Producer

An independent producer might work in an urban area with a number of directors and resemble a literary agent. With ten directors, there might be upward of 30 viable documentary ideas to shop around at any given time. The effective producer is socially adept and a highly articulate salesperson. He or she brings film ideas and sample films and makes pitches at documentary marketplaces such as the Amsterdam International Documentary Festival or the Independent Feature Project (IFP) Market in New York. The producer makes deals with the commissioning editors from cable and television channels at such gatherings, something many filmmakers are diffident about doing. Television representatives who are hunting new ideas and talent scouting for promising filmmakers then compete to develop cofinancing deals for the products they want.

The ideal producer combines the abilities of agent, salesperson, production manager (if he or she works closely with productions), and accountant. She or he knows the changing world of documentary and its audiences, can estimate and monitor costs during production, and can confidently discuss all aspects of proposals and cofinancing. A producer ensures that the finished product gets full publicity, since films sink without a trace if nobody publicizes their existence.

All this takes a special temperament, and a producer should never be a wannabe director. He or she should love documentary and enjoy nurturing production. Anyone with good taste and a stable of impressive production groups will, like a literary agent, become trusted and sought after by overworked commissioning editors, who look to the best producers in search of original work.

In a large organization, producers are often senior administrators with long experience at production, and they can be very supportive and helpful. You may work with assistant producers and a line producer (assigned only to the production and who probably manages the budget and negotiates with vendors), as well as a unit production manager. While producers have creative input and even creative control, the rest of their staff contributes logistical assistance and financial management.

Unit Production Manager (UPM)

The unit production manager is responsible for all the arrangements on the shoot and is a necessity for a large, complex project. In a large organization, a UPM may cover several productions and be represented on your production by a line producer. Arrangements they make might include locating overnight accommodations, booking rented equipment at the best prices, securing location or other permissions, making up a shooting schedule (with the director), making travel arrangements, and locating food and accommodations near the shoot.

The UPM’s office monitors cash flow, has contingency plans when bad weather stymies exterior shooting, and chases progress. All this lightens the load on the director, for whom this is a burden.

Good production staff are of course organized, compulsive list keepers, socially adept and businesslike, and able to scan and correlate a number of activities. They must be able to juggle priorities and make decisions involving time, effort, and money, and they must not be intimidated by officialdom. Someone good at production management acquires the best experience to become a successful producer.

Sound

More sound staff members become necessary once you shoot double system or cover complex situations such as reenactments or large group activities (see Chapter 27, Location Sound). There is more gear to handle, greater complexity in the setups, and more records to keep if the production is to remain efficient. If you shoot on a stage, then a boom operator will be necessary—someone able to follow a script and precisely move the mike in time for each incoming line. This is a highly skilled operation.

Gaffer

The gaffer is an expert in rigging and maintaining lighting equipment and knows how to split loads so lighting runs off light-duty household supplies without starting fires or plunging the neighbors into darkness. Good gaffers carry a bewildering assortment of clamps, gadgets, and small tools. Resourceful by nature, they sometimes emerge as mainstays of the unit when others get discouraged. During a BBC night-shooting sequence in England, I once saw a boy stumble behind the lights and hurt his knee. Understanding he must remain silent while we were shooting, he doubled over and clutched his knee in mute agony. The kindly electrician (as the gaffer is called in Britain) swooped silently out of the gloom and cradled him in his arms until the shot was finished.

Usually the director of photography (DP) has a favorite gaffer, and the two work together like Laurel and Hardy. Experienced gaffers know their DP’s style and preferences and can prelight ahead of a unit’s arrival. Teams of long association gradually dispense with spoken language.

Grip

Grips fetch, carry, set up (mostly electrical and camera equipment), and have the highly skilled and coordinated job of moving the camera support to precisely worked-out positions when the camera uses a dolly or crane to take mobile shots. Grips need to be strong, practical, organized, and willing. On the minimal crew, they help rig lighting or sound equipment.

