behind the scenes

It’s a beautiful day at the FLF office… 75-degrees and sunny outside, glass sliding door wide open for the breeze,  Xm81 rockin the office sound system, and a cool, bubbly glass of pelegrino at my fingertips.  Feels like summer.  

Though I’d love to go outside and play, it’s a prep day here at FLF.  Jerry and I fly out at 6 am tomorrow morning… LA for the day.  Not a huge shoot, just some pick-ups for one of the recent toy spots we filmed. 

So I’m about to go through my mental checklist and thought I might as well share that…

- Crew booked? Check.

- Petty cash?  Check.

-Shot lists printed?  Check.  

- Call times confirmed?  I’ll do one last call-around for double verbal confirmation from everyone.  It’s also my opportunity to see if anyone has last minute questions.

- Meals planned?  Check.

- Production kit? Check.  Sent down with our camera truck earlier today.

- Location checks? Check.  Note to self:  throw some extras in my wrap book just in case.  Mike the Intern told me they were packed in the production kit, but I didn’t have visual confirmation.

- Rental equipment pick-ups?  Check.  All taken care of this afternoon by my rad grip & art departments.

- New set printer tested with my laptop?  Check.  Mike the Intern installed the driver for me yesterday and we tested it.

- Client given map & calltime?  Check.  Requested phone call tomorrow AM when we arrive.  No problem.

-Wardrobe?  Check.  Fitting happened this afternoon.

- Airline itineraries dispersed? Check.

- Hotel for the crew staying overnight?  Check.  Some have arrived and checked in already.  No problem.

- Hard drive for the media?  A-ha.  I don’t have any info on that. Note to self: call Assistant Camera Baker to make sure that was included on the camera truck.

- Plan for returning all rental gear?  Sort of.  Needs to be solidified on set tomorrow.  

I think we’re in pretty good shape.  I usually have a production manager and/or production coordinator to help cover this (especially on bigger shoots when we have 30 - 50 crew and talent to organize), but since this is just a little day of pick-ups, it’s gonna be a pretty skeletal operation.

Anyway, we’ll check back in tomorrow… from La La land!

What goes on at a production company when there’s no production?

Pre-production and post!

We’re exactly two weeks away from our next shoot: 3 national toy commercials.  I’m deep in pre-pro at the moment… putting crew on hold, checking out locations, working with our storyboard artist, and having lots and lots of phone conversations.   

In the meantime, Jerry’s been working on post-production for 3 exciting projects we recently shot.  We’ll post more on each of these later, but basically one’s a fundraising piece for a cancer center, one’s a “winter update” video for a massive property in the Tahoe area, and the third is a Western short film we just wrapped, called “The Sierra.”

Mike the Intern and Ryan (All-Around Dude) are helping me out with revising and formatting storyboards today.  For commercials, storyboarding is a time consuming process!   They’re critical in getting everyone (clients, licensors, producer, director, and crew) on the same page, and they require lots of attention to detail.  This past summer, when we were in pre-production for 5 Hannah Montana spots, Mike did weeks and weeks of storyboard revising and reformatting for me.

 Anyway, that’s what’s up at FLF headquarters today.   Even when we’re not shooting, we somehow manage to stay crazy busy!