ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Under which circumstances would you be able to make a film together?

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Being a carpenter can get you through doors!!! Da daaa...

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Well, keep us posted you guys!

A propos downtime. In school here we used to go for weeklong ski trips - gee, what a childhood. We were always warned that the 3rd day was when most accidents happened, so we should take it particularly easy on Wednesday. Not only that: similarly, performance may go down for he who is working the third full day in a row on set. In front of or behind the camera. Have you ever heard of anyone planning shoots looping 2 days shoot and one day off set?

Thanks for the prop tip!

Great.

I guess I was more thinking of vfx in post. Thanks for your input.

People tend to think I'm always serious, and so do I. But I lately got a feeling that in fact I'm always joking. Which can't be the case in the latter sentence, or can it? Do I think that a real estate background could give me an advantage to make movies here and now? Actually yes. Hotel management could also have helped. Especially for one short I wrote recently. If I'd go back in time, would I study that? Probably not.

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

Yes, but was acting way before that, just not enough to make a living, hence carpentry.

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

Aleve, what Wozy said. More time everywhere! But it's not that simple either. Let's say you get no rehearsal time in pre-production. That means each scene will take longer to shoot. It's much cheaper to block out 2 weeks or so of rehearsal time, so that blocking, performance, etc. is worked out well ahead of time so that everyone is on the same page, and you don't burn money discussing a performance with an actor. Hollywood rarely works this way. Actors just show up, and you do it.

The more time you have for pre-production, the more smoothly it will go. Let's say you've done storyboards without seeing any of the locations. You may have drawn shots that are impossible to get because there's a wall in the way, and you can only get the camera back so far. Or you wanted that cool high shot looking down, but the ceiling is only 8 feet high. Oops. But if you secure and measure your locations early, you've got time to readjust all that. As Paddy points out, the location owner can screw you, but a good location manager can mitigate a lot of that.

Are you shooting a show that takes place in 1955? Well, you can't give the production designer a couple of weeks of pre-production and expect anything at all to go well.

On the other hand, if you're making "My Dinner With Andre", pre-production can be quite short. But if you have 20 locations, you'd better schedule an adequate amount of time for that.

In the end, each film is its own beast and its own puzzle. Budget, schedule, and the type of film you're making are all part of that puzzle.

Post schedules are the ones that are hurt the most, simply because most producers are not that savvy when it comes to post production. Especially after digital editing hit. They think you should be able to slap that thing together in a week. Even inexperienced editors think they can edited faster than they can. Did writers get a shorter schedule when word processing made the job easier? No, they didn't. Thinking time is important!

The people that get shafted the most in post are the composers and sound designers. But all departments suffer quite often because Principle Photography will go over budget, and the producers take money out of post. Sound is at least half your film. Why would you want to limit that?

I have a feeling that working with Paddy and Wozy would be a fucking dream. As for me, I want the investors to get their money back, plus some. So money and audience are always forefront in my mind. When I was in my 20s, it was all about the art. I didn't understand the balance acutely until I was about 27 or so when I blew the shooting ratio on the first film I was fixing. I had to rethink the next few days to get the ratio back on track. In that case, I got the actors together each night before their scenes to be shot the next day. A shitty way to do things because it was fucking exhausting. Older and wiser to be sure.

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Yup, we had to squeeze a cozy 22-day 4-week shoot into an intense 18-day 3-weeker for the UK leg of this feature. Ugly, but sadly necessary...

There is an adage 'time sent in preproduction is never wasted', but I'd suggest that the longer in advance you agree deals, the more likely someone is to get another offer and screw you over at the last minute. This totally happens. That aside, you can get a good run-up on scheduling, locations etc further out, which lets you be more economical with the resources you have!

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I'm not sure about 2 days on, one day off - the inefficiency would frustrate many people, especially production!

I was once given a similar cue though, which plays out pretty reliably - adapted version below -
First week is happy week, everyone is grateful for their job.
Second week is Zombie week, everyone is tired but functional
Third week is enmity week. Everyone is tired still, but now they know each other well enough to get arsey and talk back.
Fourth week, demob week - everyone can see the light at the end if the tunnel, they are counting off the days and shots, they can smell freedom!
More than 4 weeks, you have enough money in the budget to shot in tranches!