Shot Identification

Keep whatever logs you can of important information as you shoot. Central to recordkeeping is the ability to identify shots and takes (repeated attempts at a shot) as you shoot. The traditional marking system is the familiar wooden slate, or clapper board, with a closing bar on top (Figure 28-1).

FIGURE 28-1 Clapper board—necessary whenever you use a double system and must synchronize sound to picture.

There are many automatic film marking systems, such as the smart slate (see Chapter 27), but many people like the exquisitely low-tech clapper board, whichhas only a piece of chalk and a hinge to go wrong. The clapper board ritual has these functions:

• Visually it identifies the shot number and the production on cassettes, P2 memory, or hard disks as they enter the industrial workflow, which may include a film laboratory as well as the postproduction operation. Some boards have color reference charts attached.
• The operator’s announcement aurally identifies the track for sound transfer or digitizing personnel.
• When you record sound and picture separately, they must be synchronized later, so the closing bar provides an exact picture frame against which to align the bang in the recorded track.

When video recording is single system (sound and picture recorded together on the same recording media), sync is not an issue. A clapper board or other marking system becomes essential to precision sync if you are shooting double-system sound. This is because someone must be able to sync picture to its separately recorded sound.

In single-system shoots, log your material simply with a note of content and timecode stopping points. These allow you to review a chosen section during production. On complex productions, the slate, or clapper board, carries not only scene and take numbers but also information for image quality-control experts in film labs or video studios. These include a gray scale, white and black as a contrast reference, and a standard color chart. Video cameras generate an electronic standard color chart called color bars, which are recorded for reference purposes at the head of each tape or memory storage.

To summarize:

Setup and Take Numbers

What information about the setup goes on the clapper board? There are two philosophies of numbering:

• Method 1—The scene/setup/take system is favored in the Hollywood fiction film industry and might apply to a scripted docudrama. All numbering is based on the script scene number, such as “Scene 104A, shot 16, take 3.” Translated, this means script scene 104A, setup 16, attempt number 3. Large organizations making big, highly supervised productions need lengthy factory part numbers. For the small, flexible production, this is overkill. Also, the more elaborate a system is, the more susceptible it is to error and breakdown as people get tired and you depart from the script.
• Method 2: The cumulative setup/take system is used universally in documentaries and in European feature films. Shooting simply begins at slate 1-1. Each new setup gets a new slate number and a second or subsequent attempt at the same setup will get a new take number (for example, “1 take 2” or “1 – 2”). This system is ideal for the overstretched small crew because it requires no liaison to coordinate numbers with the script and no adaptation when the inevitable script departures come up. The disadvantage is that it makes life a little busier for the script supervisor, when there is one.

Shooting Logs

Shooting of any elaboration requires two kinds of log. A camera log (Figure 28-2) kept by the assistant cinematographer (AC) records content by slate, take, and timecode readings for each new cassette, P2 memory, or hard disk. Its number and information will become vital during editing. A sound log (Figure 28-3) kept by the sound recordist records slate and take numbers and whether each track is sync or “wild” (non-sync voice or effects recording). The latter information is important to whomever digitizes into the computer from sound original storage materials (DAT, 1/4-inch master tape, flash memory, hard disk, etc.), since some will need to be synced to picture and some not.

Double System

When sound is recorded separately, camera and sound recorder do not stay in numerical step as they consume memory media. Stock durations are usually different, and additional sound such as wild tracks, sound effects, or atmosphere recordings get added to the sound media as production progresses. On the camera side, shots are sometimes taken silent for convenience. Once sound has been digitized ready for editing, the editing assistant must synchronize each sound take to its picture before the editor can start work.

Single System

When shooting single system with a camcorder, a camera log keeps track of both sound and picture, because both are recorded simultaneously on the same media. The camera assistant (if there is one) keeps a master log by timecode readings and briefly notes content with slate and take number and camera setup information. The recorded media, containing both sound and action, goes to the editor for digitizing.

