Production Integration

I've been relearning Movie Magic Scheduling. Lisa and I are applying for production financing for a dark drama of ours with the federal and provincial agencies, and our line producer needs to know how much time we're shooting in each location. So I'm trying to work up a budget.

This is really another post about Movie Magic Screenwriter vs. Final Draft. I've always preferred Final Draft. It works intuitively on a Mac. I've always found Movie Magic Screenwriter to behave like a PC program ported over to the Mac. The reason people keep telling me to use Screenwriter is that production managers like the way it integrates with Scheduling.

Guess what? It doesn't. When I try to import my MMSW file into MMS, very little information makes it through, and a lot of that is wrong. For example, if I have a slugline like NOVAK HOUSE - FRONT ENTRY, it will only import the NOVAK HOUSE part. For example, if a character is mentioned in the action, it assumes that character is actually in the scene. Often, they are not. So I just spent a day going through manually entering all the missing data into Scheduling.

Moreover, Scheduling now imports from Final Draft files. So there is no reason to suffer with Screenwriter if you prefer Final Draft.

Why You Don't Block Shoot

Here in Canada, there's a tendency to block shoot to save money. That's when you shoot several episodes at once. Often, as well, producers shoot the entire season in advance of airing.

If TV creators were artistes, this would make sense. When you shoot in advance, you have a little leeway if you run over schedule. You can pick shots up here and there along the way. And often, you write a whole slew of scripts, or even all the scripts, in advance. That way you can keep the whole show in your head and not be distracted by production. Right?

What if you get something wrong? As you can see from the TV, EH? forum, some LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE fans aren't loving a new character introduced this season. They think he's an unpleasant jerk and not funny.

American shows, and many Canadian shows, don't get too far ahead of themselves in production. That allows them to react semi-nimbly to audience reaction, whether they're getting it from reading blogs (which as DMc points out is risky), or if they can afford proper focus groups and market research.

Next week's show is probably completely finished. But maybe there's time to trim some moments or try to carry the humor with musical "stings." As you move down the season, you can re-edit episodes to de-emphasize the character's story line, or if he's crucial to the A-story, spend less time with him on screen and cut to more reaction shots. When you get to shows you're shooting, you can tell him to play the role differently. Lighten up, eh? Then you get to scripts in the pipeline. You can have him run over by a bus. You can write him differently, or write him out entirely.

TV production schedules are a balance between getting too far ahead and cutting it too close. If you cut it too close, there's not enough time for post. You start running up overtime with the editors, and people start making bad editing decisions because there's no time to think about what you're doing. If you really run over schedule you can miss an air date. The network has to slot in a rerun, and you're fired.

But if you get too far ahead, you can't react to the reactions.

(Oh, and while we're at it -- someone really ought to underwrite TV, EH? The only blog about watching Canadian TV shouldn't be a volunteer effort. How about it, Tim Horton?)

Bust a move

Q. Hi, is any chance to find out how are TV series produced? I mean an hour episode in USA is supposed to be shot in 8 days. I've just produced a pilot of drama for the major Czech TV station and we have had problems to shot it in 10 days (about 40 scenes, few locations but 12 hour shifts and lots of over-times). I wonder how it may be possible for US crew to manage it in 8 days with its incredibly quality...

Well, the American series probably has many more technicians on staff. And access to more concentrated resources in LA. That saves a lot of time.

There may simply be a difference in working styles. American PA's are expected to run. The impression I have from producers who've worked in the States and overseas is that overseas crews in various countries simply take their time. PA's walk. British crews are notorious for taking tea breaks.

This may be a function of budget. Czech crews probably get paid less; there may be less pressure to get the shoot done in 8 days. Low budget American movies shoot in 18-21 days. Low budget Hong Kong movies used to shoot for six months, I'm told. The staff wasn't getting paid much so they could afford to take their time. Any good director in the world will push to use all the available time on his schedule to get the shots just so. If he can afford ten days, he'll use ten. (And you're lucky if he doesn't grab 11.)

I believe there must be some other thing. I don't know how to say... some hidden trick or anything. I mean to achieve shooting an hour drama in 8 days the script must be well structured (in production sense). The hour drama is not 60 minutes long but less than 50. Ally McBeal is about 45 minutes long. Lest take off time for main and closing credits and estabilishing shots etc. and the actual length to be shot for the main unit may be 40 minutes or so. Am I right? Are the some other rules or trick how to simplify the script to shoot? Returning sets are the most obvious ones, but what about some others?

How long are Czech "hour" shows? British hour dramas seem to run 52 minutes or so. American hour dramas are more like 44. There's your two extra shooting days right there.

But I think it all gets back to money. A show like Ally McBeal can afford to build her entire law firm on a sound stage. The Czech Ally McBeal probably rents an office. Sound stages are far easier to light, and you never have sound problems. You can even afford to have one lighting staff come in overnight and pre-light to speed up the main lighting crew's job. When we did NAKED JOSH, we didn't have the budget to build convincing sets on stages, so we did all location shooting. That means the crew is spending time unpacking and packing equipment; you're waiting for that truck to go by; the sunlight shifts; etc. I bet if you gave the Czech show the same budget Ally McBeal had, they could get it done in 8 days, too. 