What does this mean for scheduling? Where possible, I'd say keep week 3 as tame as possible, maybe in studio where the stresses are lower. Fancy shots go for the end of the first week, into second week, when people are still functional and patient. Anything that requires multiple setups, lots of detail try to avoid the last day when people will be mentally packing their bags already. It never works out so neatly, but you can say least try ;-)

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

HA! "Fuckton" is that often heard technical term! "What's the budget?" "A fuck-TON."

Fuck, you guys, let's do it! I haven't been to London in years. While there, I'll be happy to mention my admiration of you to your wife, Paddy.

Yes, Aleve, getting the actors together each night was the only way given the time constraints. But, fuck, people need downtime. At the time, being inexperienced, I staged the actors and camera on my own, then told them where and when they needed to be. But then you run into "Why would I walk over there?" from the actor. Now I let the actor stage what is natural for them, then tweak it if I need to. One thing I learned from my mentor, Alexander Mackendrick (Lady Killers, Sweet Smell of Success), is that actors love props. Need an actor to get across the room? Put a prop they can use over there where you need them.

Hollywood optimize costs? You're funny. The day some idiot agreed to pay Jim Carrey 20 million was the day it all went down hill. In reality, since there is no backend any longer, people want their fortunes upfront.

"My Dinner with Andre": I don't know. I think it would still do well. There was a great series here that went for 2 seasons that was basically 2 people talking in a coffee shop. I wish I were that good of a writer. I'd shoot something like that in a weekend with a crew of 5 in a heartbeat. Maybe I'll give it a go as soon as I finish my novel.

I'm not sure about post being repetitive detail. It may seem that way, but I don't find it repetitive at all. Cutting for character is the most challenging thing you can do, and the way I like to go about things. In the end, the key is to keep the editor on until the sound is finished. We may keep a shot long, for example, to allow for a specific sound or music cue. Or say, the script calls for a clock ticking in the background, I'd have to establish that clock visually, so the sound carries correctly for the rest of the scene. Unless the editor is in on at least the spotting session, things can get really mucked up. Unless it's an inexperienced director who doesn't know any better, most editors stay on until the mix is complete. What's important in post is that everything blend as a whole. If the sound designer and composer, for example, don't know what each is doing, there won't be a cohesive blending of those elements.

I know you're joking about real estate, but perhaps I put too much emphasis on that aspect. I was just using it as an example of pre-production/production budgeting and scheduling. There are a thousand little details like that can go terribly wrong with a short pre-production schedule.

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

@Dan - blushing!!! :)

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Yes, even when you're all that as well as the editor, unless you have extra plenty of time and other resources during the shoot. In the end the unexpected version may be better.

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

Thanks for the "get better" Aleve!

This reminds me of the time I spent a year at Raleigh Studios (a small lot and studio started by the original United Artists back in the 20s) cutting a film. I would always see Kevin Costner on the lot, so one day I asked him "Why are you always here?" as he seemed to not be shooting anything. Before he made a living as an actor, he was a carpenter/handyman, and had refinished the floors in one of the offices. He loved the history of the place, and thought if he ever "made it", he'd get an officer there.

Seems being a carpenter is the best way to get into acting.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Wozy, haha, yes. Except these doors are made of freakin steel. Therefore (or not), I learned welding and machining in school.

Marlom, yes, and he really went for it, wouldn't take no for an answer, apparently.

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Some of the best commercial films came out of terrible production periods. Script problems. Locations problems. Actor issues. Constant re-writes. etc. Jaws instantly springs to mind.

If we waited for perfection, no films would get made.

Wozy

10 years ago - Alève Mine

http://jobs.monster.com/v-construction-q-film-set-carpenter-jobs.aspx
Applying immediately!

I saw The Company Men and Kevin Kostner is playing a carpenter/handyman there! He did look like he knew what he was doing. I had attributed that to goog acting.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

I had read that harrison ford was working as a carpenter on set before history happened...

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

More time anywhere, pre, prod or post, is nearly always better than less time. (Although too much time can become a problem in itself). But time is money and so in most cases the more time available, the higher the costs. Cut the time, the costs come down. Well, that's just one way of trimming a budget.

