This mystical closet I’m speaking of contains thousands and thousands of only one item.  What’s in this closet?  A monkey wrench.  Yup, that thing when thrown disrupts any situation.

These monkey wrenches seem to hurl themselves directly at Line Producers when they least expect it.  You could be sailing along working on a cost report, quietly smiling to yourself that once again you saved the day by performing herculean feats and still not going over budget when BAM! you’re smacked on the side of the head by a monkey wrench labeled – “we need more pick up shoots”.

DUCK! Another monkey wrench hurling towards you-  Oops – not fast enough, hit the kneecap.  Before you fall to the ground you’re told you have to pay the show runner an additional five weeks because we really, really need him.

WHACK! Oh Man! The Elbow – a direct hit!   Jeez that smarts.  Another request for more edit time on top of the additional edit time you already gave.   Can you spell m-o-n-k-e-y w-r-e-n-c-h.

You can’t cry “FOUL!” when monkey wrenches are darting toward you like a stealth bomber.  Instead you need to learn to pad your budgets.  But be clever about it.  Production companies and networks are getting smart and they can see through pad and make you take them out before the budget is locked.  So put the pad where they don’t check.  Put it in your fringe, gas money, per diem, anywhere no one will really look.  Add additional personnel you’ll never hire.  Just pad, pad, pad to protect you from those nasty hits you’re bound to take on any production.

All you can do to save yourself and your budget is to whip out some serious bad ass thinking. That’s what they hired you for, to be able to think on your feet hanging upside down while flying over the Rockies.

Here’s a formula that might help: Expert negotiating, plus pad, multiplied by clever solutions, equals the slowing down of hurling objects in your direction. Because, in the end you, the Line Producer, will need to come up with solutions.

Don’t continually say, “We can’t afford it.”  No one likes that. Even you’ll hate yourself after a while.

When producing a clip based show, you have ideas of what clips would work but unless you actually see the footage in the rough cut, it’s a gamble as to whether or not they will work in your story.  Typically, you’ll have your researcher, associate producer, or production assistant contact the studios to inquire if the footage is available for licensing, send a letter of intent and then pay for a screener.  The screener will usually arrive within a day or a week depending on how many other orders the one studio person assigned to rights and clearances has to fill.  If you’re in a hurry, be prepared to plead with said studio person on the phone hoping he or she will understand that your project is more important than any other order.

Meanwhile, back at the production offices, the producer and the editor are ‘pacing’ the edit room wondering where the heck the footage is because the story their telling depends on whether the footage will work, and of course they won’t know that until they see it.  When the screener finally arrives, it’s got the biggest visual time code embedded into the clip to ensure you don’t ‘steal’ the footage.  The clip from the screener won’t be replaced with clean footage until everyone has signed off on the rough cut, and if your delivery deadline is approaching you may just be biting the last of your finger nails waiting for the clean footage.  It takes time to get a clean copy of the footage, rights have to negotiated with the studio and with each actor that appears in the clip, contracts will need to be signed and in some cases the studio will have to pull the original footage out of a vault just to get a print made and duplicated onto a format you need.

As you can see, in a production if you’re using clips you practically need a department devoted to securing clips and obtaining the rights and clearances. That’s why I was happily surprised to see that Paramount Pictures has decided to make the process easier.  I don’t believe it was out of sense of altruism, but rather due to declining DVD sales and poor box office revenues. I’m sure someone said, “Hey we’ve got a gold mine in the basement vaults, let’s make the process easier and make some money.”

By logging onto ParamountClips.com, you can search for the exact clip you want with the licensing parameters you need.  Once you’ve located the clip, press the checkout button and you’re done. Paramount will electronically deliver the selection in the format and resolution desired. Most scenes are available in multiple languages.

I love when companies use technology to make the process easier.

What kind of technology makes your production work easier?

What’s right with this picture?
This is the obvious next step in the evolution of using technology to your advantage.  News organizations can now present stories they wouldn’t have had the resources to cover themselves.  It allows them to get breaking news the millisecond it happens without ever sending a reporter or crew to the scene.

What’s wrong with this picture?
If you know me you know I’m not enamored with the news media in general.  You’ll know that I don’t think we receive fair and balanced or even accurate reporting from many ‘respected’ outlets.  You’ll know that news journalist often misquote their sources, and that the more horrifying the headline the better.  What passes for news today in the alphabet soup of 24 hour news stations like CNN, FOX, and MSNBC,  straddles a very thin line between fact and  the ‘host’s’ viewpoint. This is not news; this is cooking up the news.  Its opinion wrapped in a fact or two, with a dash of hubris, a sprinkling of humor, and a smidge of weightiness thrown in for credibility.  Citizen journalist is just the very next step in the evolution of 24 hour news coupled with 21st century technology.

However, I believe citizen journalists may take a step that many journalists wouldn’t– and that’s ‘creating’ the news.  Do I need to remind you of the Balloon Boy fiasco?  His alleged disappearance spread on Twitter faster than you could type 140 characters.  Most people just hit the retweet button.  It was ‘news’ that was spread to hundreds of thousands of people before anyone realized it was TOTALLY MADE UP.   It’s sad, but people do want their fifteen minutes and they want to be heard.  Millions of blogs are proof of that.

As citizen journalists enter the lexicon of our ever increasing all media world – what can we count on to be true?  Considering how far we’ve come from the Walter Cronkite days – how far will we go?  Will we each have our own channel as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook merge?  Will our channels have news we create?  Will I be able to friend someone half way around the world and get their viewpoint of the news, news that is happening in their country?  If so, then we’re creating a world where the news is all about someone’s viewpoint and opinion and not about facts.

We all have opinions, and some of us even have cameras.  It’s a perfect combination for home grown news.  Welcome to the 21st century Citizen Journalist.

What’s your thought?  How do we keep the news from becoming a potpourri of individual opinions? And do you want to?

I tend to follow TV production people and film makers.  I would definitely call this group ‘rule breakers’.  Seriously, can you make a film or television show without breaking some rules?  By nature, this is a group that likes to talk and needs a place to promote their work.  That’s why I follow this group, I enjoy the conversation and I want to know what’s happening in the industry.  When some of the people I follow converse 50% of the time, promote 30% of the time and share information 20% of the time, it doesn’t bother me – we’re creatives not mathematicians.

Without a little rule breaking I would never have seen the film “Snow Bunny” at the Queens International Film Festival last night by the talented filmmakers @kingisafink Jessica King and Julie Keck from Chicago. (It was great meeting you Jessica and Julie, nice to put faces to the tweets.)

I also wouldn’t have known that  @MatiasB just completed shooting a profile of the US alpine ski team that will air on NBC January 30th at 8pm.

I would never have had ‘conversations’ with TV producers @jokeandbiagio and discovered their terrific insights into making reality TV shows

I wouldn’t have discovered the truly remarkable viral distribution David Baker is creating with his film MissionX. @indiemoviemaker

And I wouldn’t have seen the very clever shorts created by filmmaker @philontilt

If you want to meet people in your industry, be inspired by others, then get on Twitter.  Break some rules, follow and unfollow people as you like.  And when you read about how things are ‘supposed’ to be done in a social media venue, be a creative, question it.  Is it right for you?

What has Twitter done for you lately?