"Well,
here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!"- Oliver Hardy, Sons of the
Desert (1933)
Chief A.D's Thinking. Part - 2
Continuing from where we left off in Chief A.D's Thinking Part-1 we cover a few more tips as to how a first assistant director (1st A.D.) looks at different departments.
Also, read How to plan a shoot in 10 easy steps. before you go ahead with these tips.
In Part -2 we cover
Director Understanding,
Location / Set – Art,
Lighting Shift and DOP’s Preference,
Shoot
order and Back up Plan.
Director Understanding
What I mean when I say director understanding is simply understanding the
director, as the 1st A.D. understand what the director is trying to
say and what the director wants to do. Remember the most important thing whether
the director is an established one or even if he is a beginner, all they want is
from the 1st A.D. is that the shoot should run smoothly. Most directors
have a standard style of working, like some would do the shot breakdown only on
the set just before the scene, some like to leave the entire day planning to 1st
A.D. and don’t bother what needs to be shot next. Understanding their style can
come from having worked with them or the production house earlier maybe
asking people who have worked with them about how the director likes things
done. The genre of the film also helps in understanding what needs to be done,
like some directors concentrate on the style, so this guy would look very
closely into details of props like fabric or lenses or kind of equipment being
hired etc. Some like the actors to do most for the film so they would
concentrate a lot on casting and would like spending time explaining and
rehearsing with actors. This does not mean that the rest of the areas are
overlooked but whatever be the style of your director its easier for you to
function as you will know what areas you need to concentrate on and what areas
maybe less important from the shooting point of view. Lastly in general Directors
in features always look at the larger picture while advertising directors will
be looking at minute details like even the colour of a prop in the background,
the tv serial directors would be concerned with the timing of scenes (to fit the
episode) and documentary directors would mainly worried if the point that they
are trying to make is coming out or not.
Location / Set – Art
 |
| Shoot at a outdoor location |
Location v/s Set in features, TV series as well as in
advertising, as a 1st A.D. it is important to know when the place would be ready to be handed
over for shooting. In case of actual locations like airports or railway
stations or landscape shots there usually, is no set dressing or a few props to be placed and one can begin shooting as
soon as the DOP is ready to roll. Sometimes in these cases where some propping
has to be done the art team needs to be made aware of the time available in
which to finish it. Public locations like streets or like the ones mentioned
are usually available only for a few hours and therefore reaching these locations
on time and fully prepared helps. Planning and finding a base that is as close
as possible to these locations and getting all ready in advance there before
moving to the final filming location helps. In the case of locations that are houses
or mills or places like stores, there could be a bit of propping that needs to
be done and the A.D. needs to find out how long this would take.
 |
| Indoor built set for a shoot |
In case where a Set is required, set construction is
followed by set propping and after which lighting can begin, as an A.D. when
meeting with the art team one would have get a timeline from the art director
for each and every location so that the final schedule fall into place. E.g:- a project that involves set as well locations the A.D. will have to find out
these details and make sure the set construction has begun on time so that the floor is ready for shoot on the desired date keeping the time taken for lighting
in mind as well. Set construction could go on for days or even months if the
detailing is elaborate, there also needs to be the meeting between the Art and
the DOP and VFX team (if any) to figure practical light sources and if any part
needs to be constructed in such a manner to suit easy filming, like movable
wall’s or extra windows or in case of VFX like a portable chroma wall or even a
moving set like in case of an airplane, ship interior.
 |
| Set built of a ship's cabin |
The bottom line wherever you are shooting is that a time frame
has to be agreed upon and stuck to by the art team, direction team, and the producer
who has to make sure that all is done so that this can fall into place. As
simple as this may sound if there are minor delays here it will just spiral
into a lot more other problems. Like a delay in obtaining the location for artwork to being might delay it being ready for the shoot which in turn will delay the
start of the shoot and that could throw a lot more things out of gear.
Its always good to have at least one dedicated A.D. to art
especially in features and TV series where continuity of set, and props go over
a period of many days. These days it's easy for the A.D. to keep continuity
using a simple digital camera, as long as the pictures are clear and organised
into folders with details the job on set is fairly simple and yet could go drastically
wrong if no one is paying attention, like same props being used in 2 different
locations.
Lastly
don’t forget to clear all the requirement lists with the art and production
team, this is one space that mostly goes into a grey area where art says this
needs to be done by production or vice versa, you don’t want to be stuck on set
where one assumed the other is getting it. It's best to have lists typed and copies given to each department so that all know what they are responsible for and the job gets done.Lighting Shift and DOP’s Preference
So depending on whether your shoot location is a built-up set
or an existing location your cinematographer (DOP) will ask you for a certain
amount of time to light up the place. In places where lighting is not possible
like a street or a market usually the time taken for the DOP to be ready would
be the amount of time taken to load up the camera and rig it if necessary and you
are ready to roll. This does not mean that there may be no lighting in these
places, there could be sometimes the placement of reflectors and or large
lights at distances to add fill or spotlight in the environment.
