Challenges to the Producer on the Production of Wife and Husband

Casting

One of the first challenges we faced was finding a cast. Our script required 3 middle-aged and older actors, who were preferably locally based for ease of transportation.

We issued a casting notice on the website StarNow, as well as e-mailing it to local acting schools.

We had a healthy response for the female roles but only one male apply so, although we didn't reveal this to the actor, we knew we would have to cast him and work with him to ensure we got the performance we wanted.

These are the audition tapes:

https://vimeo.com/110479715- copyright Charlie Poyser 2014, Sheffield Hallam University.

Location

While location scouting with Chrissie Wood (Director of Wife and Husband) I took her to a pub I had used as a location for a previous project. We had a verbal agreement with the pub to use their upstairs function room (pictured below). the location was ideal for the characters we had and the environment we wanted to create.

Copyright Chrissie Wood 2014

Copyright Chrissie Wood 2014

The day before we were scheduled to film the pub cancelled the booking because of an electrical fault but said we could re-book. For a week I chased by phone and e-mail trying to secure the venue again until I went in person 4 days before we were meant to shoot (on the re-arranged schedule) and was told the room was no longer available. Not only was this disappointing because I had placed trust in the existing relationship with the landlady but also meant I had to find a new venue at short notice.

Drawing on my contacts and using social media to seek advice I received a few suggestions and happily secured another venue for free. Sadly, the venue was not as suitable aesthetically or spatially for our purposes, but was available at our scheduled time.

The lesson I learn on this occasion is to get written agreement as soon as possible and to communicate in person where necessary.

Sound Production

One of the biggest challenges to our production was the quality of sound recording and post-production sound design and for me, as Producer the lesson was in how to get the best out of my crew, especially when I cannot simply hire someone new.

There are good and bad ways to handle confrontation and I think I managed to work through this particular point well, with the assistance and backing of the Director. Using a screening opportunity to ask the Sound Designer to comment on their own work I was able to tackle the fact that the sound recording was poor and a second screening in public allowed us to assess the sound mix and areas for improvement.

I recognise that what I found challenging in this situation was the potential loss of relationship with the Sound Designer, who is not only a course-mate but a friend.  I am more confident in addressing situations such as this now than I was when I began filmmaking, and have previously had to let crew go on other projects, but there is still room for further growth.

Here you can see the finished film. Particularly poor sound recording can be heard between 02:36- 03:20 minutes.

Wife and Husband


Bibliography

Wife and Husband (2014) [Film] Directed by Chrissie Wood, UK, Sheffield Hallam University

Charlie Poyser (2014) Wife and Husband Audition tapes, ACES faculty, Sheffield Hallam University, unpublished

Budgeting a production and Waterfall

Even student productions require financing to a degree, even if it simply to cover costs of bus fares for cast and crew which each group member agrees to pay for themselves.

I have known filmmakers who have self- funded there projects from savings, however seeking external funding, not only limits the risks to yourself, but is also a show of confidence from external groups in your project and vision which, when it comes to distribution and sales, can be a real boon; there are other parties besides just the film crew, interested in making the film successful.

Here is a copy of the budget for my recent project, Wife and Husband (dir. Chrissie Wood, 2014), something I created in Microsoft Excel as a simple record of what we expected to spend and what we actually spent:

Expected spend Wife and Husband (2014)

Actual spend Wife and Husband (2014)

You can see that we spent less than anticipated but that, broadly, we spent more on transport than expected and less on things such as location fees and set direction.

I kept a record of who spent what on an ongoing basis so that, we didn't have to be concerned with making sure we were all spending evenly on the go, but at the end of the project we could just assess who owed what.

My preference would have been to collect each person's contribution at the start of the project and have a packet of cash available on the go but this wasn't possible, so I spent a lot out of pocket, to be reimbursed later.

In preparation for my next project I put together an estimated budget including In Kind values, aware that for Wife and Husband most of our equipment rental was free but it's value is great.
I looked at quotes for equipment and studio hire from local vendors to get the values and included van rental, considering it might be cheaper and more logistically sound to use a production vehicle than transport equipment in taxis, as we did on Wife and Husband.

Waterfall
Summarised in the Film Finance 101 Independent Film Glossary (2014, online) a Waterfall is "the contractual repayment of and profit distributions to all the financial contributors to the production of a film, by order of priority." 

