You’ve been asked to create a budget for the next series your production company will be producing.  If you’re first instinct is to whip out the latest budgeting software like movie magic budgeting – then you would be putting the cart before the horse and find yourself dragging a heavy load up a steep hill, while wearing a pencil skirt in stilettos.  It’s just ass backwards and will get you into trouble every single time.  Listen people – once you’ve dissected the creative, then it’s time to create the schedule.

Take a deep breath, you are about to figure out how to spend millions of dollars to create 6, 8, or 10 episodes of the latest hit cable series.  And if you’re going to do that – then I beg you – don’t get cocky and act as though you’ve done this a million times.  Each budget is a new and unique experience, and creating the schedule will tell you where the bodies will have to be buried.

Break it down into units of time :
Scripting
Casting
Shooting
Editing
On-line
Mix

The schedule breakdown will give you valuable information.  How many weeks you’ll need the casting department, writers, story producers, field producers, DP, editors, etc., etc.  Once you know how many weeks each person will be on your show, you can start plugging in numbers, including how many edit rooms you’ll need, how many days for pre-production before a shoot, how many crew and cast you’ll need to feed, how many truck rentals and on and on.  The schedule is the key whether you’re dealing with a 1000 budget or a 10,000,000 budget.

You can start with a simple one below, made from an excel program. Each square represents one week.

From there you can get more complex with a schedule that gives you the specific days you’ll turn rough cuts into the network and how much turn around time you have before you need network notes.

Start with the schedule and then start plugging the numbers in.

Next… plugging the numbers in.

Fact of life – things change.  There are those subtle changes that happen over time like growing older.  You don’t particularly notice the age lines on your face until you meet a friend you haven’t seen in years and then the bubble caption over your head screams, “Wow s/he got old, do I look like that!’  Then there are those changes that are not so subtle, the ones, we as professionals live with everyday, particularly in the area of technology

As with all technology, software or hardware, you’re taking a chance that in six months to a year there is going to be an updated  version of whatever you purchased with new bells and whistles you never imagined. Sometimes it makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard, but I suck it up knowing that’s one of the advantages and disadvantages of living and working in the 21st century – I will always be catching up to the latest technological releases. So, as a professional, I read the tech blogs, talk to other producers, DP’s and editors and keep abreast of the latest, greatest, gonna-make-your-production-life- a- breeze technology.

Such was the promise from Apple with their latest version of Final Cut Pro – FCP X.  Promise is the operative word because it not only missed the mark, it has people ranting.   If you’re one of the unfortunate people who has already purchased and downloaded the new software you know that any previous projects you’ve created will NOT open with this new version.  Oops…  You’ll also know that you cannot collaborate with other editors. There is no option to hand off your project file; instead you have to hand off your computer if you want anyone else to work on the project.  Need I go on?   For more particulars read what Walter Biscardi at Creative Cow Magazine has to say.

Finally, FCPX has earned the distinction of being the butt of late night jokes.  Apparently, Conan O’Brien’s editorial staff is not among the happy customers….

I produce TV and I write book reviews for Barnes and Noble, and I understand what goes into production and what it takes to make a video about a book. It’s not easy; in fact, counting cars as they enter the car wash can sometimes be far more interesting than watching one of these book trailers. Many of them present no more information than dissolving from one stock photo to the next and then offering up the title. They certainly don’t make me think, “I must stop what I’m doing right this second and click the buy button.” That changed when I viewed the book trailer for ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” I was interested, surprised, afraid and most of all curious. Curious enough to buy the book.

I believe the difficulty starts with imagery; no two people’s imagination is the same. If an author described a woman as having long flowing red hair with a petite nose – we would both have a different picture in mind.

See – two different images, but both potentially describe what the author has written.

In contrast, the book “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is based on vintage photographs and the author, Ransom Riggs uses them to illustrate his book and his book trailer. Mr. Riggs is a writer and a filmmake who clearly knows a thing or two about production. Using live action in combination with compelling narration and some very unusual photos, he has produced a riveting book trailer.

It’s not often that photos inspire a work of fiction, and in a quote from EW.com he says, ”I was developing the story as I was finding the photos. I’d find a particularly evocative photo and I’d say, ‘I need to work this in somehow.’

The LA Times’ Deborah Netburn, who talked to Riggs, writes, “…really great found photography is hard to come by, so Riggs started contacting the big guns in the found photography world, including Robert E. Jackson, a collector whose photos were featured in a show at the National Gallery. Jackson and others opened up their archives to Riggs and allowed him to borrow whatever images he needed (a list of images and the collections they are from are in the back of his book). After looking at close to a 100,000 photos, he eventually amassed a pool of 300 to 400 usable pictures and whittled that down to the 44 images he used in the book.”

