or, you may want to shoot in another part of the world, where the weather conditions will correspond to these needs. If your cinematographer and director want to shoot an exterior sequence at “magic hour” your production day will be boarded around that requirement. Magic “hour” is a misnomer because it actually lasts about twenty minutes and occurs just as the sun is rising or setting. It offers a wonderful lighting quality that only Mother Nature can create. The scene needs to be set up and rehearsed for camera before magic hour hits and at the right time (when the quality of the light is ideal) the director calls action. (Remember the wonderful magic hour shot in City of Angels when all the angels are standing on the beach at sunset? Perfect!)

Adverse weather conditions can have a huge negative impact on your schedule and budget. Annual regional weather conditions have a greater degree of predictability in some months of the year than in others. Probable weather problems may dictate that the exterior sequences, for example, should be shot as soon as possible, while holding the interiors for later in the schedule. Or it might require the interiors be used as cover sets throughout the production schedule in case of bad weather. (A cover set is an interior location that is on standby in case scheduled exteriors cannot be met.)

Story elements can also affect how a production is scheduled. For example, if the story calls for characters to watch something on television, then the television sequence has to be shot first before you shoot the scene.

An actor’s personal requirements can also have an impact on the production schedule. Your project may have children in the cast, and child labor laws permit minors to work only a certain number of hours per day. Therefore, you will have to schedule to accommodate those issues. If an actor is unavailable until a certain date, you may have to schedule around the availability or hire a different actor. Or your schedule may have to be arranged for the actors’ workweek. Hunter’s Blood had a six-day week production schedule. Because it was a local project, the actors’ workweek was five days.We scheduled only Sam Bottoms on the sixth day of the week. Sam worked on a weekly agreement so the sixth day was an overtime day. It proved to be cost effective to shoot a six-day week and pay the overtime for one actor.

Production techniques will also affect the production board layout. Your production board schedule is affected if your director plans on using special technical equipment—such as camera cranes, Steadicams, camera cars, helicoptercams or helicopters. Special technical equipment is provided by independent companies with which you will have to schedule the equipment’s availability. The equipment takes time to set up, rehearse with and use, so the schedule will need to reflect its use on any specific day. These days should be talked through before they are scheduled, keeping in mind the director’s need to creatively tell the story.

Scheduling the sequence of scenes to be shot on any specific day is part of the production layout. This is best determined by the director and first assistant director. For creative reasons your director may want to schedule specific scenes earlier or later in the day. Certain production and cast elements may only be available at certain times. There are many reasons for laying out a daily shooting sequence. But there are two basic truths about daily sequence scheduling that should be foremost in your thinking.

The first truth is that the time the first shot of the day takes place will determine the pacing for the entire day. The director must set a time marker each day when he or she wants to do the first shot of the day. That time is a gauge for the first assistant director for the day’s work and the 1st AD pushes the crew and plans accordingly. If that time is met, the day has a chance of getting completed.

The second truth is that more work gets done before lunch than after lunch. The production crew is fresher at the start of the day. The meal period is the break that takes them to and through the halfway mark. Because they have more energy at the start of the day, they work harder and look forward to the meal break. The meal allows them to relax a bit and enjoy the wonderful catered food you provide. They may feel a bit lazier on a full stomach (as many of us do) so usually things slow down after the meal. A smart producer will plan on doing the more complicated scenes before the meal when the production crew is freshest and most alert, knowing that their creative focus is most attentive to the needs of the project then.

Also, if you have a lot of extras or cast members working in one or two scenes you may want to schedule those scenes before or after the meal. If they are excused before or come to work after the meal, you save on the catering for that day.

Four Scheduled Days
Separate each production day with a black strip once you have arranged the board (see Figure #55). The production board constantly changes.You begin with an ideal proposed schedule and, as elements come together (or don’t), you shift things around on the board. The changes that this causes in most instances are minor, as they relate to logistics and availability. Change has its greatest impact on your cast budget, as the day out of days will shift each time there is a change. For that reason it is wise to hire actors with an “on or about” date. Any time there is a shift in the schedule, your production accountant should analyze the cast budget and update its projected expense.

Since there will always be days when the director does not complete what is planned, try to design days in your schedule that can be used to pick up any scenes your director may not have shot when they were scheduled. This affords the production a safety net. If you use the shoe fit the foot theory you do not necessarily have to return to a location to get the scene.Your creativity will find a solution. Tom Denove and I were shooting a project several years ago that I was directing but not producing. Poor producing on the project caused us continual problems during the production. I was unable to shoot two 1/8 page scenes that were important to the story. One was an exterior low angle window shot of Mitzi Kapture, as she looks and reacts to a fight taking place on the street below. The other was a sequence with Miles O’Keefe. He needed to go into a closet and open a chest full of war memen- tos from his past. He rustles around and finally finds a semi-automatic assault rifle he used in Vietnam. Both scenes were scheduled early, at specific locations. The strips in the board representing these two scenes kept getting moved to days when we would be at locations that could be adapted for the scenes. But we never seemed to have the time to shoot them. Finally, we were on the last day of our shooting schedule and it was a night exterior in an alley. Both Mitzi and Miles were scheduled to work that evening.We had not as yet shot those two scenes, both of which were needed to tell the story. Thinking on our feet, Tom and I had the property master rustle up a wall flat and a window flat from a college theater department. We arranged the flats on the scissors lift we were using as a light stand to illuminate the alley. We put Mitzi in the appropriate wardrobe behind the window flat on the scissors lift and raised the lift about fifteen feet off the ground. On “action” Mitzi stepped out from behind the wall flat and appeared in the window flat looking toward the camera below her. It worked in the picture. (How? Because the audience only sees what’s on the screen, not how it got there!) The second scene was more difficult. Tom took the same two flats and positioned them in the alley at right angles to one another to look like the corner of a closet. We then put the camera on top of a ladder and focused it straight down the flats.We found an old piece of carpet in an alley dumpster and put it in the shot between the flats on the asphalt surface of the alley. Tom hung a practical light bulb in the camera frame to make it appear to be a light bulb hanging from a ceiling in a closet. We put the chest of momentos in the camera frame and I staged Miles to enter the frame and rustle through the chest until he found the parts of the rifle. He took the parts out of the chest, snapped them together and quickly turned off the light. Once again, the audience saw just what we wanted them to see!

Many more issues will arise during the production and you will usually be able to find their solutions using the production board. Working with the production board is like working with a giant puzzle. Once the production is underway, for one reason or another, the shapes of the puzzle pieces change. Since your vision is what the finished puzzle is to look like, you must find a way to complete the puzzle. If you complete the puzzle, you complete the picture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Myrl A. Schreibman is an award-winning producer, director and adjunct professor at the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media. His book, The Indie Producers Handbook: Creative Producing From A - Z, has been declared by MovieMaker Magazine as the #1 book on producing. His latest book, The Film Director Prepares: A Complete Guide to Directing for Film & TV, will be published in July of 2006. He lives in Los Angeles.