The producer and the director are the first people to arrive on set. Or at least they should be. Doesn’t always happen. But in your case, as the producer and probably the one paying for everything, you are going to want to give up a little bit of sleep in the morning and arrive to set early because you have to make sure all the last minute issues are taken care of before people start arriving.
If you have to do a same-day breakfast or coffee pre-order (sometimes companies won’t let you place the order any earlier), do so. They usually need about 30 minutes before you (or the PA) pick it up.
I like to call before I leave my apartment and pick it up on the way.
You should probably arrive about an hour before the earliest call time. If there’s something special that you have to do that’s going to take more time to prepare before the shoot, allocate more time for that task.
So, in the case of our example, call time is at 7am, so you should arrive at 6am.
Meet with the person in charge of the location, give them a friendly “hi” and describe what will be occurring for that day in their space. That will help them feel more comfortable about the crew coming in, especially if you got the space for free.
Set up a table for Kraft service and put out some of the food and beverages. Have coolers with you to keep the cold stuff cold (especially for beverages if you are outside in the heat), or even better, if you have access to a fridge, leave items like the veggie platter in there for when others arrive, or for the afternoon addition to the Kraft service table, which can sometimes reinvigorate a sagging crew in the second 6 hour stretch.
Place the Kraft service table in an area that you know you will NOT need for shooting so that you don’t have to move it later. Actor’s holding works well.
If there is an area that will not being used for shooting that is pretty comfortable, designate that as “actor’s holding” and when the make-up artist and the actors arrive, send them there.
Pick up coffee, breakfast, and/or whatever else you ordered for that morning, if you haven’t already.
Make sure the location is as cleared out as possible. You will be fitting a lot of equipment and people in that area soon, you don’t need it cluttered with extra stuff.
After everything is cleared out and set up, this might be a moment for you to sit, have a cup of coffee, eat a bagel and chill while you wait for the crew to arrive.
When people start arriving, thank them for being there and show them where everything is including the food and beverages. Encourage them to get what they want. It might take a little while for your crew to get cranking, especially if it’s early and they haven’t had coffee yet. I also have a tendency to get stressed when people are late, but rarely has my concern been justified. So, in that case, try NOT to follow my lead, and just chill the first hour or so… You’re doing fine.
As people arrive, they should know where to go and what to do. The actors may ask where holding is. The person who owns the location might have questions about the equipment or ask how to help. Crew might ask where to put things. That’s about it. Now your job is to make sure nothing goes wrong, and if something does go wrong, to come up with a solution and fix it FAST!
Put one or two PAs in charge of refilling the Kraft service table throughout the day. You can do it, too, if you see the food supply getting sparse.
On small shoots like this, it is a good idea to be open to stepping in to doing whatever needs to be done when needed. Someone needs to hold a bounce board? You can do it! The director is ready for the lead actor? You can let them know! A production assistant can do it, too, though, and it’s better to delegate because this leaves you open to handling bigger issues should they come up rather than be running to and fro and difficult to find.
Also, if you are acting in the project, once people start arriving, you will be pulled between producer and actor. You will be needed for information (producer) and you will also be needed in makeup (actor), and that will keep you quite busy throughout the day.
If you don’t have walkie-talkies, better to designate one PA as the go-between when you’re in actor’s holding or makeup, and where people are setting up equipment. Otherwise, your acting prep will be constantly interrupted and you will have to keep leaving to go to the set. This slows down production, slowing down costs money, yada, yada, yada… We’ve been through the explanation already.