See for yourself – I think this is one of the best book trailers out there, I can only hope the book lives up to the preview.

SAG , the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists may become one union. SAG represent actors who work in motion pictures, television, commercials, industrials, video games, Internet and all new media formats. AFTRA includes performers, journalists and other artists working in the entertainment and news media. Many artists/actors are members of both unions and now there may be a merger. SAG has sanctioned a task force to focus on the merits of joining forces.

In a press release issued by SAG on April 30th , a task force was officially created and instructed to meet with members of AFTRA to develop the creation of a union that would combine the best parts of both unions. Whatever union morphs from the marriage of the two will be a force to be reckoned with. As we move into the second decade of this new millennium there will be an acceleration of different ways to view entertainment. The rights of the actors, performers and journalists who are part of the entertainment we so greedily want in every format at a moment’s notice need to be protected. I’m sure that will be the first order of business when the successor union debuts.

Read full press release here

The long running All My Children and One Life to Live are being cancelled.  I’m just wondering – was there ever a time when Susan Lucci wasn’t on television? The WGAE and AFTRA  are not happy about the cancellations.  It means a huge loss not only for the fans but for the actors, writers, production staff and crew. It seems the public’s taste has changed and they’d prefer to view the real life soap opera antics of the cast of The Jersey Shore or The Real Housewives of (pick a city).

Apparently the public was so outraged they bombarded Oprah Winfrey with a plea to save the soaps.  Unfortunately, one of the most powerful woman in television was unable to help.  She took to You Tube to announce that while she was a fan of soaps she was unable to do anything.  Soaps just aren’t attracting the numbers of viewers they have in the past, and without viewers there are no advertising dollars.  Without those dollars – well… you get the picture.

While English speaking viewers are shifting their loyalties, the Spanish speaking television audience can’t seem to get enough of scripted intrigue, adultery and back stabbing. Spanish telenovas (soap operas) are in high demand. Univision is planning to launch up to three new Spanish-language cable networks in the US- one network would be devoted to telenovelas and is tentatively titled UniNovelas.

The phrases “no worries” and “it’s all good” are bantered around a lot.  I mean A LOT.  I was on a recent production and I must have heard it said at least 50 times in one day, every day for over a month.  I’m not prone to exaggeration and this is no exception.   It seems to have become an industry standard to tell a producer ‘no worries’.  Unfortunately, for me it’s tantamount to saying ‘whatever’.

In the first place – I’m never worried.  I may be concerned or I may be strategically thinking about how to solve a problem, but there isn’t really any problem that can’t be solved.  Ever. Whether it’s the lead actor in the production who’s suddenly stricken ill during filming, or whether the network hates everything you’ve shot even though they’ve signed off on it – all of these ‘problems’ have work arounds and can and have been solved.  So, there really isn’t anything to worry about.  But, during my last production we did a lot of hand held shooting very quickly and there wasn’t always an opportunity to have a monitor available so I could see what was being shot as it was being shot.  When I asked the DP to make sure he captured a particular shot at a particular angle I was told, “no worries.”  When I told the DP I  needed to reshoot something, I was told “it’s all good.”  Now, I’m not singling out this DP, because in fact he had a great eye, but he wasn’t the only crew member to give me the ‘no worries’ brush off.

I repeat, I’m not worried; I only want to ensure that what I need to get on tape is gotten.  I want to leave no doubt in my mind that when I enter the edit room everything I need will be there.  It’s part of my job to check, double check, and triple check.  That’s one of the things I do, and I do it very well.

So when a producer asks: Were the final changes incorporated into the script, or did you check to make sure the grip trucks had their permits changed or , or, or… the answer is either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  It’s pretty simple. I want a definitive answer. Sound harsh?  Not really – at the end of a production cycle you want to make sure you deliver more than what the network expected.  A ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ helps the producer guide the production to a winning result.

There isn’t a production company in the world that doesn’t need extra hands.  Especially when you’re coming down the home stretch of pre production. With last minute script changes, location permits, meals on set to arrange, props, wardrobe, set construction and the like – the final days before actual production can feel like your head is stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine.  Your budget is tight and as a producer you’re not going to even think about going over budget when you haven’t yet shot one minute of footage.  Interns to the rescue.  However, I’ve found that there are some production companies and producers who not only don’t understand the benefits of an intern but the responsibility that comes with hiring one.  If you’re just using your interns to take out the garbage, or file paperwork, then you’re doing both of you a disservice.