Effects of the Strike

This article, like many others, says advertisers are already worried about the effects of reruns on viewership."

“Everybody's in the same position. We all have stuff on the shelf we can use … the common assessment is that we're all good until January. But as of January, when new episodes of shows would have been expected, that's when schedules start to change a bit.”

I think people are underestimating the effect of the strike. TV is a not a warehouse. It is a pipeline. (It is, if you will, a series of tubes.)

Yes, you can shoot and edit and show all the episodes for which there are already scripts. And that takes you to January.

But what happens in January? Can you just get the writers to air new episodes? Um, no. Writers have to think up new episodes, write first drafts and second drafts, and then take them to production. Production needs to shoot them and editors need to shoot them.

You don't get any new episodes until February or March.

Think of the strike as a growing gap at the beginning of an assembly line. When the engine-makers put down their tools, you can keep making cars until the gap reaches the end of the line. And then you shut the line down. But when you start the line up again, you have to wait for the engines before you can make any new cars. And no one's making the engines any faster than they were.

With each day of the strike, that gap in the line is getting bigger.

The truth is, the strike is already having an effect on every struck show. The effect is delayed, but it is irrevocable. TV staffs work flat out. There's no slack to take up. It's not like a plane you can fly faster to account for a late take-off. If you lose a day, you're behind a day for the rest of the season. (Okay, you can go from an 8 day schedule to a 6 day schedule, and you can do a bottle show or a clip show, but then you're just writing and shooting substandard episodes.)

Think reruns will help? Not in the long run. TV schedules already plan for reruns. But while you only lose, say, 10% of the audience the first time you rerun an episode, how about the second time you rerun it? The 10% figure comes from the audience not knowing a rerun is coming up. What happens when the audience decides "that show is nothing but reruns all the time?" They just stop watching, period.

If I were a shareholder, I'd be pretty irritated at the networks for pretending not to understand this.

School

Q. I am very interested in the film/tv industry. I do have a desire for writing scripts,producing and directing. Do you have any comment or have heard anything on this school's program; a community college in NC has a two year curriculum in Film &Video Technology, it's an associates degree program in Applied Science. Hands-on instruction taught be industry professionals.

It would be easier for me to comment if I knew the name of the community college. (Guys, please, spend at least as long writing the question as I'm likely to spend answering it, huh?)

Q. Sorry, the college is Cafe Fear Community College, in Wilmington,NC. A few of the major courses are; Intro to film & video,Camera and lighting I & II,grip and electrical I & II,production techniques I & II, 2D and 3D design & animations I and editing I.

Offhand, I don't think that a community college (even in Cafe Fear) is going to teach you anything in two years that you could not learn on your own. I'm not just being a snob; I'm not actually sure that major programs like UCLA or NYU teach you all that much that you couldn't learn on your own. Sure, you get access to equipment, but you can rent a prosumer video camera for a couple hundred bucks for a week, or buy one for a couple thousands; and you can edit on a Mac with Final Cut.

Don't go to a community college to study film, unless of course you just need an AA degree. Write a script. Rent a video camera. Buy a Mac and put Final Cut on it. And shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot.

Set yourself a goal of making one complete under-ten-minute short film every two months. This gives you six months from script to edited film if you edit one film while you're prepping and shooting the next film and you're writing the film after that. (Multitasking like that will help you absorb the lessons, as you sit in the edit bay cursing your idiot director -- you -- and moron writer -- you.)

Don't shoot anything longer than ten minutes; it's much easier to get people to watch a short short than a long one, and you'll take more risks with a short short.

Where do you get your crew? From the AA program at the community college, of course. But you don't have to actually go there. For my short I'm getting a lot of people from Concordia, but we're producing it ourselves.

In fact, if you get a film student in the AA program to "produce" your film, then you can lay your hands on the free equipment without paying for the classes.

After two years of this, you'll either to be ready to go to LA, with a kickass reel, or you'll know that the film business is not for you. After two years of community college, you'll have spent a lot of time in classes hearing people talk about how it's done, but a lesson learned by doing is worth ten times a lesson heard in class.

Of course you could also go to the AA program while shooting a film every two months. I'm just not sure what the benefit would be; except possibly to get your parents off your back about how you're spending your time.

Film is all about the doing, not the theory. And experience will be a much better instructor than anyone you'll get at a community college in North Carolina -- possibly better than anyone you'll get anywhere.

The Final Four

Friday Night Lights is airing its final four, with its renewal hanging in the balance. Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune has a slew of stories about it.

One talks about how they shoot the show, with location shooting, multiple floating cameras and a lot of improvisation. Yikes! Wow! I am in awe.

One's an interview with Jason Katims, the showrunner.

And here's an interview with Kevin Reilly, head of NBC Entertainment, on how they're trying to find an audience for the show rather than changing what the show is.

There's some overlap, but they're all worth reading.

You are watching the show, right? Wednesday nights, NBC, 8 pm.