Pre Production = Help Us Help You
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PRE PRODUCTION
We've all heard the term..... The Devil is In The Details
In My Many Years of Production Work.. Ive Run Into ALOT of Devils Who Cause Unneccesary Pain and Suffering To Myself and My Crew Simply Due To Their Inexpierience, Being "Too Busy", Or Really Believing What We Do Is So Easy.. Even A Caveman Can Do It or Taking The Attitude.. Its Off My Plate and It Will All Work Out.
My First Reaction: Client > Has a Shoot In A New Location: Whoo Hoo.. We Have a Job
My Second Reaction: Soo What Is Going To Go Wrong Here... I Want The Details..
I Want To Succeed, I Want the Job to Go Smoothly And I Want To be Hired Again..
My Third Reaction: How Do I Get The Information I Need To Please The Client and Have a Successful Shoot
Of Course I Ask Alot Of Questions.....
And This Is Where Some Clients Get Testy and/or Thier Eyes Glaze Over But Being Responsible and Committed To The Success Of The Job Is What Gets Us Hired Over and Over Again
Sooo.. Out Comes The Questions..... Can I Do A Location Survey? What Are The Goals, Who Is The Audiance, How Big an Audiance? Webcasting? Editing? Posting Later? On What Device and Who Are The Viewers? Size of The Room, Camera Locations, Camera Lenses, Power Pulls, Cable Runs? Lighting, Staging, Sound, Pipe and Drape? PPT, Projectors, Overflow Rooms, Confidence Monitors, In Room Monitors? What Are Their Flavors? Whos Creating The Roll -Ins, The PPT, Windows or Mac ? Elevator Permits, Building Insurances, Union Fees-Shadow Fees? Do We Need Power Drops , Parking Locations, Testing and Rehersals? And The Usual Call Times, Shoot and Wrap Times..
All Of Us As Freelance Video Providers, No Matter What We are Being Hired To Do.... Be it a Camera Operator, Providing The Sound or Lighting , Or Like Us.. Gear it and Crew it,
The More Information We Have The Better We Can Prepare and Ensure a Successful Shoot.
So I Always Take The Trust and Verify Approach... All My Emails Start With>> Verify The Verifyable It Is Much Easier To Be Prepared When You Arrive On A Job Then To Scramble and McGuiver On Location Due To No Fault of Your Own..
But What Will Now Be Seen As Your Short Comming... Yep.. Blame Rolls Down Hill
We Can Only Do Our Part As Professionals To Gleen All The Information Neccessary For Success And Yet We Are At The Mercy Of Our Clients, Producers, and Office Contacts That Are Really The Ones "In Charge" And Yes, There Have Been Many Many Good Ones BUT The Ones Who PooPoo Our Questions and Ignore Us Have Created A Few Stories Of Their Own...
A Few Examples of PooPoo... >> Need To Roll In At 7Am for a 9am CEO Shoot.. No Elevator Operator is Scheduled Till 9AM. >> 7 crew and 8 carts of gear sit on curb for 2 hours while Building Insurance is negotiated >> Client is "heldup" as crew is rolling out of a 3 day event and forced to pay 5 grand in shadow fees >> Last Interview of the Day is CEO who is late, He arrives a 5:30 ....
Frieght Elevator Closes At 5 , 1.5 hour wait while they get an Op (OT) >> Need To Unload Inside Buildings Loading Dock....
Dog Needs To Sniff Trucks.. Three Trucks @ 700.00 each >> Shooting Multi Interviews on Ground Floor Of Hotel...
Just Happens That The St Patricks Day Parade Marches By All Day >> Shooting in a "secret access" location...
No One Has Secret Access (we did do the paperwork...noone followed thru)
These Are Just Some Memerable Ones,
Unfortunately Our Expierences As Freelancers Have Given Us All Stories That We Can Use When Speaking With Our Clients... Its In Their Best Interest and Ours.. To Do The Work..Get The Details.. Ask Questions At Their End And To Help You Help Them..
Pre Production Is Your Friend, Maybe a Little More Email Time is Involved, A Few More Phone Calls, You Should Always Be Thinking "Help Me.. Help You"... But ALWAYS.. Verify The Verifyable..
Until Next Time, All The Best Dan
