Pro Tip#8 - Networking

Film schools never teach you marketing & networking and these are two of the most important things to learn in this industry. A lot of very good talent goes to waste as they lack these skills.

It does not matter if you're a director or a producer or an intern that's just starting out. Being a friendly person to work with will not only make your employers come back to you time and time again but those same people would also recommend you to others. Who wouldn't want to work with a person who is cheerful even at the most stressed-out times? 

Make friends with all, from the runner on your set to the client that is present. You never know when someone climbs the ladder or changes their path. An assistant from today could be your potential client tomorrow. Of course, you will come across people you don't like and never want to work with, even in such situations be polite and try and move out of the situation or job or project as quietly and quickly as possible. Never burn bridges with anyone. 

 

Besides the workplace how do you go about networking? start simple, by adding your peers on social media. See other people's work, say nice things about it if you like it. As and when possible make friends with others beyond your office network like when you are in studios and there are others around. Post-production studios are a great way to meet people from different organizations. Go for parties and events like award functions or film festivals, these are great places to build your network quickly if your good at it. Invite your potential clients, agencies out to drinks, or dinner. A post wrap party is always a nice time to bond.

But in your effort of networking, do not force your self on people by constantly messaging and chatting. Give people their space too. If it's meant to be you will become friends with that person. Don't keep asking people for work, see Tips When Applying For Work

Don't forget to leave your thoughts, tips, and comments below

Check out more professional filmmaking tips here

Don't forget to read,

Pro Tip #7 - Up Your Skills

Filmmakers Talk 16 - Filmmaking Dictionary: Deadline

How many times has this happened to you on projects where the deadline has come and gone but you are still making changes.. leave a comment below to let me know if this happens to you..


Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List


Some past Talks:

FT#15 Casting Director

FT#14 Director at PPM

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..

Casting Brief - Q2: Age of the characters?

For the entire List of casting questions go back to
Casting Brief

Question 2: Age of the Character?

What is the age of each of the characters in question? Why would a casting director ask such a question when most of the characters age is defined in the script itself. Well, this is true only for some times, but mostly the age is not described, either because there are a lot of characters, or in cases like where the character is only just described e.g. as a mother or young teenager, there is no clarity of age. Therefore the casting director needs to ask this question, also even if its mentioned in the script it's better to clear that what is written in the script is the same as what the director has in mind.      

The age could be specific, like a just born therefore 5 - 10 days old, or a 1-year-old. But in most cases the age that would be given will be within a range, like between 40 - 45, or 20 - 25, etc. the reason a range is given is for the most obvious reason that not all people look their age, so while in actuality the person could be 30 yrs old but on camera might look 26 - 28 yrs. Makeup and costume do play a very important role in the casting process, eg a simple thing like wearing spectacles might make some people look a lot older than they are, same way hair open and hair tied up makes a difference to age that women look. The same goes for costumes, what is worn at the auditions, therefore, becomes very important.

So when actors go for auditions they should get the brief very clearly before they start.  The way you look even before you act will be judged upfront. Remember when the shortlisting process is taking place, there are a lot of people who have auditioned for the same role and you don't want to be rejected basis on first appearance's. Also if your a 40-year-old don't go for an audition which is for a 20 yr old and waste everyone's time and then wonder why you don't get shortlisted.

To the casting director, this question also gets very important when the same person has to play more than one character in the same film, like if the same person has to play a teenager and also play the mother later in the film. While casting of such a character one would try to find a person who could pull off being a teen as well as a lady of course with the help of makeup and costume, but the hunt would be someone who can pull both off.

Lastly, the importance of age is also in relation to the other characters, e.g. so while the brief might be for a 20 - 25-year-old girl who would be dating a 22 - 28-year-old boy, there may be a problem if the girl looks older than the guy especially if she is a junior in his college. Same with all roles characters will be judges not only on solo performances but also how they look with/against each other.



For the answer to the previous question see
Casting Brief Q1 - Casting Of How Many Characters?


Read on for the next question
Question 3: Sex of the character? - Male or female or...

For the entire List of casting questions go back to
Casting Brief







For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..

Careers in filmmaking - Post Production

"We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!" - Gollum, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. (2002)

Career Choice – Post Production

Pre-Production not your cup of tea, so here are some of the things you could do in post-production.

POST - PRODUCTION

Post Production Supervisor – Key link in coordinating the entire process from after shoot till the project ends. Does not need to know how to operate the various systems, but some amount of technical knowledge does help. It could be freelance or inhouse with either a production house or even a Posthouse.