In cases of controlled environment mostly indoor locations and in
cases of where u are on a constructed set, the DOP and the gaffer would
determine the no of lights that would be required to light up the place and in
turn how long would it take for the lights to get set up and be ready to roll, this
could vary from a few hours to half a shift to even a full lighting day or two depending
on the size and kind of lighting required.
As an A.D. once you have this information it helps to
determine the time required by the DOP and his team to be ready to roll the first shot of the day. So now depending on the kind of shot’s to be taken
(Storyboard or shot break down) which is decided by the director you would go about planning the
shots from the time for the first roll onward's. You have to try and fit all the
shots planned for that day and make sure that there is sufficient time to
finish all the planned shots, or complete the scene, in case of shooting for
more than one-day balance shots could continue the next day but be careful
that too much of shots moved to the next day might increase the work the next
day and if further moved then shots or scenes required from that location might
not finish and therefore leave you with an incomplete scene or a film. Generally, a large amount of time goes into the first shot of the day and you pick up pace after that, this happens because you
want everything to be right and all departments to fall in gear before you
proceed. Also once all the master lighting is done there is a lesser amount of
shifting of light’s (compared to the master) for the shots to progress.
Remember to ask the cinematographer his preference for shooting order, (either at the recce or the previous day if needed) but do so only after u have a plan already ready so u can discuss it
out, don’t forget to include the director in the plan if not at the discussion the stage at least before you lock on your final shoot order. Remember to keep all
other factors in mind in this discussion like time of actors arrival or time
required for special equipment or prop
to arrive so that u don’t plan something and have to change it last min.
More of these Tip's coming up in Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -3
For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.
Shoot order and Back up Plan.
Planning your shoot order usually happens the day before the
shoot, this could be because you could have had balance shots from the previous
day, or the director or DOP might have a preference to being with. That does
not mean that you should not have a basic plan ready in advance. Irrespective
of where you are shooting, in scheduling you would give a large amount of time
to the first shot of the day as getting everything right for the first usually
takes time, you generally pick up speed after you have taken your first shot.
Most of the time you would plan your shots one axis at a time and scene wise,
you would complete one scene and then move to the next unless the other scenes
are similar in continuity and you can afford to shoot 2 scenes simultaneously.
You finish all shots from one axis before moving to the other, rarely does one
jump axis from shot to shot in a scene. This usually happens when the scene is
acting dependent (some director's like to do it this way) or if there is permanent damage by the end of the scene like
breaking of a key prop.
Basic plans per axis are the wide master shot is covered
first then you would get closer into the scene ending up with close-ups. You
would make a basic plan in this manner in advance and then discuss it with the
director and DOP before you finalise the plan. When you have your plan in mind
you should also have justifications to the order that you have planned and be
open to suggestions before fixing the final plan. Light plays a huge factor in
a shoot especially outdoors and the director and the DOP might want to shoot a
particular scene at a particular hour of the day, like sunset or backlit
scene’s. You have to have alternate plans here as on the day of the shoot your
plan might change completely, like late arrival or a key prop or an actor. Here
is where knowing everything that is happening in all departments help as that
decision to change shoot order affects all and could make or break the entire
shoot.
 |
| Axis Plan |
If you have the time, and you have all the shots that you have to shoot numbered you can make an Axis Plan (like the one above) this is something that I would do especially on shoots that have a large number of the axis to be kept in mind and shoot in the same location for the same scene (or a commercial) it helps a lot in sequences that have stunts or visual effects to go with it. It's easy to see from this if you have covered all your shots for that sequence. The above Axis plan was done for a Limca Commercial which had a lot of VFX involved and since it was an outdoor shoot the plans had to be bang on.
Lastly, after you have done your schedule for the day, you can do a
time division to each shot and see if all your shots fit within your planned
shift. Don’t forget to include your break time and keep buffer for each scene,
for e.g:- in a 9-9 shift if you roll call is 10:30 am (assuming that major
part of lighting would have already been done or only an hour and a half is
required to light up) your first master shot you would assign 2.5 hours, this
is from 9 am - 11:30 am assuming that
after the first roll (which usually gets delayed) you would take reset time and
do 3 – 4 takes of the same, so this time
has a buffer of 15- 20 mins, your next timing would be 11:30 – 12 for shot 2 of
the day, 12- 12:30 for shot 3, 12:30 – 1:30 for shot 4, lunch from 1:30 – 2:30
and so on. You would keep a buffer time of 10 – 20 mins for small shifts in axis
and 30 – 1hr or more for complete shifts in axis (like a cross over’s where a lot of
things have to shift and be reset.) It’s not always possible to plan in such a
manner as shots could be added or changed at the last moment, sometimes the director
does not even plan the number of shots per scene till they are on the set, in
such cases you could keep your division to scene timings, like scene 1 to be
shot could take 2 hr’s scene 2 could take 1.5 hr’s etc so that you know that you have to
complete those many scene’s by a certain amount of time so that you could push
for work to move faster if you are falling behind the schedule.
You could print your timings for each scene on
the call sheet to let all know if they are behind or ahead of the schedule.
This is not a known practice at all, but I did it sometimes as it helped to keep everyone on
their toes right from the beginning instead of trying to push too much at the
last minute.
More of these Tip's coming up in Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -3
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Ans:- Bloggie..
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