You have already started your production plan. The research notes and your creative thinking notes are your first steps. However, there are a number of other steps to help you organise yourself before you start to shoot or record anything. Writing down these steps helps you understand all the things you are going to have to do to make your production. It helps you understand how long they will take, who should be doing it, and what you will need to get it done. For many exams, marks can be given for the planning process, and it will be a part of your evaluation, so it’s well worth investing a little time in this part of the project. A production plan will help you get your project in on time.
Here’s the thing about plans: they very rarely work out in the way you first imagined. Almost always something will happen which will mean you have to change your plan. Sometimes it’s just lots of small things which have to change, sometimes it’s great big things, and sometimes it’s both. But you will almost always have to change your plan as you go along.
So why bother? Why have a plan at all if it’s just going to change?
Well, your plan is like a map. Imagine going on a journey: you know more or less where you are going but you don’t have a map. At the first wrong turn you will get stuck and probably become more and more lost. However, if you have a map with you, then you can take as many wrong turns as you want; you will always be able to look at the map to find the way back.
A production plan will help you understand what to do when things start to go wrong (which they almost always do). Because you already have a list of what to do and when you need to do it by, your plan will help you make all the changes you need and still keep on schedule. When things start to get frantic, going back to your plan will make sure you don’t miss anything important. So how to make one?
If you have read the previous chapters and printed out the material, then you have already started your plan. You have already come up with an idea for the piece, you’ve printed out a list of tasks and you’ve started on your research. The next thing to think about is time.
The funny thing about time is that at the beginning of a project it doesn’t seem that important; your ideas, your creativity, the camera, the sound, we all talk about them endlessly but we never talk about time. But sometimes by the end of the project, time is really the only thing that matters. When you are up against a delivery deadline even the best ideas are lost in the general rush to get things done: great idea, but we really don’t have time is a phrase you often hear towards the end of a production.
You need to control time; you need to be the master of time; you need a timeline.
A timeline is a way of estimating how long things are going to take. It’s an important part of your production plan. To make a timeline you will need the list of tasks from the beginning of the book. You can also get this off the website. You’ll also need the blank timeline sheet which is on the website. You are going to start to put some timescales against each of the tasks so that you know how long you have to spend on each.
EXERCISE 4.1 Planning time
Oddly, the easiest way to do this is to start at the end and work backwards. Below is an example of how you can plan your time on a project. At this point a lot of this will be guesswork. You don’t really know some of these timings, but you do know what time it is now and you do know when you have to deliver. Plans don’t always work out the way they started and you may need to go back and alter these timings, but at least you’ve got the start of a plan.
Print out the blank timeline sheet from the website. Ask yourself the following questions and start to fill in the answers; you will need the list of tasks to do this. Remember: at this stage it’s a rough guide, so don’t spend too long over it; it will change!
Now go to the list of tasks and put some timings against all the tasks; you can download this template from the website.
Template 4.1 List of tasks and times
If you want to control your production process you need to be in control of your time. This may seem fiddly and irritating at the moment: you may just be desperate to get on and do something. However, if you were a producer on a professional shoot, this is what you would be expected to do. The more complicated the production, the more time would be spent on this aspect. Doing this now will put you in control.