It can be described in a simple visual format but is essentially the agreement of which investor will receive their financial return at what point and in what quantity. The more investors a film has the more complicated a Waterfall will be, and will also include any percentages of profits that cast and crew are entitled to by contract.

On larger projects it would be advisable to hire a Collection Agency who will collect revenue from the film sales and distribute funds.

Bibliography

Car Hire & Van Hire (2014) [online]  last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://www.enterprise.co.uk/car_rental/home.do?language=en

Edit Suite Hire Rates (2014) [online] last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://www.manchestereditsuite.co.uk/#!rates/cgky

FILM FINANCE 101: Raising Money for your Independent Film Glossary (2014) [online]  last accessed Friday 19th December 2014, at: http://www.thebusinessofblackfilm.com/Film_Finance_Glossary.pdf

Quote from DECODE Hire (2014) [online], last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://decodeuk.com/quote/

PONS, C. (2014) Producing and Production Management Workshop 6 [Workshop] Friday 5th December 2014, Sheffield Hallam University

Investment in Film- Raising Finance

Independent film financing in the UK

I found the following video clips informative about film financing in the UK independent film industry, as well as more broadly.

The first clip addresses the value in international co-productions for film distribution as well as tax incentives that different countries can offer to film productions, as well as highlighting that the more investors a film has the more complicated the financing structures will be, as well as there being a greater risk to the Director's creative vision as more people will have a say in the finished product.

The second clip offers some very practical tips to Producers, and although it was made by an American, can still translate to a British Producer. the most valuable advice for me from this video is the consideration of a contingency budget and ensuring you include distribution costs in your budget. As a student filmmaker it is easy to forget to factor in costs of festival entries when budgeting. The other valuable piece of advice in this video is considering who you hire based on whether they are members of a Union or not. In Britain it is also advisable to consider if your crew are self- employed and registered for VAT or not, this can add a lot to your budget for crew fees.

Crowd Funding
Crowd funding a film is made easy by websites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo and can be a valuable way of raising both finance and an audience for your film, but Producer Colin Pons (workshop, 2014) raised the point that these websites charge fees for all the money your raise through them and that it may be just as effective, if you know who your audience are, to set up another way of receiving finance and keeping your audience involved in the project, such as a PayPal 'Donate' button on a website, where the fees for each transaction will be lower.

Another consideration with crowd funding is that it's not simply about getting money from people but keeping your audience engaged with the project continually, making the most of social media and mass communication tools to do so. The most successful projects to be crowd funded will make creative use of media such as behind-the- scenes tit-bits, messages from the key crew and cast and creative 'rewards' for investors. The trick is to be quirky (if not relevant to the project) and have a low cost to the production.

A recent feature film funded by crowd-funding was The Veronica Mars Movie Project, and rewards ranged from a pdf of the shooting script (little cost to the production) to a speaking role on the film (a cost of time and a small risk if the performance is poor).

Other funding options

Dilemmas funding- http://www.farnorthfilm.com/dilemmas/
A project embarked upon by Sheffield- based film company Far North Film was to be a series of micro-short films distributed by phone/ tablet app. Each film focuses on a moral dilemma or social issue and filmmakers Toby And Fionn Watts intended to sell short series of these films to charities working on each social issue. The basis of this model was that the charities would have high-quality media representing their cause and could add their logo and donation information at the end of each episode.

YouTube monetizing- https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72857?hl=en-GB
The online platform YouTube can offer monetisation schemes to filmmakers who permit adverts to appear before, during or after their videos. This model works most effectively for filmmakers with a dedicated audience who can expect high viewer numbers.

Bibliography


PONS, C. (2014) Producing and Production Management Workshop 5 [Workshop] Friday 28th November 2014, Sheffield Hallam University

The Veronica Mars Movie Project by Rob Thomas (2013) [online], last accessed Friday 19th December 2014, at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

Scheduling, Script Breakdowns, Crossplots and Call Sheets

There are several process involved in Scheduling a film and multiple factors to consider. There are industry standard tools which have changed and developed over time, as technology has progressed, but essentially allow a Producer to note all the requirements for a film and decide the most logistically practical, financially cable and time efficient way to make the film.

When scheduling my student film Wife and Husband [2014] I undertook the following processes:

Script Breakdown
The very first thing to be done was to read the finished script through from beginning to end in one sitting. On the second read-through I made notes, using a template provided by Sheffield Hallam University, on a script break-down sheet.

Sample script breakdown sheet

One sheet is used per scene and notes on all requirements explicitly stated in the script are noted.

Script annotation

The industry standard procedure is to break each script page into 8ths. An A4 page is approximately 8 inches long, so it's easy to use a ruler to mark the script. As each page of script typically represent 1 minute of screen time, this is a simple measure of how much material is covered in a shooting day.

Further annotations made on my script were notes of particular props or continuity questions, costume notes, plot specific observations and budget implications (where extra crd woe special equipment is needed.

Cross-plot/ Strip-board

A cross- plot is another document into which all the information from the script break-down sheets is assembled. It used to be a series of individual strips, colour coded for INT/EXT and DAY/NIGHT which were arranged in a special folder and could be re-arranged as the schedule took shape.

I used another Sheffield Hallam template:

Sample Cross-plot template

This is a useful document for managing the schedule based on cast and resource/ prop needs as well as location or time of day considerations.

For example, multiple scenes in a single location can be filmed back- to back to minimise set- up times or the need to move equipment.

Shot List

The shot list for each scene is typically assembled by the Director and Director of Photography (DoP) but is a tool also used for scheduling, along with the script annotations. If a shot scene will still require multiple shot set- ups the time needs to be allowed for this. 

The Final Schedule
The final schedule for Wife and Husband was structured as follows:

Pre-production Materials (2014)

This is a document I e-mailed to cast and crew to inform them of the scenes, shooting hours and locations of filming in a clear and concise way.
The final schedule was based on additional factors besides the script break-down and cross-plot:

• Cast availability
• Crew availability
• Location availability
• Lighting requirements (exterior scenes)/ camera department considerations
• Time required for shot set-ups and set- dressing

Call Sheets

Call sheets are documents sent out the day before a shoot day- detailing location address and driving/parking instructions, requirements for each department, call times for cast and crew an weather considerations. Below is a sample call sheet from Wife and Husband which was 3 pages long.

Movie Magic software
Hard copy versions of all of these documents have now been superseded by software specifically designed to help film producers schedule films. One such piece of software is called Movie Magic and is lauded as being an industry standard tool into which a script can be imported and automatically assessed for page 8ths, DAY/NIGHT, INT/EXT, cast requirements etc.

The software will then also help a Producer assemble a cross-plot and full schedule, as well as create call sheets.

A link to the Movie Magic website, detailing the software's capabilities is here: http://www.ep.com/scheduling/

Bibliography

HOUGHTON, B. (1991) What a Producer Does: The Art of Moviemaking (Not the Business) [Book], USA, Library of Congress Publication

ESSAM, L. (2014) Pre-Production Materials ACES faculty, Sheffield Hallam University, unpublished 

Wife and Husband (2014) [Film] Directed by Chrissie Wood, UK, Sheffield Hallam University

STANSFIELD, C  (2014) Producing and Production Management Workshop 2, Workshop Wednesday 29th October 2014, Sheffield Hallam University 

Filmmakers I Admire

The first Producer I became familiar with in terms of his portfolio of projects was Jerry Bruckheimer who has produced such films as Flashdance, The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Confessions of a Shopaholic, King Arthur and National Treasure. Under the Disney banner his general genre has been family-friendly adventure. His films have become modern classics and, unusually for a Producer, his is a name that the general public will know.

However in terms of someone closer to where I'll likely find myself as a Producer, a production company whose slate I admire is Kudos Film and Television. They have brought a high production value to match that of US shows to British TV with series such as Life on Mars, Hustle and Spooks as well as the kid's TV show MI High.

A filmmaker I appreciate, although more as a director than a Producer is Peter Weir, director of The Mosquito Coast, The Truman Show and Dead Poets Society. His style drama with strong character elements and few digital effects but also a strong philosophical element, often referencing Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytics. In this interview he discusses his style of story-telling. At approximately 3:30- 4:00 Peter mentions the influence of silent films on him and specifically the use of a long shot and the way comedy is played out in a wide shot.

In Wife and Husband (2014) we attempted to use similar techniques; using body language as much as dialogue to tell the story and using a single wide shot, particularly in the kiss scene to create comedy.

Tim Bevan is a Producer with Working Title, one of the largest British production companies and he has credits on almost every major British film in the last 20 years.

