Celebrate! You’re in the last week of pre-production!
If you’ve followed the step so far you are now pretty much ready to go and you just have to focus more on what is necessary for the day to go well.The practical issues of food, water, shelter and thorough communication is what must be attended to now.
If you’ve done everything else you’ve needed to do, and have everything else in place from the earlier phases, consider yourself lucky (or really well connected).
Don’t get too stressed if there are still a few elements that have not fallen into place yet. It is rare that I have everything I need ready to go a week before. Usually something that I should have gotten in week one will evade my grasp until the very last minute.
This makes the experience of producing both stressful and exhilarating! There’s nothing quite like searching for a boom operator for 3 weeks with absolutely no luck and then two days before the shoot meet someone at a party that is both perfect and available to fill the position. God, I love synchronicity!
This is about the time you should be holding your meeting with your crew and your rehearsals with your cast. One week will give everyone enough time to see what still needs to be worked on, what problems need solving and what aspects do you need to be better prepared for. Also, this initial meeting is good to hold because everyone gets to meet each other before the day of the shoot, which makes everything more comfortable on the day.
At the meetings/rehearsals confirm everyone again, and let them know you will be sending out an email that will require one more confirmation. Ask them to read it COMPLETELY and print it out so that everyone is on the same page.
Send out what I call a “Logistics” email to the entire cast and crew about 5 days before the shoot. In the Subject Line of the email, type the name of the project and something like “IMPORTANT – confirmation required” or “time-sensitive information”, which it is!
This email has everything and anything they could possibly want to know about the shoot.
This email has addresses, call times, wardrobe and hair information, parking advisement, last minute announcements, confirmation of equipment that crew members are bringing with them (this should be confirmed in their reply), requests for items that the production still needs (props, equipment, etc) and an attachment which as the crew and cast contact info on it. When I add this, I request that everyone be respectful of others on the list and not to add people to your “I’ve got a show” mailings unless they get the ok from the person who owns the email address.
Then I make 2 requests of everyone and that they answer back within 48 hours:
(1) “Please confirm that you have read, understood and agree to the email.”
(2) “Please let me know if you have any food sensitivities, allergies, dislikes, restrictions, etc. I will be confirming a lunch order within 48 hours and if I don’t hear from you before then I won’t be able to change the order.”
After you have sent the Logistics Email, this brings me to the next step of the week:
