The Ever Changing Schedule
Dan Engelhardt producer
We are amazingly lucky to have a cast young, but extremely credible actors. Our five leads all have major credits, and are constantly working on big budget productions. While this fact is great for the quality of the film it presents a huge challenge for me as the producer. Every few days I receive a call from an agent needing us to revise the production schedule.
Last Wednesday, for example, I received a call regarding one of our actors who was suddenly unavailable for a shoot set to take place the next day. To make matters worse it was a scene that had been lined up on one of the only days that our four male leads were available. In order to not fall behind schedule I had to move shoots set for the following week forward - this meant calling locations, actors, equipment vendors etc. - hoping that all the resources would align in under 24 hours.
Shortly after this call, we found out that another one of our actors was unavailable to shoot a couple weeks down the road. Again days had to be moved, and the schedule had to be heavily revised - flights, accommodation plans, you name it. I was literally on the phone from 1pm until 8pm making these changes. Another issue that was introduced a few days later was “facial hair.” One of the leads was recently booked on a big budget movie that requires them to have facial hair. A day after we wrap with him he needs to be on another set with a beard. Because our budget is smaller, and the date we are shooting with him was moved from a previously locked date we have little leverage to require him to shave. For this reason Brad, Tony and I are trying to come up with creative ways to either to explain the beard through story points and /or shift the schedule in a way that eliminates the issue. So far we have moved one of the chase scenes to the day in question. This will hopefully allow us to avoid seeing the facial hair, but still allow us to get the scenes we need.
To compensate for these major shifts we have setup a week break during principle photography. During this time frame we will return some of our equipment to Los Angeles, undergo pre-production for the revised shoots, and take a few pickups that normally would have taken place well after production. Making this shift could potentially affect the budget, but hopefully returning some of our gear, and shifting to guerilla style filmmaking for the last week will minimize the added expense…. as luck would have it the scenes that will be left to shoot during this final week are pretty simple, and do not require huge lighting setups.
In the end the time spent to shift the schedule, and any added cost is well worth it. We have a talented cast signed on, and one that will be giving us a huge amount of exposure based on the other projects they are involved with.
We are amazingly lucky to have a cast young, but extremely credible actors. Our five leads all have major credits, and are constantly working on big budget productions. While this fact is great for the quality of the film it presents a huge challenge for me as the producer. Every few days I receive a call from an agent needing us to revise the production schedule.
Last Wednesday, for example, I received a call regarding one of our actors who was suddenly unavailable for a shoot set to take place the next day. To make matters worse it was a scene that had been lined up on one of the only days that our four male leads were available. In order to not fall behind schedule I had to move shoots set for the following week forward - this meant calling locations, actors, equipment vendors etc. - hoping that all the resources would align in under 24 hours.
Shortly after this call, we found out that another one of our actors was unavailable to shoot a couple weeks down the road. Again days had to be moved, and the schedule had to be heavily revised - flights, accommodation plans, you name it. I was literally on the phone from 1pm until 8pm making these changes. Another issue that was introduced a few days later was “facial hair.” One of the leads was recently booked on a big budget movie that requires them to have facial hair. A day after we wrap with him he needs to be on another set with a beard. Because our budget is smaller, and the date we are shooting with him was moved from a previously locked date we have little leverage to require him to shave. For this reason Brad, Tony and I are trying to come up with creative ways to either to explain the beard through story points and /or shift the schedule in a way that eliminates the issue. So far we have moved one of the chase scenes to the day in question. This will hopefully allow us to avoid seeing the facial hair, but still allow us to get the scenes we need.
To compensate for these major shifts we have setup a week break during principle photography. During this time frame we will return some of our equipment to Los Angeles, undergo pre-production for the revised shoots, and take a few pickups that normally would have taken place well after production. Making this shift could potentially affect the budget, but hopefully returning some of our gear, and shifting to guerilla style filmmaking for the last week will minimize the added expense…. as luck would have it the scenes that will be left to shoot during this final week are pretty simple, and do not require huge lighting setups.
In the end the time spent to shift the schedule, and any added cost is well worth it. We have a talented cast signed on, and one that will be giving us a huge amount of exposure based on the other projects they are involved with.
Labels: Week_5
posted by Tony Vallone at
5:30 PM
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