The first of my articles will start at where every production, I daresay every project even, starts out: making the to do list. As I hinted at in my introductory article, this list is much more than just a list of tasks. Not only does making the list entail consequences for the project, but it’s hard work to set one up for starters. Don’t underestimate setting the list of tasks, assigning who does what and how much time is needed.
The first thing to consider is the size of the meeting in which you make up your list. An analogy can be drawn to meeting people in general.
Where am I’m, in Belgium, when you ask a person on the street for directions, the first few might think you’re selling something and quickly walk by. When finally someone pays you attention, he or she might be from out of town as well or might have no clue what you’re looking for. You need to find someone else. Meetings generally run sort of similarly: not everyone feels as involved or as concerned in the subject of conversation and are quietly waiting their turn. Compromise is, on most occasions, found quickly. It’s been said that Belgians have a knack for compromises, to the extreme even!
In Venezuela, when you ask a person on the street for directions, you could very easily gather a crowd in five minutes. People will give you four different routes, ask someone on the street if they maybe know even a different one, start a discussion on the shortest way and call their friends just to be sure that maybe they don’t come up with an extra way of going where you want to go. Eventually you realize that you’ll be late if you keep talking. You try to sneak away quietly, but someone soon comes running after you to walk you to your ending location. A similar things happens in any meeting.
So a choice needs to be made. If there are five people around the table invited to the meeting, keep in mind that seven people will give their opinion. Consider that, even if the cameraman has nothing to do with which color shirt is best for the main actor, he might object to the blue the director wanted. He might prefer red. The production assistant, whose job it is to buy the shirts, might argue in favor of a red shirt because she has a liking for the cameraman. Family and friends who happen to drop by, might believe shooting your car chase won’t take three days, but actually three months. Someone in the crew might agree and come to the logical conclusion that if every shot takes three months to shoot, we might just as well drop the project!
Well, that won’t happen.
However I feel about the opinions of others being valid or not, to save time in a large team it’s crucial to prepare. In a large team, assign two people who work well together to make the list and prepare the meeting. Make subcategories, so that the lighting technician can doze off during the list of marketing material, but is wide awake when it’s time to talk about his particular subject of interest. Mark the importance of each topic and make a strong point when you have to. In the end, the final choice is the director’s, regardless of how knowledgeable your team is. Our discussions all too often ended with: “We’ll take this angle / color / shot etc., because I like it this way.” The director is the only one who can make such a point, based on his knowledge of the end product. The director has the creative overview and anything impeding on that should be eliminated.
In my next article, I’ll discuss the role of the director a bit more, by discussing how to be efficiently creative.
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