When I work with interns I make sure I give them some one-on-one time and the benefit of my years of production experience.

1.     Never, never let an intern sit idly.  Yes, it’s tempting, with the pace of production, it can have the apparency that it is easier to do it yourself than to take the time to teach a ‘newbie’ to do it.   In fact, it takes more time for you to continually do a task that is so far out of your job description, than it does to just spend the initial 30 or 45 minutes to give the data to an intern.  So, take the time, give them a little bit about the business and let them get on with it.  They’ll surprise you.  And if they perform the task and it’s not quite right – don’t accept it.  Don’t assume the viewpoint that you might as well do it yourself. That is so not the point. Thank them for their effort, point out what was right about it, and then tell them what needs to be changed and why.

2.    Take time each week to teach your intern something they don’t know.  Even if they’re not ready to do that particular job.  Give them something to look forward to, or something they can work on during their own time.  For example, show them how to research, give them a list of all the vendors you use, and have them check out their websites so they’ll know in the future who you order your lights from, where props can be rented, who are the food services people you use, etc.  Let them get familiar so if they do happen to be the only person back in the production office while you’re on a shoot or in the edit session, they’ll be able to help you out without too much preamble.  Seriously, who has time for preamble when you’re on location?

3.     Put your intern in a centrally located spot in the production office.  Stuffing him or her to the outer Siberia of your office will teach them nothing.  Put them in the middle of the fray where they’ll be able to hear and experience everything.  They’re working for free- if you can’t give them money then show them the love- put them in the middle of what’s happening.

4.    Once your intern has proven s/he has the staying power, include them in meetings, invite them to outside office functions and they’ll feel like they’re part of team.  Morale will be boosted and we all now, boosted morale equals increased production.

5.    Give them different things to do.  If you’ve got a ton of transcriptions from tapes you’ve shot – don’t give them ALL to the intern.  It’s tempting; after all they’re a warm body. But if you take the internship seriously, you’ll want to help develop a well rounded production person who can crawl they’re way up the ranks like the rest of us.  Give them a sense of all areas of production.  Not just typing up transcriptions and answering phones.  Have them log tapes, type up production schedules so they can see the logistics and maneuverings that go into creating a production schedule, have them create crew call sheets and then go over it with them.

There’s lots more an intern can and will do – but it’s up to you as the producer to take time out of your hectic schedule each day to give them some guidance and show them the love.  And on a final note, there can never be too much of “what goes around comes around,” – remember we all had to start somewhere.  Make their first experience a good one.

Music publishing is a lucrative business.  For years songwriters, and their labels relied on selling albums, and licensing their music to other outlets, in particular, commercials, TV shows, video games and movies.  In fact, I produced a show that relied heavily on music licensing.  The show’s premise was the untold story of musical songs.  It was a great idea but altogether difficult to produce.  To secure the rights to a song you must pay the music publisher, the writer and the performers. I know I summed it up in one sentence and I wish it had been that easy to produce, but it wasn’t.  In some cases the permissions were difficult to obtain and in other instances the fees requested for the license would have surely choked our budget into a nasty and sure death.  Songs we desperately wanted were way out of our reach.

Having been through six months of licensing deals with that production – I developed a keen ear whenever I watched a show featuring lots of music.  In the back of my mind I would think, “Oh those poor bastards at the production company, their heads must be spinning around like the exorcist child trying to make deals for the music.”

I had those same thoughts when I saw the TV show GLEE.  The FOX hit about a group of misfit high school Glee Club singers.    Each week the show features at least four songs.  I’ve come to discover that the show producers and Sony Music made a deal.  When the execs at Sony Music saw the pilot they jumped at the chance to partner with GLEE. And that was a very, very smart move.  The songs from the show have already generated over 200 million iTune downloads and the number grows weekly.  Can you hear the ‘cha-ching’ at the music publishing company?  A gold mind is being created and the show is giving re-birth to songs that were no longer bringing in the big bucks.

I don’t think many music publishers, labels or recording artists thought much about GLEE when it premiered – but Sony Music was insightful enough to see that this show had legs and would be advantageous to their publishing division.  When the show featured Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” the track went gold with over 500,000 digital sales.  Those sales figures are attracting attention and there are now many musical artists offering their songs, including Brittany Spears – all with the hopes of cashing in on the phenomenon that is GLEE.

When creating a Production Schedule start backwards from the delivery date. Whether you’re using sophisticated scheduling software, or you’re just using a gigantic wall calendar,  begin with the delivery date. Otherwise you’ll be working on that production schedule for the rest of your natural born days.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE ORDER

1.  Deliver final master to the network
2.  Create all the deliverables for the network. (Contracts, final scripts, releases, DVD copies, etc.)
3.  Close caption your show
4.  Mix your tracks
5.  Final on-line edit
6.  Rough cut delivered to the network.  Factor in the various executives who will need to weigh in, comment and approve.  You’ll need time to get their comments, make the changes, deliver those changes, and then get a second or third round of rough cuts and comments before you’re ready for your final edit.
7.  Shoot your series/show.  Schedule your shoots based on location proximity and not script order.
8.  Write the script, factoring in time for revisions from the network.
9.  Scout Locations
10. Rehearse Talent
11. Cast Talent
12. Research
13. Budget developed and approved
14. Idea/concept

Reading the list from bottom to top are the sequence of actions you would take during a production (with a million other details thrown in).  Reading it from top to bottom is how you develop your production schedule.  Why?  Because it is rare that a delivery or air date change.  Anything else in between, can be squeezed, squashed, maneuvered and manipulated.

To ensure you’re on track during production, write daily reports against the production schedule.  It allows all key personnel to know what’s been accomplished, what needs to be accomplished and what’s back logged.  It is also an opportunity for any one with concerns to speak up.  The sooner you know about a scheduling difficulty the easier you can solve it – otherwise you will be running around like a schizophrenic at a multiple personality surprise party.

Whether you’re shooting a video to upload to You Tube, working on a series for a TV network, or producing a film – a workable schedule will give your production a strong foundation.

TV Land finds love

“First Love, Second Chance” is a new six-episode original series on TV Land.  It’s a great title and accurately describes this docu-drama-reality series.  Each episode will feature a different couple who were once emotionally involved but who have since broken up.  They may have been apart for as long as 20 years.  Personally, if I broke up with you 20 years ago, I’ve probably moved on.  But that may not be the case in this series, as the viewer takes a week long journey with each couple as they try to go beyond their past and rekindle the romance that once was.  The series premiers on Wednesday, March 10^th at 10:00 p.m ET/PT.  The executive in charge of production is Marco Bresaz who I’d had the pleasure of working with and for my money there’s none better – so I’ll absolutely tune in and find out what this series is all about.

You bring the peanuts, I’ll bring the crackerjacks

I’m a baseball fan, I admit it.  Well to be honest, I’m a Yankee fan.  Nothing better than watching a game at Yankee Stadium, even if I am in the nose bleed section.  But if you can’t get to the game, there’s always television.  From April to October you can watch a baseball game across many channels several nights a week.  But for some fans, that doesn’t seem to be enough.  For the real die-hards who need their fingers on the pulse of every hit, run and error – there’s Major League Baseball TV (MLB.TV), one of the largest subscription based internet sites with over 2 million subscribers.  And to make watching baseball even easier, MLB.TV now offers mobility – you can watch games through your iPad, iPhone or iTouch, with more streaming options coming before opening day.  So, fans if you’re at a wedding and the Yankees are playing the Red Socks – no worries, you can whip out your iPhone and pretend you’re reading urgent messages from the office.  MLB.TV’s subscriptions begin as low as 99.95 for the year and that’s cheaper than a couple of tickets to Yankee Stadium.  Hmmm… now there’s an idea.

Now that deserves a standing Ovation.

Over the years arts education has been slashed and then slashed some more.   I’m all from STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) and it’s certainly important for us to create the next scientific leaders – but technology without the human spirit is in my opinion folly.  When you don’t balance science with the humanities – one could create a future we’re now seeing in so many movies and books – a post-apocalyptic barren waste land. Sorry, was that a tad dramatic?  No, I don’t think so.  The arts must be supported for any culture to survive.

The new arts education program created by Ovation TV and Cable in the Classroom is a fantastic way to enhance young people’s education.   The network  worked with NYC area art teachers and students in developing the  lessons and selecting programming clips from Ovation TV documentaries.  This project and its outcome will serve as the cornerstone of Ovation TV’s free web-based initiative.

Social Media is TV’s Last Hope

According to Broadcasting & Cable, Elisabeth Murdoch, who is News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, told TV producers and distributors at the annual National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) convention in Las Vegas:

We in the TV business have to catch up with what our audience is doing. We can no longer afford to be one-screen business. Social networks are finally the interactive dimension of storytelling. We now need to evolve with our audience. To resist this would be like resisting Technicolor.