Wozy

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Don't I know. I've spent today correcting school exams. A few more hours of German exams, then there is the whole pile of math exams to go through. Filming myself doing this job is my only solution to making films right now. I should set up the tripod.

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Dan I had watched "My Dinner With Andre" after you mentioned it earlier (was it you?). I'm not sure how a film like that would go down nowadays. I'd be willing to give it a go. If I didn't have to concentrate on short term survival on a rolling basis.

It seems that Hollywood hasn't optimized costs?
Yes, location can change everything down to the story! It may make more sense to get a degree in real estate management than from a film school to make films.
Post, to my experience, is an immense amount of repetitive detail work (not talking about the audio nightmare I mentioned earlier), beyond the thinking itself.
Wasn't it good to get the actors together each night to prep for the next day? How else would you do it now in whichever situation that was?

10 years ago - Alève Mine

When you say time, is it prep time or shoot time?

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Many, many actors have second jobs. If you ever go to Stratford Upon Avon (ie Shakespeare's homeland) you will find lots of jobbing actors and hopefuls working in all of the restaurants, for instance!

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Somebody said to me this year: "It's good you're doing something. Some people just wait." They must be waiting for that miracle. But I'm doing that too, in fact. Merely fidgeting while waiting.

Note to self: add more nude action after explosion in helicopter scene. Never been done before.

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

Scripts are only blueprints if you are the writer/director/producer/star.

If you're just the writer, you're lucky if your script is even a draft sketch :-)

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

The script contains enough information to get commissioned, but there are 10,000 small decisions made along the way to get it implemented, and the writer probably gets to make 10 of them ;-) The rest are made by department heads, production, editors and the director. The writer sets the ship asail, but where the tide carries it who can tell - which is why it's a miracle films ever get made, let alone good ones ;-)

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Marlom, Paddy, thanks, that helps.

Scripts are blueprints?
Show me all the blueprints.
Show me ALL the blueprints.
All the blueprints.
Show me all the b...

Note to self: add nude action in exploding helicopter scene (before explosion).

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Haha - someone turning up with a fuckton of cash would help ;-)

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Dan thanks. And get well soon :)

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

To add to all that Paddy said, and I agree with, I've been on a few shoots where they would start mid-week. It actually worked out really well in the mental health department: crews get 2 or 3 days to get to know the production and co-workers, then a 1 or 2 day break, then hit it full steam on that Monday. I noticed that this little change in the schedule made everyone really efficient that first real week of shooting.

As for a background career; I think construction is a pretty good background. It's very much the same thing in a lot of ways. You can't put the drywall up until you have the electrical wired, and you can't do the electrical until the framing is up. One job melts into the next, and you are always thinking about the people that come after you (or at least you should be thinking about the people that come after you).

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

In the StudioCanal article they are using the term Line Producer to describe what is really their co-producer - i.e. The Producer, guy trying to make it all happen, rather than a hired hand Line Producer. (Hired LP is given the budget, is not involved in raising it).

Clue is in the reference to "financial" in the line "It might also happen that STUDIOCANAL provides technical support for the line producer for structuring his financial plan or searching for partners."

So I think the context here is that CP like a project but maybe view the Producer as a little out of their depth, and so help refine the way they think it will go. Perhaps, for example, picking up of scenes that are relatively expensive. E.g. the writer has the protagonists chatting in a private jet which is then targeted by a missile but they don chutes and jump. Which is great, but CP suggest that in the context of the modestly budgeted RomCom perhaps there is a cheaper way of establishing that the female lead is an action hero....

I have a feature script ATM and a producer asked me what would the budget be. I said 700-800K does a good professional job with unknown cast and includes a serious cost of sale element. Below that and we need to be very careful with the design or it will look cheap, and the floor is around 500K. If you wanted to go upscale then 2M gets you a great result with name cast. Point being twofold - I can paint a budget at any level, but the producer needs to decide how to pitch based on their understanding of the market.

In the context of SC, if he went to SC with a 800K budget, they might turn round and say "NON. This movie needs 4 names and good ensemble, and a longer shooting schedule. Redo at 2M, and count us in for 50%. Tell the writer "more stunts, bigger stunts, bigger battle".

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Jaws had rewrites?

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Wozy yes, one get get lost in time.

Paddy, that it new info. But if an agreement stands when tht happens, then what's an agreement good for?