Offline Editor – the person who cuts the rushes to a viewable sequence in accordance with the director’s vision. It could be freelance or associated with a post-production studio.

Assistant Offline Editor – Assists the editor, main job role would be digitising the rushes, sorting it, sound syncing, making subclips  etc. Usually a trainee who wants to become an editor.

Online Editor – works on high resolution systems, not so much for cutting the film but used for compositing, tittling, cleanups etc. mostly is associated with a studio very rarely do u find freelance online editors. 

Colourist – sets the colour tone to the film. Is always associated with a Post Production House.

Machine Room Technician –  works in the machine room of a studio, is responsible for connections from offline, online rooms to recorders, players, hard disks etc.

Booking Manager – the person who manages the booking to all the rooms present at the post house, job done by more than one person at bigger studios.

Studio Manager – handles all the client and editor related complaints or suggestions and making sure that work flows smoothly. Mainly like a P.R. role.

Visual effects supervisor  (Vfx) – Usually the head of the graphics department, or the person who is heading the project, could also be the expert on that particular job. Knows how to work the software mostly.

3D Graphic’s – person or a team of people who work on 3D graphic software's.

2D Grpahic’s – person or a team that works on 2D graphics, sometimes the person knows both 2D and 3D. 

Music Director – the person who controls the direction of the music on all levels, not necessarily the composer of the piece.

Composer – the person who could use both instruments and software's to compose a music track, background score.  

Arranger – has to make sure that every aspect of the music piece is well harmonized. Could work on an original or an existing piece of music. Sometimes the music director or the composer also plays this role.

Sound Engineer – records voices at dubs, lays tracks from the music director mixes it all down to a proper balance that is required.

Foley Artist - Creates sound effects that cant be captured during film making, sounds like footsteps, clothes rustling, door closing etc. its any sound that could be part of the scene.

Singer – Sings either the main voice or in a chorus.

Voice Over Artist (VO) – the person who dubs the voice either in place of the actor or the voice for the product window like in advertising. Short forms are MVO and FVO for males and females respectively.

Language Co-ordinator for VO – a person who co-ordinates and arranges for VO artists in different languages according to the requirement at the recording studios. Sometimes also arranges for a language supervisor.

Language Supervisor – Someone who supervises the language pronunciation, and also makes necessary to the translations if necessary. Sometimes the language scriptwriter also doubles up as the supervisor.

Of course, most of these titles have assistants to them. There are more jobs to post-production, like a Promo Producer in a Television network or Publicist in a feature film. Still can't decide what to do then maybe its journalism, advertising agency, channel, etc is where you need to be.

Auggieism:- What do you say when Auggie is overeating?

Ans:- Hoggie..

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..

"Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the from way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it." - Kafiki, The Lion King (1994)

Tips to making your job smoother

You are given a job and you head straight into doing it, only to realize that had you stopped and just thought for 5minutes at the start, of what you needed to do, you then would have saved a lot of confusion and time going back and forth and probably a lot of money for the production house as well. This is true not just for beginners but a lot of experienced people as well.

What am I talking about?

It's like when you land up for a voice dub but are not carrying the VO lines, or like when you reach for telecine without blank tapes, or in modern times w/o hard drives on a digital shoot etc..  Had people just taken that 5 mins they would have carried a print out with the VO lines, or sufficient blank tapes, or the hard drive on the shoot.

The reason I have used the word job is that at any given time, most people are given multiple tasks to do. Each task would have its own set of requirements that would be required in order for it to be achieved, thus making each task a job within itself.

Here is a very simple method that should help you do things very efficiently but also train you to prepare problems that could arise and efficiently avoid most of them. This method would not only apply to the production side, but to anyone in any field of work to help make their tasks easier.

So how do you do that.. whenever you are given a job/task to do. Just take 5 mins before you start and ask yourself the following questions WWWWH…

What?

When?

Where?

Who?

How?

Just answering these questions will give you all the insight you need into making the job at hand a smooth one. Each question should/could logically lead you to another set of questions that you should arrive at automatically. Here is a quick look at how this works.

1.    What?

What is the job assigned to you?

E.g. - In pre-production – referencing, casting, costumes, art?  So in order to do any of this

Have you read the script?

Without reading the script is like working in the dark.. you would be referencing for things without knowing what is it required for.. having read it just helps getting closer to what is required and faster.. this should lead to the How?

e.g. – in post-production – offline, online, music, voice dub etc.. so in order to do any of this your next question would be..

