III. Running a professional set
The objective during a shooting day is to shoot as much as possible.
Every minute the camera is not shooting is a waste of time and money. Having the camera switched off half of the time, means that the editor and director are missing out on having twice as much footage to make the movie. This is the 1st AD’s main task and every crew member needs to facilitate this, from assistants, to hair – make-up, gaffer, DP, art director and stunt coordinator. A professional set is always running, there is never any waiting.
A body in motion stays in motion.
When people are constantly working and have something to do, they will be more alert and do their job better than when they have a lot of rest and waiting periods in between takes or shots. Therefore, careful planning and managing of sets are needed to let the crew work at the maximum of their capabilities.
What’s not been tested or prepped before the shooting WILL delay the shooting day.
No matter how easy something looks. There is nothing more destructive for a movie production than having unprepared people and equipment on set. When a camera package is not properly packed, items will be missing or turn out to be not working. If the director doesn’t know what he wants to shoot, it takes time to figure it out. When the stunt coordinator doesn’t know how to do the stunt or hasn’t tested the stunt before, it will cost a lot of time during the shooting day.
There can’t be any uncertainties when arriving on set.
Prep is everything!!!!
In moviemaking cheap is always more expensive.
If the production wants to achieve quality, they have to spend the money to achieve that quality. Quality simply costs what it costs, if it’s cheap in production it will become expensive in post.
Many tried to cheat this rule, ALL have failed. This is especially true when hiring people:
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”
The production triangle.
good
Pick any two
fast cheap
GOOD – FAST – CHEAP: These are the three components of the production triangle. Every film production stands or falls with those three components. Unfortunately you can’t combine all three legs of the triangle at the same time. You can pair two elements successfully which makes that the third one falls off the boat.
This is how it works:
1. You can make something FAST & CHEAP, but it won’t be GOOD. 2. Do something really FAST and GOOD, won’t be CHEAP. 3. Having something that is CHEAP and GOOD, won’t be FAST.
An example: What’s the best way to shoot a full action scene in a movie?
The director wants to have the picture look good and the producer wants to have it done fast because they can only afford the location for one day. Therefore they need to bring in extra cameras and crew to speed up the shoot and maintain the quality. This will cost extra money.
The director wants to have it look good but the producer wants to do it cheap. There is no money to hire extra cameras and crew, but luckily the location is for free and they can stay there as many days as they want. The whole action scene becomes a very slow process to shoot but at least the director gets the shots he wants to use in editing.
The producer forces the director to shoot the whole action scene in one day because the location is too expensive and there is no money to bring in extra cameras and crew to get all the shots needed. The director is very frustrated and knows that whatever he’s going to direct that day won’t be good.
The professionals know how to balance these 3 legs out and make the right compromises for those scenes. It takes a lot of experience from director, producer and key crew to know how to balance the production triangle.
The movie can be only as good as the weakest link in the whole process.
From scriptwriter to final sound mixer and PA. The level of professionalism of each of these positions determines how good the movie will be. A bad script shot by an amazing director will never be a good movie. An amazing good looking movie will be degraded by bad sound. An amazing script can be cut to pieces by the editor and an assistant who is running late or forgets to bring a prop makes that the director needs to improvise to get the scene. Each element in the process of film production is important. You can’t compensate.
The bigger the acting talent of the star, the fewer problems you have.
Good professional actors are very focused on their job and trust anybody around them to do their job. The less acting talent the star has the more they try to compensate it with attitude and silly demands. The worst are the celebrities without acting talent, they are famous (for a moment) and give only trouble for production and crew about how they look, their pay and how they are treated. This is possibly to compensate for their insecurities and lack of acting talent.