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Production Protocol

what I want to talk about is production protocol. That person is my first a D. And she will give you that Look, if you do something wrong and you do not want that because that means that something is not going right. So let's advance communication on set. These are I have abbreviated this list of things and I want to talk through it. And I'm gonna try to explain each thing as it happens in terms off verbal set protocol before any scene is filmed and I'll explain every step of this to you. So just stay with me, Okay? So the director and the DP you're going to set up a shot list. Most likely, they have a blocking shot map. Like what? You saw the my also be vision boards and mood boards or anything like this for each particular scene. That might be up on the wall. That might be in a book, but they're on the same page. The director blocks out the scene like I did here, right? I set the two people in the chairs. I told the cameraman where I want I know the three camera angles we're gonna sh...

oot from I told him the three shots we're gonna make right, So I I blocked out the scene and we rehearse it. We didn't rehearse that because it wasn't an actual scene. But the reality is we might have rehearsed it, especially if there's any movement involved where people actually moving through frame. Okay, The A D then asked the DP for a time estimate on the next set of meaning. She's already thinking about what's gonna come next. Because schedule is primary to her job is keeping everything moving in one direction, making sure that this set right here, this is our dishes already done in my mind. In my mind, this is done. I'm onto the next one. You need to tell me what your time estimate is. They communicate that Okay, then the 80 announces that the DP has the set and that is verbalized out loud. The DP has the set, which means now all of those people who are on the set he's in control of what's gonna happen because he's gonna now take over the set. He's going to set up whatever he needs to set up. Everybody needs to be paying attention to that then the DP is going to get together with his key grip and his gaffer, and they're going to talk about all of the different pieces of this scene that they need to make sure our in place so that again clear communication about what is expected in this scene. Then gaffer and the grips and the electrics and all the people execute that however big scene might be. So now that it's all put together the DPD and supervises where the camera's gonna be placed. So the director has already expressed where he wants to camera, and now the DP is going to set up where the camera's gonna go, so that is clearly what happens next. Then, when the set is ready, the DP tells the a D. So now the DP is releasing the scene back to the 81 of the A D. Assistant director Ah, the director is going to do final rehearsals a lot of times that happens in hair and makeup, wherever that might be before they come out. So he's the directors with the actors at this point, cause the DP and the A D or taking care of the set because that's their job. So he's trusting that those things are gonna happen. The DP makes AH, director is over the We take focal adjustments at this point, so in with cameras that do not have auto focus on them, we take distance measurements for the for the lens focal points so that this will be the point with the A. C will take those final distance measurements and make sure that all of the focal marks are set. So that's where we put these little marks on the floor. To make sure actors are in the right space is because those things are measured off with a tape measure or with a laser to make sure that when that focuses, pulled, that actor is standing on that mark. Because if that actors not on that mark that frames out of focus, we have to start all over again. OK, so then the DP makes the final adjustments is called tweaking. Now, some DP's do a lot more tweaking than others, and a DS do not like lots of tweaking because that screws up with their schedule. So a lot of times there's some friction there, but the reality is that everybody's trying to do the same thing. But DP's were often very fussy and also very, very much perfectionists. So sometimes the A D needs to give him a kick and get it moving again. Okay, so the DP will then meet her the scene and set the iris or your aperture for the photographers in the room. Um, and he tells the a D. I'm ready. So now all of the things for the 80 is set. He's ready to shoot the scene. Okay, so now the 80 calls first team gets on the microphone calls first team first team are your actors that are in the set in the scene. Not your background, not your featured background. None of that is just your a team. Your main players in the scene 18 comes out. There's a P A that takes those people is in charge of delivering those people from point A to point B. So there is one p a. P. A. Will be in charge of talent, and they have a microphone and a year peace, and they will take talent and bring them back. And then they put him on set. Okay, The director calls that he's ready for a take. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm the director. I'm ready. So then the 80 will call out Last looks you will hear. Last looks on. What that means is that if your hair and makeup if your costume if you have any place with anything that's happening on that set right now, you will get one last chance to make sure it's right. So the last looks OK, last looks happens. Um, any effects that we're going to start smoke, steam, flames Whatever's gonna happen in the set that starts to be put up in motion. Right Then the A. D calls Lock it up. Which means if you're out on the street somewhere, the P A's have to tell everybody who's on the sidewalk. You can't walk through the set. The set becomes locked down from the from the perimeter. And everybody has to say that when it's on a microphone, 80 says, lock it up, everybody repeats Lock it up. So this happens very often when you're communicating is everybody's communicating by walkie talkie. Lock it up. So now the scene is locked