Switching Lanes
10th February 2017
I agreed to work on Dan Cole’s film ‘Switching Lanes’ as a production manager, in charge of the whole pre-production, budgeting and scheduling, as Dan asked me to do only pre-production.
24th February 2017 - First Meeting
To get down to business, I suggested to start arranging the first production meeting with the crew. At my suggestion, the crew arranged the meeting on the following Friday. However, I already had an appointment with a prospective actor for my own project on the day. The director just wanted to carry on the meeting on the day anyway, as it seemed to be the earliest when everyone else was available, because some other crew member had other plans on the rest of the week. So, I drew up a list and an ideal progress schedule for the project, and emailed them to the director to check and discuss on with in the production meeting, not to miss anything to be prepared on the pre-production stage.
After this meeting, I have been updated with the outcome of the meeting as follows:
· Tony: props list (agreed to be done by Tuesday)
· Harvey, Dean and Dan meet at 5PM on Monday to complete shooting script
· Casting sheets have been sent to Castingcallpro website.
· It has been suggested that the shooting schedule needs to be done
· Shooting location is chosen (St-Leonards-on-sea) – certificates required
· 09/02/17 – test shoot with the crew only
· Shooting hopefully the 10/11/12 of March
In the first meeting, the director hoped to film on the 10th, 11th or 12th of March, but I suggested to consider to have more time before the shooting as we were not fully prepared for the shooting and still looking for the actors.
Overall, the meeting was very productive. Now we have the time scales set for each element of the pre-production and assigned duties to the crew.
After our first meeting, I sent another email to the director to point out that the director had missed out a Script Supervisor on the filming set, as I found the position did not show in the crew list. This error was later rectified by the director.
We are using Facebook group chat as our main means of communication, as it is proved to be effective through our past experiences. The positive side of group chat is that it is much easier to identify who has got the message and who has not. It shows when the message has been delivered and checked by each recipient in the group, which gives reassurance. It also can attach files to keep the whole crew posted to any progress.
However, we communicated via email for the discussion only between the director and me, not to cause any confusion or misunderstanding for the rest of the crew members, which could have been caused with the use of Facebook group chat.
2nd March 2017
Through the group chat on Facebook, I can see the progress of the pre-production without asking the director. The director rescheduled the filming dates on the 22nd of March, which is sensible as his script is of 9 pages long with a few locations. The test shoot is scheduled on the 19th and he has planned to film 5 pages of the script (5 minutes of the film) per day over two-days. At last, he planned to send the shooting and shot list to the camera crew by 10th March.
Along with the paperwork, the planned schedule is very achievable and realistic. I also reminded the director that he should make sure the actors know they only get paid for the travel and food expenses as this is a student project.
15th - 17th March 2017
I had a conversation with the director as there was no further progress since the beginning of March. So, I suggested to move back the filming dates if he was still looking for actors. Moreover, the director wanted to focus on other projects for a few weeks. He assured me that he will let me know when he is ready to resume his project again.
27th March 2017
I sent a message to the director to let him know that I have finished the shoot for my own project and expressed my concern about the progress of his production as I still have no further information about it. I asked him how far he has gone through for the pre-production.
He got back to me and explained he had some personal problems that are still on going. However, he confirmed that he has a storyboard and the script as well as the shooting script so far, but he is still looking for actors. Therefore, he has decided to postpone the filming until the mid-April. He also added that he is going to update the crew with the exact filming dates in April.
So, I assured the director that the pre-production's paperwork is all done, and the only problem is to find some actors. And I also offered my help to seek actors, and suggested to meet up with him on Friday to help him with scheduling the shooting in April.
31st March 2017
The director could not make it on last Friday the 28th of March, so we had a meeting today instead. In addition to the completed paperwork, we have found the suitable shooting locations and the crew and the kits are all ready to go. Dates are newly set for filming on the 14th to 16th of April, but casting the actors seems to be a challenging work within a given period. It does not seem to be working for the director with the Castingcallpro website to seek some prospective actors. As the director is running short on time, he asked for my help with looking for two Caucasian actors aged between 18 and 25.
4th - 6th April 2017
To help the director out with seeking actors, I have planned to email to two actors among those who wanted to take part in my own project before. First, I need to check all the possible reasons why the director Dan had a difficulty in casting actors for his filming so far, as I will only get one chance to ask them. We just do not have much choices left but asking the two actors given the time scale. In my own sight, his filming schedule is far too ambitious for a student project with a plan of three days’ shooting on four different locations. Judging from the size (9 pages) of the script he wrote; it could easily go over three days for shooting. So, I suggested to shorten or simplify the script to fit in just two-day-shooting plan. I also suggested an alternative, which would be asking his friends to act in his film, if he still wants to keep his full script.
8th April 2017
I received an email from one of the actors whom I asked for his help that he will not be around on the dates we have planned to shoot. I informed the director of this news. So, he tried to ask some friends of his, and eventually managed to convince them to act in his film. Then we arranged the last meeting with all the crew on the 12th of April to go over the paperwork and planning for the shoot.
12th April 2017
The last production meeting included just a skeleton crew: the director/camera, the sound recordist, boom operator, and me as a production manager. All paperwork is completed, so my job was to check if the director has all the stuff he needs on the shooting day. He confirmed that he has all the props ready and the locations are arranged around his house, so he has planned to shoot in the order of the script. Then in the meeting, we went through the list of kits to double check all we need including a spare of everything. Lastly I checked if the director has booked all three actors/friends on the filming date.
I finally got through with all my responsibility for the production, so this meeting concludes my job as the Production Manager. A great sense of relief flooded over me, as I find that the production is all set to move forward to the final stage, after a long wait for the actors to be casted. Over the process of this production, I realised again the importance of communication between the crew members. We had a few bumps and hiccups along the line of pre-production, but we could steer to the right direction with an intuitive thinking.