In the video, linked to below, Tim Bevan talks about some of the structure of Working Title and points out that it's CEOs in the UK and USA are both women. He advises on the devilment of a slate of ills which are being developed simultaneously, as a guard against some of the risks of filmmaking, which is that there are no rules about which films will succeed and which will not; this is how he has such a large list of credits to his name.

Tim Bevan on the Structure of Working Title

What I have not yet found is female Producer role model, although I know there are many great ones working in production companies large and small I haven't yet found one who's career has been an immense inspiration to me.


Bibliography
Interview: Jerry Bruckheimer on His New Paramount Deal (2013) [online] last accessed Tuesday 16th December 2014 at: http://variety.com/2013/film/news/interview-jerry-bruckheimer-on-his-new-paramount-deal-1200926578/

Kudos Film and Television IMDb profile [online] last accessed Tuesday 16th December 2014 at: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0239144/?ref_=fn_al_ch_1

Peter Weir IMDb profile [online] last accessed Tuesday 16th December 2014 at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001837/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Tim Bevan IMDb profile [online] last accessed Tuesday 16th December 2014 at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0079677/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr2

Wife and Husband (2014) [Film] Directed by Chrissie Wood, UK, Sheffield Hallam University

The Producer- Director Relationship

The relationships between all departments on a film production is very important- they are projects which often throw cast and crew together in intense, risky and sometimes isolated, creative environments.

However the most important relationship is between the Producer and Director as the two people who  carry most of the responsibility and creative vision for the project and will stay with the production for the longest of all the crew. It's important that they are able to appreciate and respect each other's skills and contribution to the project, while recognising they both have very different responsibilities in many aspects.

My relationship with Chrissie Wood, director of Wife and Husband has developed over time and is different now than it was at the start of the project. I found myself approaching the project, ready to strong-arm my way into position, as Chrissie has previous Producing experience I thought she might try to take on my role as well as her own.

This was not the case and we found that having blunt conversations about our concerns and the separation of our roles was fruitful.

At one point, Chrissie had to ask me to ensure I was consulting her about creative decisions. I had made a note to the cast about their costume requirements and Chrissie, rightly pointed out that those choices would affect the audience's perception of the characters. I took the opportunity to apologise  to Chrissie and acknowledge I had been in error and I think this act helped Chrissie to trust me and not feel like she, too had to defend her position as Director.

During post-production Chrissie and I found ourselves suited in our assessment of the Sound Production and what was needed. We were able to support each other in addressing this with the sound designer and present a united front.

As the book Producing (2012) describes, there are multiple types of Producer and Director and I think Chrissie and I have found our rhythm of working together. Where she lacks some confidence in addressing people, I thrive and am happy meeting new people and asking for help and favours where required.


Bibliography

HOUGHTON, B. (1991) What a Producer Does: The Art of Moviemaking (Not the Business) [Book], USA, Library of Congress Publication

MACNAB & SWART (2012) Producing [Book], UK, ILEX Press.

SHAND, J. (1988) Don't shoot the best boy!: the film crew at work, Currency

Risk Assessment

A Producer is uniquely responsible for a production legally and runs the risk of being sued or arrested if anything on the production goes wrong. A valuable and essential tool to minimise risks to cast, crew, animals and equipment is a Risk Assessment in which a Producer assesses the potential risks the production may create and determine how they will minimise the hazards. 

Below are excerpts of he Risk Assessment I created for a short film I have Produced recently, Wife and Husband (working title, dir. Chrissie Wood). The template is provided by Sheffield Hallam University.

Copyright 2014 Louise Essam/ Sheffield Hallam University

Copyright 2014 Louise Essam/ Sheffield Hallam University

Copyright 2014 Louise Essam/ Sheffield Hallam University

The biggest, most obscure risk we faced in this film was the use of a dog and we were particularly challenged in that our pre-production period was so short we were not able to go through the circa 28 day registration period for performing animals. On the advice of tutors I sought input from the RSPCA on proper care of a performing animal. We used one of the actor's own dogs so that there would be a familiar person on set and scheduled the day so that the dog could be fetched from home and returned immediately before and after the scene.



Bibliography

ESSAM, L. (2014) Pre-Production Materials ACES faculty, Sheffield Hallam University, unpublished 

Wife and Husband (2014) [Film] Directed by Chrissie Wood, UK, Sheffield Hallam University