down. Um, this is all what we call now working quiet. So sometimes when you're on a set, you clearly need to still be communicating to one another. But we're in what was called a working quiet mode. So if you hear that phrase, you understand what that means and doesn't mean you can't do anything or communicate. But walkie talkies are not gonna be going off at this point, because now, once we start rolling sound, we're gonna be able to pick all of that up. So working, Quiet. Um, the 80 will call roll sound, and the sound man will yell speed when you hear speed. That means that the sound machines are now recording sound. Okay, the A D calls for roll camera and a C rolls camera and call speed. So now the cameras are rolling and the sound is rolling, and then the 80 will call rolling rolling. Then the second a d will call rolling, rolling and that will go repeated throughout the set so that everybody knows that we are both recording sound and we are recording video. Okay, the, um the first a c calls market and the second a c slates the scene. So the second a c comes out with the slate and slates. The scene calls it out and then we call for background action to the A C A. D will call for background action. So now players are walking cars or moving rain is falling. Now all of the things that are supposed to happen in this scene are happening in the background. Okay, at that point, the 80 or the director, sometimes directors don't call action. Sometimes the director tells the A D and A. D calls action, So action is called and the scene begins. Then, of course, that's the This is the only two parts of this that anybody is really that familiar with. Somebody calls action and somebody calls Cut. And those are the next two things that happened, right? And then the scene is over. And then, of course, director goes and I was okay. But let's do that again, back to one, which I told before we're going to go back to one back to one, means we're gonna go right back to the beginning and start that whole process all over again. And if you have 100 scenes in the movie, you're gonna do that. 34 500 times over the course of time because the reality is that protocol is standardized. That mitt level of communication is militaristic because if you don't you realize even on a small set, even in a one room situation with two actors and a camera and a producer or whatever, you may not have this much stuff moving. But like I said yesterday, even on small projects with my team, we ran small projects with the right terminology with the right protocols. Excuse me and we with the right protocols, and we behaved as if this was a big set, because we want when we do step out onto a big set to be professional and to show that we understand the set protocols and that we is not our first rodeo. Even if nothing else, roll cameras, camera speeds, roll sound, sound speeds, action cut. Even if it's just for those four things, you're still just starting to bake it in starting bacon what it is that you want to have happen on set. So you know, a lot of times on in small projects, the director is the A D right. The director is the person that's calling out all the action. But if you start to familiarize yourself with all of that terminology, when you start to familiarize yourself with all of the kind of mechanism and protocol, you start to feel like you're more part of the video and film community. And once you start to be able to talk the talk, then you feel a lot. You walk a little taller when you're walking the walk. And I think that part of this transition for all of us who have moved out of photography and into film or into video is learning how to become mawr off a filmmaker and less of a photographer. Because it's a very different skill set. And I think that no matter what part of this you end up in learning proper protocols and understanding what it looks like on a bigger scale is really a nice kind of added benefit. Even if you have no desire to work on a big film set or you don't wanna direct or produce or doing any any of these things. Ah, but even if you operate like a small documentary film or you're doing self promotion or whatever it is just getting into your head that filmmaking is a particular art form, just like photography is a particular art form, and it's important to participate in it. Honestly, The way that you it's been, it's traditional and you want to buy into the tradition, and I think that's important to understand and be part of. So we did. A bunch of Bridget had a question about mood boards and how to get people on board. No pun intended with, um, like differing views like If you build one and I build one, how do you and you make the final decision? How do you negotiate with people and sort of like on board them to your creative vision and and while taking their feedback, I guess, Yeah, I think I I think that the mood board should always come from whoever's in charge of the project and then anybody who's bringing anything to to that, I think at a certain point, like let's say I give you a mood board and you're my costumer and then you're you pick out a whole bunch of things and you choose them online and take snapshots and grabs and you bring me back. I was looking at these things. Then if the if that's off the mark, then it's up to me to do a better job at communicating to you What it is that you know, I want you to execute. So at the end of the day, ah, it always comes back to leadership and communication. So if I wouldn't ask, you just come up with a mood board, I would give you some some guidance as to what it is that I want you to come back me with. And then you come back and you say This is some of the ideas I had for production design and it's like, OK, well, this really fits into what I'm thinking about. But this year I think we could probably go a little bit of a different way and be diplomatic as well, because clearly you're dealing with another artist and they're trying their best to interpret what it is that you are asking them to do. Now. Clearly, sometimes somebody brings some people bring their own agenda to the table. But that, again, is about communication and leadership. In a way to say to them, Hey, um, I need you to try toe. Do what I'm asking you to dio but do that in a nice way and hopefully you get where you need to be. I hope that answer the question you get OK, Cool. Anybody else question? Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping you could speak, Andrew, about maybe the first time you invoice for something new in this case video. Yeah, that could be a friendly experience. Or put stress on you. And I'm wondering if you remember it for one. If you're member of the project and to discover how you work through that how it felt I jumped over the imposter hurdle to command the dollars and go do it. It's a great question. I think anytime I talk about pricing, what I try to do is reach out to people who are a little bit ahead of me in the process for sure. And ask the questions in terms off. I think it's if you've worked in photography. Um, you understand that there are different levels for everything, whether it's advertising, whether it's editorial, But I think in terms off, being able to produce pricing for something like a video is very different because you have tow anticipate the costs of all of the people. And I think in terms of being a producer, uh, determining your own price is probably the hardest part. I think that's probably at the core of your question. Because if I gotta hire a DP or I gotta hire a producer, they're gonna come at me with pricing. I'm gonna have to negotiate with those people. But if I'm thinking about what I should charge as a creative, that's when you start to reach out to people who are in the industry producers you worked with before. I think pricing in terms off video in general is very different than photography, because usage isn't a factor. Um, it's it's work for hire straight across the board pretty much all the time, so it's a very different environment. So I think your day rates would normally be a little bit higher than your photography day rates. But that is a one time deal like there is no residual on video, and you don't get to keep the ownership, and it's just a very different animal. And again, that's the tradition off the art form, rather than an industry that, like with photography, uh, depending on what part of the industry. Aaron. It's different, but in video it's pretty much straight across the board. You are a work for hire person. Whether you're a director, were producer or your shooter, whatever it is you getting paid for that day, that's that. But the other part of you have to consider we don't really talk about this is when you're dealing with actors and you're dealing with crew members who may happen to be union. Because even if you're a non union director, you might very well need to be working with the union crew. And if you're hiring riel actors and actresses, they may be in SAG. And all of those things, depending on the budget level of the project you're working on, will determine what you can pay them. So, for instance, Marco was what's called modified low budget, okay, and that comes into a certain ah, that comes into a certain framework, Um, based on what you can spend on the film, right? So if you do that, you can. You have to. You can pay actors upto a certain point, and then when the budget goes higher, then of course, you can pay them, or but it's It's a sliding scale based on the size of the production. So SAG understands this. So does the rest of the industry, in that once you start to move up in pay scale, depending on the size of the project at depends on how much you can get paid. So again there are these this. It's there is no nothing you can pin up on the wall and go. One size fits all. It's all about individual negotiations. It's also about budgeting, and it's about what it is. The project is four eso if I'm asked a massive direct commercial for Bumble Bee. They're a national international brand that there, I'm gonna probably get something close to my full day rate. But if I'm doing something smaller and I want the job, I might have to take less. So it's all about your balance between how important is the project to your riel? How important is deprived, how you want to keep working? Do you need to work for this particular amount? It's all about personal preference on some level two, and everything's a negotiation. So, um, I don't know that it's that different from photography. It's just the ground rules or old different, that's all. Yep. Anybody? Yes, question. We talked a little bit about crossing the line, and you gave an example of when someone you do that if someone's talking out of both sides of the mouth if you're giving I mean, it's one example. Sure, what are some of the other examples that you would do that? Use that for? I think in terms of when you start to break cinematic rules, it's usually because you want to make the audience feel uncomfortable or deliver some type of a message. Now, I don't know that any particular I can't think right now off the top of my head of a particular example, that one was just very prevalent cause I just watched it the other day. But in terms off, there are lots of different rules that you can break because you know you want to convey to the audience some measure of discomfort or some other message being being told in the breaking of the rules. But I think that it is something that what I've read and what I've been told, and what I've experienced is learned all of the rules first, before you start breaking them because it's important to understand what you're doing. Do it all the right way first, and then once you feel like you've gotten that down, then you can start doing tricks. All right, we'll learn how to ride the bike first before you go over the ramp. And I think when you start to break cinematic rules, it's usually because you really understand them very well. And you understand what the opposite means in cinematic language, because the camera and the entirety off cinema is a language in and of itself, and that you should be fluent in the language before you start creating your own words. I guess that's from a you know, so questions. What is your? This will be our last question. What is the biggest lesson that you learned like early on when you were on set? What is the biggest, maybe hard lesson? You learned that I didn't know any I didn't know anything. I mean, really. I mean, as much as I thought I knew I didn't and I think it was really important for me to be humble about and hungry again and I think that was a great gift for being in the creative arts for as long as I have been, and then to get out into an environment where I felt hungry to learn again. That was a really important lesson for me, and it really drove me to want to do more. Uh, it was and you know, as much as it was a lot of work toe learn what I've learned to this point. I still feel like there's so much more to learn and it not that I don't feel that way about photography, but I feel like in the genre that I exist in, I feel like I've accomplished a lot and that I don't know necessarily that there's that much room to the ceiling anymore in terms of what I want to accomplish. But I think that in terms of what I would like to accomplish in this art form, I still have so much to learn and that it's so important to consistently be hungry because I think if you want knowledge and you wanna grow as an artist, you need to just keep changing gears and for me I mean, I think I don't know that there's any destination for me artistically. I just think when I'm when I'm gone, whatever I've been learning at that point, that will be the last thing I learned because I don't know that I have a destination. I don't know that anybody. I never feel like I've arrived because they just keep changing the destination. So that's really what I learned that I think that it just kind of drove that home for me is stepping out into a world where everybody's half my age and they know twice as much as I do. So that's that's kind of where that's at. I think you do a really good job, Andrew of um, It's a balance, it seems like of being humble, but then also like, sort of placing the high level of value on yourself and what you bring right, because you are ultimately in control of the whole project at some level. And so it seems like you're just constantly sort of doing this in using your judgment in in that well part. Part of that is this that I come to most of the things I do in my life with a lot of self confidence. Um, I don't really believe this. Anything I can't do, as long as I try hard enough. And I think that that's a gift that my parents gave me right is that I was I wasn't born or nurtured in a way that made me feel, um, that I wasn't capable. I always felt very capable. And I think that if you build yourself up to feel capable, but also remain humble enough to know that you don't know everything and that if you try hard enough and if you if you work hard enough, um, I've never been afraid of working hard. I mean, I think I take on way more than I probably can handle most of the time, but it's because I get bored really easy, and I like to learn. And I think that that's been probably the main reason why I'm successful. I'm in this room today because I was persistent about teaching this class. I was really adamant that I wanted to teach this because I feel like when I teach stuff, it helps me learn it. Better to, I think, teaching the classes I've taught here creative life have made me a better photographer, and I think they're gonna make me a better producer. They could make me about a director because being able to share knowledge and mentor, that's a two way process. It always has been a two way process for me. So I think ultimately, that's what where it all comes from. It comes from the desire to learn and share. So I got a lot more to share tomorrow. Yes. And I was happy to share all either shared today. And, uh, thanks so much. They Absolutely. I want to remind you about the homework assignment. So you want to get right, And it was on my first sheep. Okay. All right. Way have to homework assignments for you. Okay. You ready? Okay. I want you to take a picture that you've taken. All right. We've talked about what things start as a logline in film, right? That that little brief a sentence or two it tells you about this story. Take a picture. That's your logline. And from the logline, write me a synopsis of the story. That is the first step in building out a bigger story, a bigger script, a bigger project. So you have a picture and I want you to do that so it could be a picture you've already taken. It could be a picture you take on your way home today. It could be any picture you find, maybe even not a picture of your own. Just take a picture and create a story around that picture and start with a logline by writing. You took a picture of a guy walking his dog, create a story of two lines story about that guy walking his dog and then from there, tell me to a sent a paragraph and then from a paragraph two paragraphs You don't have to do all this tonight, but this is how it starts. It starts with an idea, and then it builds and blood and blows up from there. That's homework assignment. Number one, Homework assignment. Number two is I want you to watch television or a movie or something, cinematic. And I want you to try to recognize as many camera moves as we practiced today in that and write them down on a piece of paper because I guarantee you that if you've never watched television or movies like that before, you gonna be really shocked at how much you learned today. So this is a kind of homework assignment you can consistently do if you're interested in becoming a filmmaker, because watching camera moves and then watching camera moves in context of story starts to inform you as to why those camera moves exist in the first place and how they make you feel you can even keep a notebook. How did that when the camera moves? How did it make me feel? What part of this story was it? Did it change the way I thought about a character? All of those things. But we learned about what eight or 10 camera moves today, and we'll talk more tomorrow about not just camera move, but shots the kind of shots you make with those camera moves. And I think that those two assignments right now are two very important pieces off filmmaking. So the homework assignment, good luck