“Most producers are creative in a deal making or financial sense, so to find a producer who is also creative in the art of filmmaking is a unique pleasure. In developing a recent Dimension project, Kevin Messick proved to be that kind of producer. He is inspiring, enthusiastic, loyal, and always protects, defends and supports a director in a way that I have never previously experienced.”
—Penelope Spheeris, Director, Senseless, The Beverly Hillbillies, Wayne’s World, The Decline of Western Civilization
The previous chapter included areas of production affecting the image and the process of production. This chapter will continue that dialogue but will begin with two areas that closely work with the onscreen talent.
Costume design (sometimes called wardrobe design) is important to the nature of the story. Designers are always thinking of the character as opposed to the actor. They are always asking the question, “Who are these people and where do they come from?” Their answer lies in the clothing. Costume designers determine the wardrobe for the project. They begin their task by reading the screenplay. They refine it by speaking with you, the director and the production designer to try to define the characters or the creative vision of the project. They continue by researching the historical, regional, cultural, and social texture of the characters. Finally, they complete their planning and sketch wardrobe design details for the look of each of the characters and present it to you, the director, and to the production designer for discussion and approval. Wardrobe designers must consider the budget and determine what wardrobe needs to be purchased, manufactured or, in some cases, pulled from the actors’ own closets. You should find a costume designer who has trade-off relationships with clothing manufacturers or businesses that may be helpful to your project. In most cases, the trade-off will be a screen credit at the end of the project or seeing a trademark logo on the wardrobe worn by one of the principle actors. Costume designers should also have relationships with wardrobe rental companies for discounts and with wardrobe construction companies for lower than quoted rates should any wardrobe need to be constructed. Producers and directors often forget some of the major issues costume designers must consider. Each character’s wardrobe must be broken down in terms of the screen time in the story and the wardrobe must be detailed out by days and nights. A wardrobe breakdown will show the number of days and nights covered in the story. They must also consider duplicates and triplicates of certain wardrobe items as necessary for the shooting schedule. They must consider stunt people doubling for actors and provide wardrobe accordingly. They must consider the color and texture of the setting when they determine the color and texture of the wardrobe. Finally, they must know who has been cast for specific roles as quickly as possible since the wardrobe designer and eventually the production wardrobe supervisor (which can often be one and the same) must establish a positive working relationship with each actor. The longer it takes to cast an actor, the more difficult it becomes to wardrobe the actor—and this delay can cost the producer time and money.
It is imperative that your costume designer has a good rapport with the actors. The wardrobe designer becomes a confidante for actors and will be aware of every body flaw or feature (real or imagined) that the actor is convinced is hideous. (Actors will often swear the costume designer to secrecy, threatening excruciating pain if news of their “flaws” ever become public knowledge.) Actors, like children, are very concerned with how they look. Even though you, the designer and the director have determined very specific ideas about the actors’ wardrobe, the actors may have specific ideas of their own. A good designer will listen to actors, recognizing that sometimes they know themselves better than anyone else. If an actress considers herself to be thick-waisted, the designer will know it would be foolish to force her into midriff revealing outfits. A creative wardrobe designer often has the task of negotiating with the producer or actor in deciding the final wardrobe. Emmy Award winning designer and University of California at Irvine Professor Madeline Kazlowski first meets with the producer or director and asks them to look at magazines and tear out photographs of the look they think they want. She does the same in order to communicate ideas to producers. After these initial meetings she then begins to sketch out the wardrobe for final approval.
Sometimes this has to be taken further. When Madeline was designing The Return of Hunter, a television movie that was a follow-up to the Hunter police series starring Fred Dryer, she was faced with a problem in the story. The movie takes place several years after the series aired and Dryer’s character had moved up the ranks from sergeant to lieutenant. As a sergeant, he wore a tie and sport coat with blue jeans, which was a look of the day when Hunter first aired. Dryer wanted to continue to look that way, or so he thought. The producers and Madeline knew times and styles had changed, and that now that look was too dated to be effective. They wanted him to look “cool,” but with a new appearance for a familiar character. Madeline designed the look they wanted but she needed to get Fred convinced that it was right. So she brought him samples of Italian cut trousers. Fred tried them on, liked the fit and the way they were cut and saw that they kept the youthful but sophisticated feel that he needed for the character. Once he understood the direction they were headed, he and Madeline went shopping and together they selected stylish shirts in great colors to go with this new look. This gave him the “cool” factor that he was seeking as the foundation of his character.
Costume designers may be involved with the onset of production, or they may have completed their task by the start of the project and hand over the actual wardrobe work of the project to the supervisor. Many independent productions employ the supervisor as the designer. Whatever the case may be, the wardrobe person is the first person actors see when they report to work each day, so that person will know how actors feel when they come to the set. Did they have a difficult night? Were they in a rush getting to work? Are they nervous about the scenes they are doing? Any scenario can impact a performance. This information will be important for the director since the creative performance is what it is all about.
I was directing a feature a few years ago with a well-known actor who had to play a scene in which he was breaking up with his girlfriend. He is a reliable actor who always remembers his dialogue, so I decided to shoot the scene as continuous action between the two characters. When we rehearsed the scene I was surprised that he was having a difficult time remembering his lines. The actors were both very experienced, so at one point I told the actors to improvise the intent of the scene and decided to try to shoot the scene differently than originally planned so the actor could take his time with the dialogue. It wasn’t until the next day that I was told by my 1st AD (who had been told by the wardrobe supervisor), that the actor was breaking up with his real life girlfriend of ten years. I immediately understood that the scene had hit home. At the time I wished I had known about it sooner, saving the crew time and saving the actor unnecessary anguish.
On an IATSE project, a wardrobe supervisor (costumer) is not permitted to take pen to paper to design even one scrap of a costume. Of course, on a nonunion project no such rule exists and it is not uncommon to find the onset wardrobe person is also the designer and faced with such tasks as supervising the manufacture of wardrobe, or shopping for specific wardrobe for actors during production. This will require the hiring of several onset assistants. The wardrobe supervisor must also handle wardrobe for atmosphere when it is applicable to the story, although atmosphere are generally asked to come in wearing their own wardrobe. If it is a period or historical project the wardrobe for atmosphere can get quite complex. The wardrobe supervisor must also consider the bit roles since this department must make sure that all people who populate a scene are appropriately dressed.
It is imperative that set wardrobe people have certain creative skills—which include the ability to research atmosphere wardrobe along the lines of the designer’s vision—and certain organizational skills required to maintain continuity of clothing from one scene to the next. A big budget item in wardrobe is for Polaroid film and cameras, which allow the Wardrobe Department to constantly photograph actors and keep a record of what and how they are wearing the clothes in the production. Some onset wardrobe supervisors use a digital still camera and a laptop computer to maintain this information. This saves the expense of Polaroids and makes the whole process more manageable. Onset wardrobe people must also have fitting and stitching skills, because most of the time they are working out of a wardrobe truck and a seamstress and shop crew are not available. The wardrobe truck must contain clothing racks for the wardrobe, ironing boards, sewing machines, steamer machines and possibly even a small generator. On smaller projects, the wardrobe vehicle is also used for props. Since the wardrobe crew works with the actors on a day-to-day basis it is somewhat like going to camp. They are the camp counselors who have to be with the actors the entire time making them look as right as possible whether they are playing heroes or homeless people. It is up to the Wardrobe Department to ensure that the actors are true to the designers’ big picture because that is developed from the producer’s and the director’s creative vision.
Figure 28
The Wardrobe Department continues to work after the production has wrapped each production day. It must prepare for the next day’s schedule, which might include doing laundry or running to the dry cleaners to get the wardrobe back in time. This must be taken into consideration when planning the project. Like the Property Department, the Wardrobe Department must have more wardrobe than necessary in case the director wants something different, or something irreparable happens to an item. Wardrobe is a critical element on a project. Some independent producers may believe that on smaller projects it is unnecessary to use wardrobe people. This is a massive blunder. Wardrobe is so critical to the texture of a project that it takes a designer, supervisor or onset wardrobe person to clearly focus on the details of this aspect of the story.
This does not necessarily mean that you need to spend a lot of money to hire someone to do the job. Ego can be a stronger motivation than remuneration. You may want to look for a person from the ranks of college theater departments, or contact local film commissions for recommendations of people in certain areas. You may find people who have been doing commercials or industrials and want the creative opportunity of doing a longer narrative piece, or you may find someone ready to use the knowledge and skills they have been practicing in an educational environment. You might try local costume rental houses and find someone who wants the opportunity to do something more. Wherever you look, remember that it is an important creative position that is directly impacting your vision.
The question often arises as to whether you need to have both a makeup person and a hair person on the project. If it is an IATSE signatory project, then the answer is yes. If it is nonunion, one person often does both. Makeup for the camera is significantly different than makeup for the theater, so it is important that you find a makeup artist who knows the subtleties of on-camera makeup. The cinematographer will be very attuned to those subtleties and may often provide specific instructions to makeup people regarding the look. Makeup people usually have a confidential relationship with the actors. It is the nature of the job that actors confide personal issues with the makeup artist. The relationship between a makeup artist and the actor can be quite strong and may be a possible problem for the production especially if the actor is the “star” of the project. The makeup artist may use the relationship with the actor as leverage if the cinematographer or director is not pleased with the work the makeup artist is doing. You do not want to have any contentiousness between the talent and the creative team as it will only lead to trouble.
Many actors insist that the production hire their own makeup artist as a condition of their employment. This can present problems because it sends out the signal that the makeup artist works for the actor and not for the production. On one project I produced, one of the starring actresses required that I hire her makeup artist as a condition of her employment. After long consideration (and because I wanted the actress to be comfortable), I agreed to the hiring on the condition that whenever the actress worked the makeup artist would do makeup for the other actors as well. The actress was happy because she had her own makeup artist, and I was pleased that our makeup artist did not feel slighted and the other actors did not think that this particular actress was receiving special treatment. (The only one who might have been unhappy was the actress’ makeup artist —because of his relationship to her, he was coerced in doing makeup for other actors as well.)
Figure 29
There is little pre-production preparation time required for makeup and hair other than checking with the principle actors concerning any special personal makeup requirements. In some instances makeup may be designed by a professional makeup artist who then teaches a trainee how to maintain the look. This is often done when there is not much complexity to the makeup. It allows the producer to hire someone at a low rate and either pay a professional makeup artist a flat fee for the design, or provide the designer a specific onscreen credit acknowledging the makeup design.
You may also want to use the same tenet with a hair stylist. On many films I have produced, the look of the hair design was created by the late Michael Mariani, a well-known hair stylist for men and women. Michael would read the script, then discuss his ideas for the characters with the actors and me. The actors would go to his salon for the styling and he would either teach the makeup artist how to keep the hairstyle, or assign a hair stylist from his shop to work on the project. This worked well for all concerned. Michael was given a “hair designed by” credit, the actors were pleased because they were all given special treatment, and one of his shop hair stylists got a brief change of pace by working on the production set.
The Sound Department is often overlooked. Producers and directors always seem to think of the picture first and fail to consider the importance of sound people to the process of production. All other crafts on a production are concerned with the picture, and people sometimes forget that what they do may have an impact upon sound. You need to instill the notion that sound is as important to the project as the image and that sound is an integral part of the production process.
Figure 30
The best sound people are silent. That is to say that they go about their work preparing to record production sound quietly and effectively. Excellent sound mixers will watch the director’s staging very carefully before determining how to “mike” the scene. They will then discuss the staging with their boom operator and together the two will determine the most time effective way to record sound skillfully. It might require the placement of microphones hidden in the set whose cables are attached to the sound mixing console, or actors wearing hidden wireless microphones. It might mean using a traveling microphone boom or a combination of methods. Sometimes a sound mixer may have a suggestion for the director to ensure that sound in a specific scene will record well. Whatever the solution, the Sound Department does it without disturbing the director, the actors, or the set up of the camera. Professional sound mixers try not to ask for a specific rehearsal for sound unless there is a good reason for it (such as a scene in which an actor might need to whisper and then suddenly scream). The ability to record excellent sound in this case will require a rehearsal for both the sound mixer and the boom operator. Recording clean production sound is a priority for the Production Sound Department as it will reduce the need for post-production automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) or “looping.” Sound mixers should position their sound cart where they are able to watch the action of the scene. They must also know the image being recorded by the camera and be aware of where the focus of the production sound should be for that image. Production sound mixing is a difficult and creative job requiring both experience and skill since sound mixers are the only people on the project protecting your sound tracks. During pre-production you should make sure that your production sound mixer meets with the post-production sound house that will be working with the production tracks during the final sound mix phase of the project. The technical sound information that is required in the mixing phase may have an impact upon how the sound needs to be originally recorded. The end use of the production sound and the needs of the post-production mixer should dictate the original recording of sound (End Result Theory). Your production sound mixer should visit locations to hear their natural ambience, and listen for a potential of echo or other problematic sounds.
Looping–A length of film or audiotape that is spliced end to end so that it can be machine-played repetitively. In a special sound studio, an actor or voiceover artist would watch a “looped” scene on a screen and, using a microphone and single or dual headphones that are worn on the head or held close to one ear, respeak or resing those words or lyrics that need to be improved or changed. This process is called looping or dubbing. Another way is through the use of an automatic dialogue replacement system (ADR). In this more advanced and popular system, the picture and soundtrack of the scene in question are played forward at normal speed without the use of a physical loop connection. For each new try at recording, the picture and track are rewound at high speed to the beginning of the scene and then played forward again at normal speed.
During production, the sound mixer should periodically listen to the production tracks with the post-production sound mixer (if he or she has been hired) in order to catch and correct any unforeseen production sound problems that could show up later or need to be fixed before the final mix.
Many production sound mixers will come to the job with their own equipment. In those instances, the production sound mixer rents the equipment to the production on a weekly basis and you adjust the mixers’ salary and the rental fee for additional savings using the same method as discussed in the section in Chapter Six on “box rentals.” Equipment owned by production sound mixers may only include basic microphones, cabling and a Nagra tape recorder. It may not include wireless microphones, a time code Nagra recorder or a DAT (Digital Audio Tape) recorder. You may have to add this equipment through an outside sound rental house once you determine the path your project will take in post-production. Although digital sound is the state of the art, sound mixers have found that digital recording has proven to be less than satisfactory, while analog recording through the tried and true method of using a Nagra has had 100 percent reliability. So it is common practice for sound mixers to record production sound with both a Nagra and DAT recorder.
In most cases, if you decide that your post-production process will employ digital nonlinear picture editing and/or digital post-production sound editing you will need to record your production sound using a time code Nagra or DAT recorder. This is quickly becoming the norm in production today. However, please be aware that digital recording is in a state of flux and there are new recording systems coming rapidly into the market. So it is important for your sound mixer to know what equipment the post-production sound house is using as their standard. If you are shooting your project using a digital video camera, the production sound mixer’s console will plug directly into the camera and the sound will be recorded on the videotape. It is a wise idea to simultaneously record with a time code recorder to ensure a protective backup production track.
Wireless microphones are now a standard part of a sound package. They allow the director creative mobility to stage the actors, therefore wireless microphones have become a cost-effective piece of equipment. On lower budget projects you may want to consider renting wireless microphones just for certain sequences rather than for the entire production. Close collaboration by the production sound mixer with the director and production manager during pre-production will help determine that decision. Also, wardrobe must be informed when there is an intention of using wireless microphones. Wardrobe must make sure that the actors’ costumes are suitable to hide the battery pack powering the microphone. For example, it would be tough to use wireless microphones on actors in bathing suits. It is also difficult to use wireless microphones on wardrobe that makes a lot of noise, like taffeta or leather.
Boom operators are very important to the creative recording of sound. They are always on the set watching and observing to make sure that the Sound Department accomplishes its goals. The boom operator should be strong, agile and probably tall; since it has been my observation that the taller the boom operator the easier it is to get the mike in the scene and not in the shot. The relationship between the boom operator and the sound mixer is very important since the creative recording of production sound has a lot to do with microphone placement. Boom operators who have a close relationship with their production sound mixer will know where to set the microphone without being instructed. The boom operator will have to have a working relationship with other crewmembers since the actions of other crew personnel may affect the work of the boom. Boom operators must also know how to work diplomatically with talent. The better operators have a pleasant demeanor, since they often have to attach battery packs and hide wireless microphones on actors. (This can be a very delicate art form unto itself.) They will work quickly and silently, reporting any problems to the sound mixer or first assistant. They want to make sure that the director never has to wait while the Sound Department does its job. On more complex production days it might be necessary to hire a second boom (or cable) operator. Once again, this is where the production board will come in handy as this is one of the choreographic needs of the production period.
The Sound Department has the responsibility of purchasing DAT cassette tape for the DAT recorder or 1/4” audio tape (3” reels) for the Nagra. To determine the amount of tape stock to budget, you must first determine the amount of picture stock that will be required for the camera. Although this will be discussed later in this chapter, the determination of audio stock correlates to the shooting ratio of the project. You should purchase the exact amount of tape stock as you do picture (camera) stock. While there are times when it will not be necessary to record sound with the picture, there will be other times when it will be necessary to record sound without the picture. The practice of recording “room tone” in each practical location for use during post-production sound design is an example of that. Therefore, it is foolish to think that you will need less audiotape than you do picture stock. If any audiotape is left over from production it can always be used in post-production or on your next project.
Finally, the walkie-talkies that are required to facilitate the production process are assigned to the Production Sound Department budget. Walkie-talkies may be rented or purchased, and are requirements on every project. The production manager determines the exact number of walkie-talkies needed by looking at the choreography on the production board. The minimum is usually four. On a lower budget project you may want to purchase the consumer type of walkie-talkie or headset intercom system. (First check carefully to see if it can handle the distance that you need for production. Don’t forget this!) Communication will be greatly improved during production with the addition of walkie-talkies or some other wireless intercom device and will save you time in production. And saving time is saving money and adding creativity for the director.
The Transportation Department is the lifeline to the project. It is the department that must move the production, its personnel and its elements. They may move a single element during a production day or all the elements at the end of, or the beginning of a production day. Murphy’s Law will certainly run amok if the Transportation Department is not on top of the company movement detailed in the production board. This department is directly responsible to the production manager, and the coordination and communication between the production manager and the transportation coordinator must be in sync at all times. This can be accomplished by having the production coordinator assist both the production manager and the transportation coordinator (see Figure #18). In that way the production coordinator becomes the pivot point for the successful movement of the production.
You should permit the transportation coordinator to have almost as much preparation time as the production manager. The transportation coordinator must read the script to determine if any picture vehicles are required and then meet with you, the director and/or the production designer concerning the type and color of picture vehicle desired. He or she then works with the Property Department to secure and transport the vehicle on the days it is needed for production. The transportation coordinator should start solving all the transport problems of the production as the needs of the various departments are known, locations are secured, personnel are in place and the production schedule is planned. The coordinator must arrange for the necessary vehicles and assure that drivers are scheduled. Transportation coordinators are like military strategists, since they are given the responsibility of moving large companies of people and equipment. They must visit each location and determine the position and establishment of “base camp” and the logistics of transit as it relates to time and production creativity. The Transportation Department must make sure that everything is set up before the production company reports to work and they are often the last department to leave a location at the end of a production day. On nonunion productions you often assign production assistants to work with the production manager and transportation coordinator to make sure the loose ends regarding production movement are tied up.
The Teamsters represent transportation on an IATSE signatory project. But since union transportation coordinators do not have the duty of driving vehicles, the salary is generally negotiable, though they may not be paid less than the lowest paid full-time driver employed on the production. This policy allows Teamster drivers to elevate themselves to the responsible position of transportation coordinators if they have the skills and knowledge required.
Teamsters primarily drive. Although the Teamsters local also includes animal wranglers and mechanics, it primarily covers the drivers of vehicles used on productions. Once the vehicle has reached its destination, the driver waits until it is time to again move the vehicle. If your project is an IATSE signatory make sure your production manager and your production accountant understand the details regarding the Teamster locals since they are complicated and vary from region to region.
If your project is not a signatory to IATSE—depending on the size and complexity of the project—a three-person Transportation Department will probably suffice. However, ideally one of the two crew people should be a certified and trained mechanic as it will aid in reducing the possibility of Murphy’s Law adversely affecting the project.
Nevertheless it will be impossible for these three-people to drive all of the production company’s vehicles from location to location. Therefore you should designate onset production assistants, grips or electricians as drivers and give them an additional weekly bonus or “crew bump” for this service. Your production manager and transportation coordinator must make sure that the assigned driver has the appropriate drivers license, knows how to drive the vehicle and does so safely. It is not a smart policy to have multiple drivers for a specific vehicle; try to maintain the same driver for the vehicle throughout the production. This will keep you in the clear should there be any claims under your producers’ package vehicle insurance policy.
Figure 31
Besides necessary production vehicles to transport people, other basic vehicles required for production are a grip/electric truck with a lift gate, a wardrobe vehicle, a camera vehicle and a prop vehicle. Of course, you may add to, or remove from, this caravan depending on the size and demands of the production.
The Transportation Department is also responsible for ensuring that mobile dressing rooms on location are clean and in place. Dressing rooms are also called star wagons or honeywagons and are contracted from independent rental companies. They are pulled by a truckcab and consist of a trailer with one or more small separate rooms, each with its own entrance. Latrines used by the production crew are found at the back end of the trailer. Usually the person from the contracting company brings the honeywagon to the location and stays with it for the entire day of production to assist with its maintenance. The Screen Actors Guild requires each actor to have a separate dressing room or place where they can get away from the confusion of the set. The same rooms on these wagons may be used for several actors during a shooting day, depending on when each are called for work and the time each finishes. The 2nd AD closely monitors this schedule from the production board and works out the dressing room assignments with transportation.
In some instances you may wish to provide motor homes as dressing rooms for your principle actors. This may be a requirement in the actors’ contract or something you provide for the actors’ comfort. This can be costly.
On The Clonus Horror I contacted a senior organization in order to rent five motor homes from their members. (Senior citizens are the largest group of people in the United States to own and use motor homes.) My insurance package provided insurance for the vehicles, and I offered each owner $250 a week, guaranteeing that each motor home would be occupied by one of the main leads in the project. Appealing to their ego, I further invited them to visit the location, meet the actors and have lunch with the production company. I had no problem finding the motor homes. We had to provide drivers for the motor homes while we were using them, and transportation had the responsibility of maintaining them. The seniors were happy with the additional rental income and the actors were happy having their motor homes. And I was happy because it was a cost-effective transaction which translated to a happy actor giving the director a creative performance.
A transportation crew often solves problems before the producer and director are even made aware of them. When they are doing their job, they are thinking ahead. They must always consider Murphy’s Law as their nemesis, since almost anything that happens during a production will impact transportation. Therefore, you must make sure that the budget allows for any special equipment that might be needed. On one project, I had a director decide to shoot an unscheduled scene using a grip as stunt driver for the sports utility vehicle we were using as a picture car. (The scene was originally scheduled on a day when the stunt coordinator was working.) The result was disastrous. The SUV got stuck in the mud and the more the grip tried to get it free, the deeper it went. The production manager and transportation coordinator called in a tow truck to pull it free. By the time the tow truck was hooked to the SUV, it was up to its floorboards in mud. The tow truck tried to raise the SUV, and the suction was so powerful that it pulled the tow truck into the mud. So the transportation coordinator brought in a second tow truck and together (with the first tow truck) they were able to raise the SUV from the mud. Murphy’s Law! Be ready for it!
The Locations Department is another breeding ground for Murphy’s Law. It is common to find appropriations in LOCATION EXPENSE to solve or prevent problems that might arise. The location manager must not only be creative, but also a master of organization and detail. A location manager first reads the project, then meets with the producer and director to discuss its locations. Creative location managers will also discuss production problems and parameters with the production manager. Once the producer has determined the geographical location of the project, the location manager, armed with the creative concepts and production parameters, begins the tedious search to find several options for each of the discussed locations. The location manager considers not only what may work creatively for the story, but also what may appear to work logistically for production. Creative location managers may make suggestions to the producer or director if they come across an interesting and cost effective location with picture value and that might work for the project. They research possible locations using information from their network of relationships, or from sources like film commissioners, real estate agents and Internet web sites. They get in a car and drive around with a cinematographer’s eye for the image. Location managers generally scout around armed with a panorama view still camera, a digital still camera, and a Polaroid camera. Some even use a video camera. They must bring back the visual and practical information for the creative and logistical production teams to accurately and efficiently make choices to scout. Through this initial work of the location manager, the production team then scouts the possible locations.
The location manager also considers locations in relationships to the production board. When Costa-Gavras was preparing Mad City, his location manager scouted the television studio at UCLA. The location manager discovered that the location was ideal for Costa-Gavras because the studio could be seen from the control room. This was something the director specifically wanted since the studio was supposed to be a small television station studio where Dustin Hoffman was a news reporter. When the location manager originally scouted the studio and took photographs, he found adjacent hallways and entranceways that could be used for other scenes in the movie. It also helped that the dressing rooms and equipment trucks could be parked near the building. When Costa-Gavras, the producer, the production manager, director of photography, gaffer, key grip and production designer visited the site, they artistically and logistically agreed with the location manager.
Figure 32
Once the locations have been selected, the location manager arranges all the clearances and details for their use with the appropriate owners and authorities, and arranges for the necessary security (if the production company or the location requires it). The complexity of these tasks requires the location manager to work with local and state government officials, the production manager, the transportation coordinator, the production accountant, the producer, the assistant to the producer and a variety of other people who might tangentially be involved. Therefore, you should have a location manager who has the patience of Job and the diplomatic skills of Kissinger. The location manager stays with the project throughout the production process. In some instances, you may want to assign a production assistant to work with the location manager, or employ a local location contact, as the work often gets quite complicated and the poor or untimely results of the location manager’s work will have a direct impact on the production.
The production philosophy will be reflected in the area of travel, hotels and per diems for below-the-line crewmembers. If the project requires production in a geographical region different than your production base, you may decide that you will arrange for all or a portion of your crew to travel to the region. If you travel with only a portion of the crew you are deciding either to use a smaller crew or pick up local people as crew. Your production board will help you with this decision. Guidelines for travel, housing and per diems are provided in all union and guild contracts. Common sense, personal respect and dignity should be the guideline for nonunion crews. Coach air travel is perfectly acceptable, and airlines often have special lower rates if you fulfill certain requirements (such as travelling at certain times, advanced booking, or purchasing multiple tickets). These discounts are good to have, but they can also be a problem since the tickets may not be refundable or may have a penalty attached should they need to be changed. The travel of crew personnel can be in a continual state of flux, so consider all travel arrangements carefully.
Housing on location should also be a consideration. IATSE crew members each must have their own rooms according to the IATSE agreement. Although it is acceptable to put two people to a room on a nonunion project, you should remember that crew people may want to get away from one another at the end of a long production day and may welcome having individual hotel or motel rooms. If you do decide to put two people to a room to save a few dollars, make sure you ask the crew members if it is all right with them and give them a chance to choose their own roommate from the crew. However, regardless what you do with the rest of the crew, make sure that the director, cinematographer and production manager have private rooms.
Per diem (translated from the Latin means per day), is the money you pay each member of the crew for meals each day they are away from home due to your project. A set amount would be decided for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. If you feed a meal during the shooting day, deduct for that meal. As an example, if the per diem is $10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner, then the total daily per diem will be $60. For a week, it would be $420. But, you feed a lunch to the production six of the seven days of the week, then the weekly per diem would be $300.
Your production board will let you know the statistics relating to travel, hotel and per diems to help you calculate the precise amount needed.
The meals you serve on location during production are very important to the morale of your production. The quality and creativity of each meal will have a direct affect on the results in a shooting day. Serving a meal is not a requirement in the industry, but it is a practice. Producers provide meals to the production crew only on location for one very good reason: to save valuable production time. When a meal is served near the set, the crew knows that it will be ready when they need it and the producer can relax knowing that no time will be wasted in getting a crew to and from a set location on time. Also, when the serving of the meal is coordinated with the production of the day, the production manager is able to manage the distribution of the meal to the needs of production. The meal that is served in the middle of the production day should be a “sit down” meal. That is to say, a meal at which people stop working and sit and eat. The Screen Actors Guild requires its members to have a sit down meal within six hours of their members’ call time. This is a good policy to adhere to for crew members as well. The meal period begins when the last person has gone through the meal line, so to save time it is common for part of the crew (those not busy) to begin eating before the production has broken for the meal. SAG requires that a sit down second meal be fed to their members’ six hours after the first meal ends. However, since many times the second meal comes close to the wrap time of a shooting day, the crew often opts for the second meal to be a “walking” meal. This is usually food that can be eaten while they are working. You only need to feed those people who work before and after the scheduled meal. Some people on your production may be called into work after the scheduled meal and some may complete their work before the company breaks for its meal. You may want to do the honorable thing and invite the people excused before this meal to eat with the company anyway. They worked, so they deserve to eat.
The meal served on location should be of excellent quality. Although there are many ways to cater a meal on location, a motion picture catering company knows the importance of the quality of the food expected by the crew and its success to the day’s production. Motion picture catering experts also know the portion sizes for a hungry film crew. A normal menu would consist of at least two entrees, five salads, starches, two beverages, soup, several deserts and bread and butter. There should always be a vegetarian dish and the food should be prepared with an idea towards maintaining the energy of the company. Caterers will often do thematic meals, such as a luau or barbecue. They even provide decorated cakes to celebrate birthdays and other occasions.
The caterer eventually becomes part of the production family and learns and caters to the tastes of the various crew personalities. A meal will cost you anywhere from $7.50 to $15.50 a person, including the set up of tables and chairs. You will pay extra for the catering staff. If you choose to use restaurant caterers, make sure the restaurant provides enough food. Usually restaurant menus are fixed and they run out of food because it is not portioned out as in a restaurant. You may, however, find that this is suitable with smaller crews.
The production board will help determine the number of meals you need each day. It will also tell you if there is a probability of a second meal on any particular day. Rarely do you feed the company three meals in one day. You only need to provide a “walking breakfast” if an actor or a member of the company is called to work before 6:00 a.m. Although craft service usually has bagels, fruit, toast and coffee for anyone who may want it, this is not considered a breakfast. Whatever you decide about meals remember the quality of the meal is most important. Tainted or poorly prepared food can cause sickness in your company and affect your production, and bad tasting food serves only to make your crew cranky and edgy.
You must make sure that you have enough resources for the rental of locations. Although you should try to make the best deals possible, the budget you prepare is a guide and should be prepared as if there were no deals. Even if you decide to make the project in another state or country (because of the dollar exchange or other benefits), you will still need to rent locations. So, although you don’t have to spend it all, make sure that you have the resources budgeted for that purpose. Make sure that your location agreement has clauses in it in case you need to prepare the location in any way for the shoot. The rate you pay for preparation and wrap at the location should be less than the rate you pay for production. It is also important that you include a clause in the agreement that permits you to come back to the location at the same rate you paid when you first used it for production. If you do not have that agreement up front, the location owner may increase the rate if you need to come back for any reason. Everything must be in writing and structured as a binding contract. The location owner can always turn you away or give you problems but with a written agreement you have appropriate recourse in a court of law for any recoverable loss or expenses.
Be creative when looking for locations, since locations can be other than what they appear to be on film. As an example, it may be difficult to get a real courthouse lobby—but perhaps the lobby of a public library or an office building with federal architecture will work with the proper set dressing and atmosphere.
Not only do you have to consider the look of the location, but also how the location works within the schedule. Most projects will have one or two primary locations that are critical to the story. These are usually the locations in which a lot of the story takes place. The production will probably be scheduled to stay in those locations for several days, possibly for weeks. Other locations may only be seen a few times in the story. You should first find the primary locations and then look nearby for any secondary locations. This will help when you finalize the production board and schedule. You can always make the shoe fit the foot and rewrite the script to adjust for secondary locations that might be near the primary locations you secured. It doesn’t make sense to move the production company for smaller sequences when it may be possible to adjust these locations for the production schedule. I was presented with this problem in Hunter’s Blood. Although the picture starts out in Oklahoma and moves to Arkansas, I decided to shoot the picture in Los Angeles. The problem was finding locales that could stand in for both the Oklahoma countryside and woods of Arkansas. We searched all over the Los Angeles area trying to keep it within the fifty-mile studio zone radius so we would not have to travel or house people on a distant location. There were three important locations in the story and I knew I had to find those first. One was a campsite that would be the hunters’ camp. Another was the poachers’ cabin that needed to have a backwoods rural feeling. The third was the poachers’ gully, which had to look like it was hidden deep in the woods. After weeks of searching in the obvious woodsy areas around Los Angeles, we called a backlot company near Valencia, California, and explained what we needed. This was just on the outskirts of the fifty mile radius. The location contact for the company took us out to an undeveloped part of the property to show us woods that closely matched the kind of woods we would find in Arkansas. The minute I saw this location I knew we could shoot our project in Los Angeles. While driving around that area the location contact pointed out a very large 200-year-old tree that was isolated and had an ominous look. This was to be our poachers’ gully. About one hundred yards away, the location contact showed us a riverbed that he said would be a raging river with the right rain. I thought it would help sell the location if we were able to use the riverbed in some way and I knew that the director could easily find a suitable place near it that could be dressed as the hunters’ camp. The third location was still a problem. I told the contact what was needed for the poachers’ cabin. We drove to another part of the area and he showed me a rural cabin on stilts in what looked to be a dry weeded piece of land. He told me that they could flood the area and the cabin would then appear to be sitting on stilts in a wooded swamp. Perfect! The cabin was surrounded by woods. The projects’ breakdown had many scenes in the woods. And since a tree is a tree is a tree (at least for the purpose of this production), I knew that nearby the cabin we had choices for many of our secondary and tertiary locations.
The production board also told me that we needed to find other important locations and though they were used only once they were more difficult to find. The trick was in finding them so the project could be shot in twenty-two days. Two secondary locations in particular presented a problem. One was a rural bar, both interior and exterior, the other was a rural gas station where the hunters stop for gas and where Sam Bottoms places a call to his girlfriend (played by Kim Delaney), asking that she meet him the next evening. Right behind the tree we were going to use for the poachers’ gully, but hidden by woods, was an empty tin-roofed shed. I turned to the art director and asked what he could do with this structure. In no time flat, and with a minimum of rented set dressing, we had our rural bar. Near the same area we spotted a Western town circa 1880. With a little imagination, the rental of gas pumps and an agreement with the director that he not stage the scene in one particular direction, we had our rural gas station.
Finally the story called for the hunters to escape the area by water. We were hoping for rain so they could make their escape by the river. But (as Murphy’s Law would have it) we did not have enough rain that season to completely fill the riverbed. However, railroad tracks and a freight train were nearby. This gave us the opportunity to change the escape to a train and devise an exciting stunt in which Lee DeBroux (as the lead bad guy) falls sixty feet to his death. Although we budgeted $25,000 for site rentals, everything—including the train and the labor to run it—cost $17,000. Not bad for a picture whose total budget was $750,000. They even bulldozed a road for us to get back into the woods.
In The Clonus Horror we had an escape that had to be devised for our clone hero. I didn’t have any idea how we were going to do it or find all the locations to sell the escape. Robert Fiveson, the director, told me not to worry about it. As he scouted locations he had decided he would create the action: find the alleyways, open fields and drainage pipes that we needed to sell an exciting escape. I didn’t have a notion how we were going to pull it off, but we had our collaborative creative vision of the story and I put my faith in his ability to make it work brilliantly. Although I saw the strips on the production board and saw the footage during our dailies, I couldn’t fathom how it would cut together as an exciting chase sequence, but Robert did an astounding job. Inventive thinking in the use of locations will bring creativity to the project. Don’t be afraid to be inventive.
You may need a distant location production office or a local production office for the project. The office will require such equipment as fax and copier machines, and Internet access. The use of the Internet is becoming a standard situation in producing and you should plan for its use. It is used for e-mail communication, instant messaging, research, purchasing and sometimes the viewing of footage. The computer has replaced the typewriter and you will have to supply location and production planning staff with computers by either buying or renting them. Some of your staff will be better served with laptop computers since a lot of their work is away from the production or location office. This is the communication millennium so you will need to arrange for cellular phones as well. Make sure that the phone service reaches all the areas you need. Nothing is worse than a mobile phone that cuts out in the middle of a conversation.
During production you will find the need for amenity payments. Simply put, these are payoffs. Your director may be shooting on a street and one of the residents will decide to mow his lawn just as the camera is about to roll. Your production manager can use every power of persuasion with the resident but an amenity payment may be the final solution.
Other factors affecting location shoots are dependent on the structure of the production. If you are shooting the project a distance from the processing laboratory but editing at the location, you will need to make arrangements for shipping and transporting the film or video transfers to and from the lab. If you are shooting in a foreign country, you may have to work with a customs broker to purchase flight insurance, work with government censors or require an interpreter. The location cost center will reflect the producing structure of your project. Creative thinking in this area is critical.
Chapter six discusses the possibility of set construction for your project. If that is the direction you are going with all or a portion of the project, then you will need a space in which to put the sets once they have been built. In major cities, where production is an industry, there are spaces all over. These may be film stages and studios, converted warehouses or lofts on the outskirts of town. They have sprung up all over because of music video, industrial and commercial industries. The advantage in using these spaces is that they provide a controlled environment for your film or video production. They have been sound-proofed and have the electrical power, air conditioning, heating, and the accoutrements of comfort that are necessary for a production. Their downside will be their cost, limited availability, and the need for separate crews to set up, rig lights, and strike the set when finished. In addition, you may be required to use their equipment or union people.
Figure 33
Sometimes it is necessary to use a space like a stage, where a bit of imagination can turn a high school gymnasium, auditorium stage, or even a circus tent into a production facility. Unless the need for a stage is obvious, sometimes the production board and the requirements of the story will direct you towards using a stage space. Coming of Age, a project that is currently in development, has thirty-two pages of the story taking place in a college dormitory room. As the director of the project I want to use practical locations for the picture. After many months of planning, the production designer and cinematographer have convinced me otherwise. The cinematographer said he could do a much more creative job of visually interpreting the story if the walls of the dorm room could be “wild.” (Wild walls are not weight-bearing, but instead are walls that can be moved independently to suit the needs of production.) I got to thinking about it and realized that movable walls would also allow more flexibility in the staging. And because there are some fairly emotional scenes in the dorm room, the actors might also feel more comfortable working in a more controlled environment. So the project is being planned for seven or eight days of production on a stage. The design of the room will be specific to the staging and the final result will match the texture and details of a practical location.
