By Kelly Mackey, Associate Producer of Television at JWP

PREP & PRODUCTION

ICE BREAKERS/WELCOME PARTIES – You’re quickly in charge of lots of different people, potentially strangers, all coming together to help create your vision. Work can become stressful and tensions can rise. The best way to alleviate some of this is to allow people to meet person to person before you begin shooting. Let people meet in a welcoming and relaxed environment. Host a welcome party for your department heads, studio/network executives, your writers, and your cast. This goes for wrap parties as well. Your cast and crew have worked hard for months and a celebratory party at the end is expected. See what the studio/network are willing to chip in.

WELCOME/WRAP GIFTS – When you hire your department heads, consider sending them a welcome gift, such as flowers or a fruit basket, and a note of welcome. Welcoming them to your show family and telling them how excited you are to be working with them matters. At the beginning of your show, create t-shirts with the show’s name and have the production office pass it out on the first day. At the end of your show, see what you can afford for a crew wrap gift. Are you shooting somewhere cold? Maybe a beanie with the show’s name on it. Are you shooting somewhere warm? Maybe a baseball hat or sunglasses with the show’s name. These gestures may seem small, but they show consideration to the cast and crew that worked hard on your vision.

PREP

CONCEPT MEETING – This should take place on your first day of prep. The writer, with the assistance of your 1st AD, should run this meeting. Your director and every department head should be in attendance. This includes your Casting Director, Production Designer, Costume Designer, Location Manager, etc. Go through the script scene by scene and allow your department heads to ask questions. This meeting allows everyone to hear each departments’ questions, so you and your writer are not having to repeat yourselves throughout prep week.

TONE MEETING – This should be led by the writer with the guest director, line producer, 1st AD, editor, and DP (if available). This allows you, your writer (if you haven’t written the episode) and guest director to get onto the same page with your script. You can better explain relationships between characters, actors, scenes that will play a larger role later in the season and clarify any lingering questions about the tone of each scene. Your editor being in attendance helps them cut the episode, as they better understand the story as the writer intended.

CASTING – Find a casting director you trust. They should be having frank conversations with you about what you have in your budget and recommending actors for each role. When possible, have in-person casting. It is difficult to gauge someone’s real abilities over zoom or taped auditions.

EPISODIC BUDGET – Should arrive on prep day 4. Reviewing this helps you control your costs and make creative decisions about any changes you may have to make. Locations might be more costly than you intended, there may be too many background actors, you may have added an actor for one small scene, but it’s created a week hold on them that increases the actors’ cost. For example, you may have written a confrontation scene between two characters in an alley. The important part of the scene is the confrontation, but your director has fallen in love with a location that’s going to cost too much. Catching these issues in the middle of prep is essential to controlling your costs.

CAST TABLE READ – This is the last opportunity for cast to ask questions/give the writers their notes! Your cast should receive the script on the 3rd day of prep so they can prepare in advance and make notes on any character/storylines they might have questions on. Your table read should take place at lunch, a day or two before filming begins on the episode. These table reads can be difficult on production as they extend the lunch break during shooting, but the benefits greatly outweigh the long lunch. At the end of the table read, you should announce to the cast that you and the writers are here for any questions/notes and allow the cast to speak privately with the writers. Table reads helps prevent questions and conflicts during filming.

PRODUCTION MEETING – This will be led by your 1st AD and they will give the rundown of this episode’s shooting schedule. As your AD goes through the script, they should be saying what day that scene is being shot, where the location is, and any specific requirements needed. For Example: Scene 1 is Day 3, we’re in the bank on location in Burbank, and Special Effects will have the fake chainsaw. This meeting clears up any lingering loose ends and addresses any unresolved production issues.

PRODUCTION

DAILIES – Watch the dailies with your writing staff. It does not need to be every take, but enough takes that you can get a sense of what’s working and what’s not. Where is chemistry lacking? What scene might need to be reshot? What was a good take for one of your actors? Make sure to reach out to cast and let them know when they’re succeeding. Watching dailies also allows you to formulate your notes to set. What should an incoming guest director be made aware of? What locations are difficult to hear dialogue or will need ADR? Which takes do you want to highlight for your editor?

SET – Go to set and say hello! Try to remember your crews’ names. You’re their boss now. Respect comes from the top down and your crew is working long and difficult hours. Showing them consideration and respect is important. If you’ve written a night scene in the rain, go to set and be with the crew as they film it. Pay for coffee trucks/treat trucks for your crew. 

COMMUNICATE – Call the studio/network before they call you. If you’re watching the chemistry crash and burn between two romantic leads, if your guest director can’t make their days, if a set just didn’t come together in the right way, call your network. Let them know something didn’t work and how you plan to fix it. Reshoot, recast, or can it be fixed in post? Calling them ahead of time shows you’re paying attention and lets them know they can trust you to alert them when things don’t go as planned.

OTHER MEETINGS

PRODUCER MEETINGS – Twice a week at the beginning, then once a week, meet with everyone on your team that has a producer title. Your Writing Producers, EPs, Line Producer, Post Producer, etc. You will go through any outstanding issues: publicity, clearance issues, etc. Then you will go through each episode and where you are in the process. For Example: 101 is being edited, 102 is filming, 103 has begun prep, and so-on. This also allows your writers to give any information on upcoming scripts. “We’ll need a bank in 106 and 107, there’s a car chase being written for 108, etc.” Your Line Producer gets to speak with the Production Designer, Location Manager, Transportation Captain, and any necessary department heads to prepare for larger scale future storylines. These meetings also allow the flow of communication, so you won’t have to repeat answers to multiple people and helps streamline production by allowing them additional time to prepare.

ONE-LINER – If you don’t know how to read a one-liner, or how it is created, ask your AD! No one asks the AD how they do their job and most of them love to explain it. Your one-liner, sometimes called a board, is the shooting schedule for your episode. If you’re block shooting, then it can have several episodes listed. The top of your one liner should list the episode, what draft and date it’s based on, what draft of the one-liner it is, and then any additional shooting that may be included (other episodes, promos, reshoots, etc.) The end of day is listed at the bottom of the schedule. These are most commonly scheduled based on locations, but can sometimes vary based on actor availability, and lighting necessities. For example, you may be on stage in one set for most of your day, but if your scenes go from day to night, your AD may add in a different set in the middle to allow grip and electric time to relight the set to save time, etc.

DAY OUT OF DAYS – or DOOD (pronounced dude) is the actors’ working schedule. You will see the term: SWF all over this document. This stands for Start, Work, Finish. If an actor works one day, they will have SWF on that day. If an actor has their first day on a Monday, work again on Tuesday, and complete their work on Wednesday, their row will look like: SW | W | WF You will also see H for Hold days. Say your actor is only in 2 scenes and due to location availability, they are scheduled to work on Monday, and then not again until Friday. Their row will look like: SW | H | | H | | H | WF Those Hold days are important to track because your actors are paid for their Hold days. If your budget is way over on cast, take a look at their schedule. Perhaps you added them to a scene, but the schedule requires a large hold period between work (called a spread). Those days will rack up actor costs so make sure they are necessary to your story.

BLOCK SHOOTING – You may be working on a show that has all their scripts written before shooting begins. When this happens, some networks prefer Block Shooting. This is when you’ll shoot scenes from different episodes, in the same locations, to save time/money. There are pros and cons to this way of shooting. Pros: You may save time and money because you don’t need to return to locations multiple times. Cons: This requires additional prep and very strict continuity. This doesn’t allow for script changes and requires your actors to prepare for scenes out of episodic order. It’s not impossible, but it makes an already difficult process more difficult for your actors and directors.