FIGURE 28-2 Camera log.

Logs in Action

Logs help the right material go to the right place in the production chain and to inform everyone what to do with each section of recording. A less obvious log function is to record (by its serial number) which piece of hired equipment made which recording. Should you hear a strange hum or see a picture hue problem, the offending equipment can be quickly identified, withdrawn, and tested.

FIGUE 28-3 Sound log.

The Countdown to Shooting

When you shoot double system and need a clapper board as a marking system, there is an unvarying ritual at the beginning of each take:

• The director calls, “Stand by to roll camera.”
• The clapper operator takes up a position holding the clapper board (also known as clapsticks) in front of the subject, at a height where it is clearly visible. The operator will sometimes direct its placement to ensure that the all-important number and clapper bar are in shot.
• The camera operator turns on the camera, says, “Camera rolling,” and calls out, “Roll sound.”
• The sound recordist turns on the recorder, waits a few moments for its mechanism to reach a stable speed, then calls out, “Speed.”
• The camera operator now says, “Mark it.”
• The clapper operator calls out the scene and take number, closes the clapper with a bang, and immediately exits frame.
• The director can now say, “Action” as a cue for the action to begin.

Starting Without a Clapper

Sometimes, shooting bird mating dances or drug dealers at work on a street corner, you don’t want to tell the district that your camera is rolling. You can:

• (a) Make a quiet, voice announcement into the mike and tap the mike in view of the camera so subsequent syncing to a mike-tap is easy; or
• (b) Simply signal camera and sound to start rolling. After the action is complete, the camera assistant brings the clapper board in to be filmed, but upside down. He or she calls out the scene number, adding, “Board on end,” or, “End clapsticks,” then claps the bar, after which the director calls, “Cut!” In the cutting room the end-clapped material will have to be end-synced and then backed up for marking at its beginning.

Having or Losing Authority

A major anxiety when you start directing is feeling that you lack authority. It’s not, after all, something you can switch on when you need it, especially under what you imagine (not always wrongly) to be hostile scrutiny by those you presume to lead. In a large organization you may, as once I did, find yourself the outsider leading resentful insiders. Simultaneously an information center and parental figure, you will be found wanting, so be prepared to insist on your rights if you sense you are being put to a test. Every situation has its pecking order: A young director should expect subtle challenges from older crew-members, a woman from male subordinates, a foreigner from the locals. Tiresomely human, but watch your back. Counter these threats—real or imagined—by choosing coworkers carefully and making them partners in all of the conceptual considerations of the film. Stay abreast of your crew’s concerns and problems, and make your organizational work impeccable.

Handling people sensitively is part of the director’s consensus-building role. How to collaborate is always delicate but is seldom a problem with those fulfilled by their jobs. Most choosing to work in documentary are mature and dedicated people, so it is unwise to try to fool them or make claims beyond your knowledge.

Having authority really means being respected; it means having the humility to ask for help or advice when you genuinely need it and standing by your decisions and intuitions when you should do so.

Ideally, the crew should be present at viewings during postproduction, when the growth and internal complexity of the film come under intense scrutiny. It is here that the comprehensiveness of your work begins to show, and here, too, that crewmembers learn about the contribution they have (or haven’t) made. Interestingly, after a long period of segmented, industrialized production, we are returning to the intimate filmmaking of the early twentieth century, which is probably why documentaries are getting better and better. The smaller and more human scale promises films, both documentary and fiction, made in a more individual way—which is surely a significant development.

Using Social Times and Breaks

When you are shooting, a shared intensity of purpose and adventure binds everyone ipants together during meals or rest periods. Relaxing is often the time when more ideas, memories, and associations come tumbling out. Conserved and encouraged, this fellowship makes communication inevitable and energizes even a jaded crew.