Some projects may require the use of a blue- or greenscreen stage for photographic effects. Chapter 5 discussed effects that might be needed to create the story. Either a first unit production team or a second unit production team can do process photography. This would depend on the desired final result. If actors are to speak, develop their characters and their relationships in the structure of the sequence, then more than likely the first unit will do the process work. It is then handed off to a digital effects house, which has the task of marrying it to a background or foreground image for inclusion in the story. If it is just the process that needs to be photographed (without character development), a second unit may be used. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a second unit team was employed to do the transporting effects with the actors, but the first unit would do any sequence when they move or speak after they have been beamed aboard.
In The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything, which was produced before the development of digital technology, we scheduled work on a bluescreen process stage as first unit. In the story the real world stops at the beach, at a boat marina and in the interior of a yacht when the actors use the watch to move into the world of stopped time. I decided we would do the effects by marrying film negative with tape transferred to film negative using an experimental video format (at the time), of 655 lines at 24 frames a second. The director was not familiar with video, bluescreen or film matting processes. I had the sequences storyboarded so everyone on the creative production team knew what shot was to be film and what shot was to be tape transferred to film. I brought Emory Cohen and Leon Silverman (now of Lazer Pacific Media Corporation), and Bob Ringer of Ringer Tape Transfer together with the technicians from the film laboratory to figure out how to make it work. Together we came up with the following plan: The director would shoot on film the storyboarded shots and the background plates for the bluescreen stage. When we transferred the film background plates to tape in preparation for the bluescreen stage, we removed the electronic focus on the image.1 Then in preparation for the bluescreen process the cinematographer (Jacques Haitkin) recalculated the television camera lens to match the film camera lens of the background plate. A video truck was brought in to the bluescreen stage with the machines that would record in 655/24. When we played back the out-of-focus background plates now on tape, and matted in action with the actors against a bluescreen, we recorded the action in 655/24 removing the electronic focus once again. Then we brought Bob Ringer the married image of the background plate and the foreground bluescreen action and had it transferred back to film adding the electronic focus to the married image. It worked, and at 1/6th the cost and time of doing it all on film. Digital technology would go on to change the way it would be done today, of course. However, no matter how it is done, the bottom line is always the story. It is and must be your motivating factor. Technology doesn’t change the story, just the way we tell it.
Second unit has been mentioned several times. A second unit team is a mini production unit that has specific tasks to accomplish towards the creative storytelling of the project. It may include some or all of the departments indicated in Figure #34. This would depend on what is required of second unit. Sometimes this crew works simultaneously with first unit—especially when the second unit is being used to alleviate a backup in the production schedule of the first unit. In those instances you should make sure that there is close communication between the cinematographers and directors of both units to ensure the creative continuity needed for the project.
Sometimes a second unit is needed after the first unit has completed production. In those instances, the second unit is working specifically on sequences that will be worked into the project. They may be action like the aerial sequences in Top Gun or they may be establishing sequences like the wide angle shots of the Thelma & Louise car as it travels cross-country. Your project may require shooting certain sequences in a miniature set for digital inclusion with main action, or a stand alone sequence, like the destruction of Los Angeles in Volcano. Whatever the reasons, a second production unit creatively is guided by the your vision and the vision of the director. The creative process is always a collaborative one.
Figure 34
Your project will either be shot in film, videotape or digitally, and technology may yet find new ways of recording your project. You must determine the post-production process of your project in the planning stage and it must be reflected in your budget when detailing the process flow. There are several paths that you can take, all of which follow different procedures but end up with the same results (see Figure #35). The first path is the traditional path followed when you are working entirely without any assistance from the digital post-production process. This path is not often taken today but is indicated here as a reference. Each path has its own fiscal upsides and creative downsides that will be discussed in the next chapter.
Figure #35 shows the various paths starting with the origination of the material. Figure #36 allows for the planning for any of these paths.
Figure 35
Figure 36
The volume of picture or film negative you purchase (and use) for the project will have a major impact on the budget. This is determined by the shooting ratio. Shooting ratio is the quantity of film that needs to be shot to realize one foot of film finally used in the project. As an example, if you are shooting a 35mm film that will be approximately ninety minutes in length and the shooting ratio is 10 to 1, you will be purchasing slightly less than 82,000 feet of negative film stock. (1000 ft of 35mm = approximately 11 minutes.)
If you are shooting 16mm film with the same shooting ratio you will be purchasing approximately 35,000 feet of negative film stock. (400 ft of 16mm = approximately 11 minutes.) The shooting ratio should be your barometer for maintaining your directors’ fiscal responsibility towards the project. The more film stock used, the more time it takes to use it, and the more it will cost to process. There are camera techniques like dolly shots, Steadicam and multiple camera sequences that use up a lot of film. Your director’s style and creative approach to the project will have a direct impact on your time and budget. So be sure to discuss the shooting ratio very carefully with the director and cinematographer and plan accordingly. If you have a completion bond on the project, the bonding company may require that you strictly adhere to the stated ratio. This is one of the reasons why the production report on each day of shooting indicates the amount of footage shot both that day and up to that day; the information is used as a budgetary yardstick.
Kodak, Ilford and Fuji are the major manufacturers of motion picture film (Ilford is used extensively in Europe, especially for black and white film). Your cinematographer should be familiar with the technical differences between the brands. You can purchase the stock from the company for its retail list price, or there are companies that offer discount rates on film stock. You can also arrange a comfortable discount rate from the manufacturer but it may not be as favorable as the rate you can get from other discounters. Many discount companies buy back unopened leftover stock and resell it at a discounted rate. However, the stock may be short ends or from different manufacturing batch numbers. Short ends consist of the leftover film stock from full camera rolls that have been used. The unused portion is removed from the camera and repacked for sale or use at a later time. Short ends limit your director if he or she was planning on using long camera takes. Different batch numbers also pose a slight risk of affecting the color timing of the final product. Also, although the stock may be unopened, you are never quite sure how the stock was stored before it was sold to the discount company. Many producers generally have a positive experience with these discount companies, but you should take this into account. Purchasing stock from a discount house can also have an impact on the faulty stock insurance you may purchase for the project. However you wind up purchasing the film stock, you should budget using the list rate from the manufacturer. If you get a discount on its purchase, you can apply the savings elsewhere in the budget.
Generally you should budget the same amount of film negative to develop as you do to purchase. If you decide to make a positive of the selected printed dailies, then the amount of footage budgeted will vary with the millimeter film stock you use. A one light daily is a positive print of what is shot each day of the production. If you are shooting 35mm film, 75 percent of the total footage you purchase should be budgeted for a one light daily process. When processing 35mm, motion picture laboratories, although developing all of the film, only print the circled takes indicated on the camera report. Circled takes are the takes of each shot that the director has determined to be the best performances of both the actor and the camera. If you are shooting 16mm film, budget 100 percent of the total footage you purchased for a one light daily process, because motion picture laboratories develop and print all of the film in the 16mm daily process.
Typical dailies are named “one light” because the laboratory picks one timing light in the process and uses that as a basis for making the positive daily print. Do not worry if it doesn’t look as you expected. The important thing is the density (thickness) of the negative and its ability to be properly color timed at the end of the process. If there are any questions about the color timing capacity of a sequence, you can always order a timed daily (which of course costs more). The question of color timing is considered during the production phase so you are able to re-shoot a sequence if it eventually cannot be color timed appropriately. If you find this information out after the production period, it will cost you more money to resolve the problem than timing the daily during production. Of course the notion of budgeting either 75 percent or 100 percent of the film footage is applicable only if you use post-production paths #1 and #3 indicated in Figure #35. If you choose path #4, then you only have to budget for positive daily film footage that corresponds to your final length of the film project plus an additional percentage (anywhere from 50 percent to 300 percent). This is because the entire take needs to be printed even if only a small piece of it is used in the final edit.
Your director, cinematographer, editor and you must all see the daily footage every day of production either it be on film or tape. You must not wait until the project has completed shooting before processing dailies or transferring to video to see the dailies. If you want to save money, you can choose to print the dailies on film only for the first few days or weeks of the production—to assure that the director and cinematographer are on track with their creative vision—and then see the remainder of the dailies in video. If you make that decision, make sure your cinematographer talks to the technician at the processing lab each day to ensure the quality of the developed negative.
If you choose path #2, #3 or #4 in Figure #35 you will have to transfer your film to video through a telecine process. The video will then be digitized into a nonlinear editing system. Make sure you check the rates with the laboratory for the telecine process. They are competitive and will depend on what you require for the transfer. For example, if you want to transfer sound with the picture, it will cost more than if they only transfer the picture. This decision must be thought through carefully, because, if you transfer only the picture, the assistant editor will have to spend time during the edit process synching up the sound. This may delay the edit process. You will be faced with these decisions of time to money and its impact on creativity throughout your producing career. Time versus money becomes even more critical during the post-production process (and will be discussed further in the next chapter).
If you decide to follow path #1 in Figure #35, then you will need to transfer your production sound to magnetic stripe film. The amount of magnetic stripe film you budget should be about the same as the amount of printed film. The labor and transfer process for the production sound should be part of the bid by your post-production sound company.
Determining the film, tape and laboratory issues of your project affects the post-production and vice versa. Look to the End Result Use of the final project to help guide you.
It may be necessary to do tests of one sort or another before you start shooting the project. At the very least, you should test the camera equipment by shooting 50 to 100 feet of film and having the lab process it. In addition, you should test any visuals you might be unsure of before you start production. This may include testing out a visual design process, screen testing the actors to assure if they are right for the role, or may include testing film stock to determine which is best suited for the project. It is better to test and be sure than to discover problems later.
Figure 37
The below-the-line fringe of the production period reflects the structure of the below-the-line labor of production. If you are planning the project as a Directors Guild signatory, you will have to budget 12.5 percent of the below-the-line DGA gross payroll for pension, health and welfare (5.5 percent for the pension plan and 7 percent for the welfare plan). If the End Result Use of the project is for theatrical release, there is a salary ceiling of $200,000 for the pension plan and $250,000 for the welfare plan. You will also need to budget for vacation and holiday at 7.719 percent of gross wages for DGA personnel. (Four percent for vacation and 3.719 percent for holiday). This is required only for the below-the-line DGA personnel.
If the project is a signatory to IATSE, you must budget 4 percent for vacation and 3.719 percent for holiday, for a total of 7.719 percent as a payment based upon all gross below-the-line IATSE salaries. However the IATSE percentage to the pension, health and welfare plans vary depending on the craft local, and are not as easily calculated as it is for guilds. Many craft unions are based on a certain amount per hour with a twelve hour day per employee maximum, plus certain daily charges. You will have to consult the rate book of the IATSE for the precise amounts. For budgeting purposes you should be relatively safe if you budget 16 percent for a project shot in Los Angeles, 19 percent for one shot in New York and 12 percent for Florida. If you are using a nonunion crew, the pension, health and welfare and vacation and holiday payments do not apply. But, as in the case of above-the-line wages, you will be liable for the employers’ share of payroll taxes for all below-the-line production wages. This was discussed in Chapter 5 under “Employers Tax Obligations.”
Figure 38
Here again you are creating a fourth method of providing fiscal security to protect against possible budget overages. As in the case of above-the-line, the employer’s share for below-the-line payroll taxes can go into an interest-bearing account before making the payments to the appropriate government agencies. Once the payments are made, the interest remains in the account. The same holds true for payments for pension, health and welfare, vacation and holiday. These payments do not have to be made until the end of the work assignment. Therefore, as payroll is met weekly on the project, you may want to transfer the additional funds into the same interest-bearing account until it is time to make the payments. This will generate additional resources through the earned interest, which can then be applied elsewhere, should the need arise.
Recently I cut a picture for a producer who had to deal with an executive (the wife of the head of the studio) who was at considerable odds with the director. The producer’s task was to honor the executive’s opinions (which, though cinematically naive, were not without insight), while at the same time protecting the director’s vision for the picture. He also had to beat off “friendly” interference from the composer, the writer, the director of photography, his co-producers—and of course from me—all without stifling appropriate contribution and creating dangerous battlegrounds. From my Avid-side perspective, the creative producer is the film’s enabler—and its ultimate friend and protector.
—Robert Gordon, Editor, Toy Story, The Blue Lagoon, Return of the Living Dead, Girl in a Swing
1 The very fine focus in video is through the electronics of video to enhance the focus of the optics of a camera lens.
