Producing – Week Two

Decisions, decisions, decisions… Oh, the pain and privilege of the Producer under pressure. It is our lot as human beings – in fact it defines us – to be submerged in a sea of choices every minute of our lives. Most of the time the decisions are quickly and easily made. Sometimes, they’re not. All too often it falls to the Producer to simply be the one that ‘decides’, whatever the significance or size of the choice, and then communicate that decision to all those it effects, and to be well-prepared for the consequences of that decision further down the line. So a Producer needs to be good at making decisions. I’m not sure if I’m good at making decisions or not… I am sometimes, but it depends... Thus speaks my indecisive self. I can’t even decide if I’m decisive or not!

This week we had a few big decisions to make as part of the pre-production for Broken Bubbles. Who to cast in each part? I feel we’ve made good decisions here, since Murdo has mostly got the people he had in mind when actually writing the parts! I had to make a decision about where to get a Green Screen, having searched out a pretty good deal but then discovering a possibly even better one at the last minute. Again, I think I’ve gone for the right choice. A big one this week, which caused a bit of ‘Executive concern’ (!), was whether to do a model for the exterior of the main character’s workshop/home. I’ve never done proper model-work before, there is plenty potential for it to turn out as a complete waste of time and effort, and needless to say I was somewhat reluctant to go for it. Yet, I really did feel the story required an exterior shot and, after much discussion with Murdo and John (our Director of Photography), we decided that the model would be the best way to go.

Decisions… It’s the same in life. Sometimes it feels rather like I reach a crossroads and neither path looks ideal, but I can’t stop. Or worse, both paths look equally appealing. It’s in these circumstances that I just wish a bright flashing neon sign would appear from heaven and just point me in the right direction but God, though I’m sure perfectly capable of such a ‘prompting’, prefers to employ other methods! The good thing about choices is that once they’re made that’s it. They’re done, finished, and even if the consequences rise up to haunt you, at least the agony of the initial choice is gone for good.

Also this week we had some training on the RED workflow for post-production and specifically AVID, the tasks of the DIT (or in our case the Data Loader) and how media is managed in this new digital age. It’s so exciting, and a tad frustrating, that these processes are still changing even as we learn them but it is exhilarating to think that we are on the front-line as the whole filmmaking industry undergoes a dramatic wave of change. Thankfully I’d been on set for one of the Grad films as a DIT Trainee so I have a bit more of a working knowledge of the processes, but there is still so much to learn…

I’ve decided something! That I don’t have to be the most decisive person in the world. I’m still learning, and hopefully improving… and I’m not going to stop.