Reports and Gold Stars

So I recently realized that all along, as we are strolling (okay, maybe that isn't an accurate description) through production, I have been failing to produce Daily Production Reports.  If I weren't so valuable, I'd fire myself (Not really, cause I need these credits to graduate).

Anyway, I spent about 2 hours yesterday struggling to create some decent-looking tables on my brand spanking new homemade Production Report.  I based it off of some samples that I got from Liam (MEP professor, he used to be an AD).   I tailored it specifically to TMC, because we are working with all digital footage so the terminology can be slightly different.

My report includes all the basic production info (title, start date, day of shooting, director, estimated finish date), as well as a script record (how far much we've done, what we did on this particular day, and what's left to complete), a list of all the scenes and locations for that particular day, times throughout the day for crew call, first shot, meal, and wrap (that's for you, Zach), a running count of how many setups we shoot, and finally, a tally of the footage captured (in minutes & bytes).  I also have a space for notes, such as "we dropped scene 14 today and will pick it up our next day at this location."

I wish I had been doing this from the beginning, but you live and you learn.

On another note, this weekend I finally made up my list of "gold stars."  Often on set, if a crew member performs exceptionally or comes up an excellent time-saving solution, I will award them a gold star.  Unfortunately, when I finally went shopping for actual stars, I couldn't find those awesome foil stars (you know what I'm talking about) anywhere and I had to settle for some cheap multi-colored stars that keep falling off the paper. Well, I made up my list and it caused quite a stir on Saturday when everyone realized that Kelly is outperforming everyone else.  I tried to explain that it's not a competition, that you're only competing against yourself.  To no avail.  So, from then on it became the race of the stars to a free breakfast courtesy of Brianne.  20 stars gets you a free breakfast!  I'm still waiting for the day that I don't have to tell Aaron (sound) to get connected once and can award him with the promised three stars.

In all seriousness, though, I am so proud of everyone to have contributed to making our way through HALF of production so far!  Enjoy your weekend off next week!

-B.