PREPRODUCTION
do interviews without a boom, he or she will also know whether to bring microphones A and B. Lighting equipment must he thoroughly planned in advance because it is often too cumbersome or bulky to be replaced in a hurry in some remote outback. In most cases, the lighting will he chosen by the director, cameraperson, and gaffer in consultation. Lighting is the bane of most directors because it takes so much time to set up and can be such a pain once it’s standing. I like to go for the simplest and the least heavy. This often leads to arguments with camerapersons who fear for the quality of the ¤lming. My counterargument is that I want to go in fast and ¤lm the family while they are all fresh and haven’t waited hours for the crew to get ready. Something always goes wrong with equipment; that’s why I go for the strongest, the simplest, and the most reliable. I also try to cut down on all the extras that the technicians swear they need to bring but that experience has proved to be unnecessary. On the other hand, certain items— spare lamps, connection cables, and pin boxes—always seem to be scarce. Here, I bring more than is necessary and have never regretted that decision.
Drawing Up the Shooting Schedule When all the preliminaries are over, you are ¤nally ready to draw up the shooting schedule. This is normally the joint work of the director and the production manager. The main responsibility is the director’s, but the PM is there to double-check all the ideas, to ensure that the schedule is feasible, and then to put the ¤rst scheduling decisions into action. The shooting schedule is a plan of work for the shooting. Theoretically, it should take all the problems involved in the shooting and solve them in the simplest, most practical, and most economical way. The schedule tells you what to ¤lm, whom to ¤lm, and when and where this should all take place. Before you can do this, you need certain information at your ¤ngertips. Assuming you have fourteen days of shooting starting June 1, you will probably need to know the following: • • • • •
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Anticipated weather at your locations People’s availability (checked out on your second visit) Distances between locations Any public holidays Any special happenings, such as school graduation, summit meeting, etc.