What is the job assigned to you?

Go and finish the voice dub, or go for the offline and sit, or go and finish the supers on the online, etc. given these instructions should lead you to.

Do you have all the material that you need?

So are you carrying all the rushes, enough blank tapes, blank material for when done (DVD’s / tapes / hard drives, etc) scripts, storyboards, supers, reference material (like packs for colour/shape reference for telecine / C.G.)

2.    When?

When is the job required to be completed? Deadline?

This question both in pre and post-production helps you prioritize the job, at most times you would be multitasking, so you can choose when to finish this part, I am not saying about putting things off for later but choosing which one to finish first. If you are a beginner its best to let the person handing you the job to decide what needs to be done first.

e.g. – in pre - your meeting with the art director the next day and the costume stylist the day after, so doing art references would be the priority, however, keep in mind that the director, would most likely want to see all the references the same day before getting into meetings with these people.

e.g. – in post – when is your delivery scheduled for? And thus can the  voice dub or the online happens the next day? Knowing this usually helps to predict what to do in case of emergency, like when you don’t get your booking on time due to a power failure or the editor shows up late, you know the time required to finish the job in advance and thus applying the right amount of pressure at the right time to complete the job, rather than wait for the last minute to finish it.

3.    Where?

Where is the job to be done?

e.g. - In pre do you need to go to stores to hunt for props? Or is it sitting on a computer finding reference pictures or videos or is it going to a studio that is not part of your office for casting? This should get you to repeat the question do I have everything to do the job, printed script copies for the cast to read, tape to record, or a computer with net connection to work on or a scanner to scan reference material from books etc..  another important question to be asked is

Do you have the advance money to do this?

In cases of travel is there an advance to be taken or will you be compensated later? Money for food or to pay for printouts etc? therefore knowing that an advance has to taken before accounts shut down for that day is necessary.. or spend from your pocket, a very risky thing to do.

e.g. – in post doing online and music at the same time..

Where is the studio’s located at?

What is the travel time from one to the other? is there enough time to manage both your bookings, (this leads to)

Do you have confirmed bookings for these jobs? (this should lead to Who?)

Do you have the advance money to pay for food and travel do this?

4.    Who?

Who are the people involved in doing this job?

e.g. – in pre it’s the art director, costume stylist, etc

e.g. – in post it’s the freelance editors sound engineers etc?

Have you informed all the people involved, including freelancers?

once you have identified all the people involved you have to make sure

that they have been informed, (make sure that you are carrying everyone’s contact information on you at all times) not just about timings but also if there are delays or changes in timings in advance, no one likes to come and have to wait to begin work. Don’t forget to keep the director and the producer in the loop as well.

5.    How?

How are you going to get this done?

Is it simple? Can you manage to handle it by yourself? Do you need someone to guide you? Do you need someone to help you? (in case of multitasking/jobs to be done at the same time) 

First try and answer these questions by yourself, before you run like a headless chicken and that will help prepare you for all the complications to come. Some of these you can answer yourself and some you will have to ask your seniors to help you with, what this also does is it makes you a ‘thinking’ person and not just a ‘doer’. As you put this in practice you will realize that you can now manage to do a lot more work efficiently and in a lot lesser time. 

While all this above sounds a lot complicated, it's not, it takes all of 5 mins and a clear head to do this, and experienced or not you should practice this. Trust me, it will do wonders for the way you work.

 Auggieism:- What do you call an unclear Auggie?

Ans:- Foggie..

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..

Shoot Now Focus Later

Check this out, Click now and focus later

Crazy 4D camera Lytro Sale

also their earlier post on Lytro

Camera that's refocusable post

See some of the images posted on how it works and the home webpage for more information.

Lytro Home Page

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..

Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -1 (1st A.D's Tips Part - 1)

"I'm king of the world!" - Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic (1997)

Chief A.D's  Thinking. Part - 1

As a chief assistant director or first assistant director (1^st A.D.) the way you look at all departments is a bit different than the way the director’s assistant (D.A.) or the director looks at that department. This blog is in continuation of the previous one How to plan a shoot in 10 easy steps. and this gives you the 1^st A.D.’s perspective to each department and understanding these might give you some tips on how to make your shoot a smoother one.

Remember not all projects are the same and therefore do not follow all tips and suggestions blindly, each project is unique and one has to develop a style that suits all departments but mainly works for that project. There are software’s that help planning and scheduling a shoot like Ep-Scheduling, Celtx , Gorilla, Reel Production Calendar, etc while some of these are free you have to buy most of them, so before spending the producer's money do a bit of research and choose what software suits the best to that project or choose what you have used in the past and are comfortable with. While these software’s do help in large productions not always will one get the budget for picking up a planning software. Here one has to plan using tools like excel or word and try to bring in the same accuracy these software’s provide. 

The following perspective’s on each department give a bit of insight into planning and scheduling without the help of software’s. Like said in the 10 easy steps first one has to read all material, and then one does a breakdown of it. In this blog, we cover Script Breakdown, Genre of the scene, Number of Shoot Days and Actor’s availability and timing. I would put all these under the direction and production team's responsibility. 

Script Breakdown

As the 1^st A.D. you have to know the script and maybe storyboard thoroughly. In features, it is reading the entire script and knowing what the story is quite well, in advertising it's knowing the storyboard by heart almost frame by frame, in serials reading the script in advance and knowing where the story is going helps, while in documentaries there rarely is the role of any 1^st A.D’s if there are any assistants then they usually double up as production assistant as documentary’s rarely have a large crew. After reading your script you have to break it down get what’s required to plan your shoot from it. Below is the minimum information that would be needed to process in order to plan a smooth day's shoot. 

Sc No	Storyboard   Image	Description	Audio / Dialogues	Loc -ation	Actors	Costumes	Art	VFX / Special Equipment	Remarks
4c		scene opens on a wide shot of a camp...	“I am coming..”	Hero camp area	Hero + camp extras	Hero in  Set – 1	As per art break up	20x 20  blue Chroma  +   Jimmy Jib	Camp area  to be kept clean

Depending on the script and the style that you develop as the 1st A.D. stuff like the axis of the shoot, day/night, animals, hair n makeup or anything else that the script calls for can be added to this. Art can be further broken down into set/location dressing and key props. Some times when there is too much information or there will be a repeat in information a totally separate sheet is used and they are then coded which could be Set -1, Set- 2 or Costume 1, Costume -2 etc  Once you have done this break up it will give you a fair idea of the combination of the various elements that would be required so that time is used most efficiently at the shoot. In features you can use one sheet per scene to do the breakdown, this helps when combining scenes from all over the film to put your sheets in the order of the schedule and see if it fits all requirements. This is quite similar to what some of the software looks like Below is an example of what that looks like.

What you need to find after this exercise mainly is what is the key driver of the shoot? (importance could be different across different scenes) is it the actor or the equipment or VFX. A lot of times there will be more than one important factor that would drive the planning of the shooting order. You would then use your experience and assign the minimum time to the maximum time required so that the day's schedule can be completed without any hassle.

Sometimes there is not much time to get into this amount of detailing, in that case, one can also use different coloured highlighters and mark it out on the script, like actors (yellow) Art n Props (green) locations (blue) etc then coloured copies of these can be made and each department will have a colour to follow.

Genre of the scene

What makes shoot planning easier is knowing the genre of the film or rather more importantly of the scene to be shot. You arrive at the time required for each scene basis this like in a stunts sequence prep time before each take is quite long, sometimes you have only one attempt at filming it like in explosions or accidents, here you have to get all things right and everything needs to be double-checked before rolling that takes time. Or in case of a hair commercial the hair flying shot, or packshot in case of commercials reset time needs to be considered. Luck also has to play a huge role in trying to divide the no of the shot’s to be taken in a day as anything could go wrong or right, the hair will fail to bounce or the product splash won’t happen the right way, knowing how little time is left for the shoot to warp and how critical it is to get the right hair shot so that you could advise the director that either time is running out and therefore to move on to the remainder shots or when asked to say that we could attempt one more take if the shoot is on track and you can afford that time. In short, this helps in knowing how long that scene would take to shoot.  

Number of Shoot Days

The number of shoot days represents the shooting schedule or the number of days that the producer allocates according to the budget. Within this, there are usually breakups depending on a different number of locations, the distance between locations, and no of the scenes to be shot per location.  The first A.D. has to divide the number of scenes into the number of days allocated at each location and see if there is sufficient time to finish all scenes in the script at that location, if the number of days are not allocated then you would combine all the same location scenes through the film and then divide them into the time required to shoot per scene, add that up and you arrive at the number of days required at each location. For eg, 10 scenes in total at Location A, depending on the type of scene you will assign each of these scenes the number of hours you think it would take to shoot that scene, (here is where the previous points come in handy) therefore scene 1 = 2hrs, scene 2 = 1 hour, scene 3 = 4 hours and so on, then you will total the number of hours and divide it across the feasible shifts and you arrive at the no of shoot days or more precisely the no of shifts required.  You have to keep in mind master lighting of the location/set which could be part of the shooting days or extra. 

In advertising where usually it is one location, it’s easier to plan, it’s when u have multiple locations when this kind of breakups do help. There are ad's which are shot over multiple locations and here knowing distance and time taken between locations, how fast would it take for the crew to shift bases or is there one base and multiple spots close to that the main base while most of the crew then move on smaller mobile units. Here the challenge of scheduling is greater as usually, you have had a lot to do and much lesser time to it in.     

In Tv serials usually, the time allotted is that at the end of the day the producer should have a minimum of  18 mins of edit time which is the time required for 30 min episode. The time could be across episodes but is what is required for feasibility, in daily soaps there is usually some who is only in charge of scheduling as it takes quite a bit of time getting all combinations of actors and various locations in place and since most serials are shooting on a daily basis it requires someone dedicated to only doing this.

In documentaries, if it is budget dependent then one shoots till one is out of money or has the full story covered. Since the crews in most cases are small sometimes just the cameraman and director or even times when its just one person doing all the work, the main thing to get here is to cover as much as is required to finish a good documentary.

Actor’s availability and timing

Another step in planning your shoot especially if it involves lots of actors over various scenes is to know at the beginning what their available dates are. 

In features there needs to be a larger plan drawn up so that all scenes and locations are covered, usually, the A.D. would club all the same location scene’s together, then check the actor combination and date availability, going by the method the AD would request for actors availability at each location by trying to club all their scenes together, this is where it gets tough more the no of characters involved in scenes the more complex it gets when trying to club. It gets even tougher when one is shooting outdoors as actors have to be flown in and out and you calling an actor to travel twice to the location over a few days could add quite a lot to the producer's budget. In India, there is a reverse way that also happens when big celebrity stars are involved. Here the dates of the stars are given and then the A.D. has to try and finish all the scenes with that actor on the dates given, this usually results in shooting at various locations and coming back to the same locations to complete the remainder scenes at that location which is not ideal, there is a very thin silver lining to this, usually, these stars give the producer block dates, which could be anything from 1 week to 2 months, so it’s easier to schedule then. Another thing to be kept in mind when dealing with stars is their punctuality, each of these usually follow a pattern, like some will always come 3 hours later to the call time while some are bang on time, it’s important to know this as that helps in planning the day and covering as much without the crew waiting idle for stars to arrive. When working with these stars for the first time one can always find out about their patterns by asking other A.D’s who have worked with them earlier.

The same planning is required even further more in advertising when shooting with a celebrity, there is usually only one or two days of shoot and if time is spent waiting the producer might go in a huge loss if the shoot goes up by even by half a shift. Having said this one cannot keep the star waiting once they have arrived, in advertising usually these stars give only a limited amount of time, and extension of that could cost the client for a whole day more.

Some of these shift timings for stars begin from the time they leave their residence and therefore travel time to the location is also counted in their total time, eg:- if a star gives 8 hours for a brand for a day’s shoot then the clock begins from the time they leave home and if it takes 2 hrs to reach location then you are left with 6 hours to finish with them which includes hair, makeup, wardrobe, in effect you may end up with only 4 hours of the star on the shooting floor, so real smart planning is required in these cases. In non-star cases the A.D. can plan the shoot whichever way is best suited for that project.

In Tv, serials it's up to the person scheduling to figure out the dates in advance so that perfect combinations can be scheduled. The lead cast are usually available throughout the schedule while most of the secondary cast have no pf days per month as contracts, so an actor might give 3 - 4 days per month only as per contract and any further day costs the producer. Here when u have 3 or more such actors to deal with is when scheduling gets really tricky. The best way is to plan early to have the entire month plan drawn up before the schedule can begin and that way all the possible ways to combine have been considered.

In documentaries, if the subject is a person then his availability to the filmmaker had to be obtained, if its a topic where different people are involved then again finding out the right time to get from them in advance is required.   

Check out Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -2 as well, 

More of these coming up in Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -3.

Auggieism:- What do you call Auggie with a whip.... 

Ans:-  Floggie....

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

Like / Follow on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news, job posts etc..