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Simply put, everyone rolls up to the Line Producer - Producers (nd on their behalf, line producers) are the only grade high enough up to fire a director. LP won't fire a director except as ABSOLUTE LAST OPTION, but they may have to clip their wings somewhat if they're getting too big for their boots. LP has financial responsibility for delivering the film - so if it's not moving fast enough, it's LP's problem. This is probably why Studio Canal will have them in on discussions. It doesn't matter if the revised story needs a nude scene on an exploding helicopter over Hawaii if there just isn't the budget for it.

Films are ALWAYS a mess of collaboration. 'The' script isn't absolute, it's a blueprint, a guide, and everyone will get their filthy paws on it and change it.

The director has fancy ideas but usually not much financial responsibility - they are trying to make a career, not a profitable movie, so want all the toys putting upward pressure on production. The producers aren't going to find extra money without extra sales value, so the budget has downward pressure. The reason a director's next film will depend on being on time and budget is that they just won't get a second chance if they cause production too much stress by being slow, needing to be covered up for, getting stroppy about not having toys, etc.

If (as a director) you want a chance to make your second and third films, work WITH production, not against. This sounds really obvious, but apparently needs spelling out. Production want to get your film made in a balanced way, so help them. Don't throw your toys out of the pram if you can't have some or other piece of kit you 'need' (or that your cinematographer says they 'need'). Production are NOT trying to hold you back, they are the ones seeing the big picture.

Let's say, as an artistic choice, you feel you need a shot of a the gunman running through a group of kids playing in a school playground, whilst production are resisting. Why the resistance? Production have an uncanny knack of costing scenes mentally, so are looking at the school, child actors, chaperones, reduced shooting days, council permits, parking, catering, DBS checks, tutors, releasing the school name or replacing signage, police presence for firearms, letterdropping all the properties within eyeline of the action, parking dispensations for service vehicles, security for those vehicles, unit moves... that one shot can easily cost you £40,000, and that might be 2 whole days of filming at a glamorous location instead, getting 10 pages of dialogue covered!

Not sure if that's helpful or just rambling... :-$

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

As a background career, construction is a GREAT one for other reasons - one being that you often need temporary structures/set builds that need all the usual trades ;-)

10 years ago - Alève Mine

Thanks: that's all quite important to know.

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Maybe - Paddy could produce, I could write and Dan would cut... or any combination thereof....

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Quite. Still happens though - sometimes it's unavoidable (someone gets ill, etc), other times some blighter stitches you up. You can't make someone work who doesn't want to work (disastrous results) so better to take it on the chin and just expect that you need to replan.

10 years ago - Dan Selakovich

On Jaws, the shark was broken, so they couldn't use it for most of the shoot. That's why Spielberg is so amazing. Since he couldn't use the shark for a lot of the shoot, he upped the tension by "suggesting" the shark. Originally he wanted to show the shark more, but the "compromise" worked out much better don't you think?

Everything Paddy says!

Writers are often included in these types of meetings. The key for a good director is this: if the LP says a scene is too expensive to shoot, a good director will work with the producers and the writer to come up with an even better scene that says the same thing, but is much more practical. That happens all the time. ALL OF THE TIME. Even on the fly. It may come up that for some reason, a location you had for a full day is only available for 6 hours. Now the director has to figure out how to convey the scene fully with less coverage. That's the difference between a great director and a hack. A hack will just shoot less of his planned shots. A good director will re-do the coverage completely, trying to make the scene better with less.

Budget and creativity have to work hand-in-glove. Many inexperienced directors see the producer as the enemy. They aren't. They are there to help get the best picture made for the money they have.

As Marlom points out, you may have a script that you've budgeted at 6 million. But the producers have done all of the analytics, and find that the film can only be profitable at 3 million. You've got to find a way to tell the same story for less money. And the good ones, the really good ones, will discover a way to make a BETTER film for less money.

When I was fixing films or doing bond work, time was the one thing I always wanted. There was never enough time. But because of that experience, I feel I could make a much better film on what Hollywood would consider a short schedule. 3 months would be a fucking dream shoot!!

10 years ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I'd imagine so about Wozy too, but yeah, for sure, a dream ;-). If you wouldn't mind reminding my Mrs how lucky she is too...