SCREENCRAFT

Too many cooks...

I think the ad agencies, the production industry and client teams should stick to their areas of expertise and responsibility. Advertising agencies producing ads, clients producing scripts and some production companies offering a turn key service for the whole lot.

Before you agree or disagree to quickly, lend me an ear.

Move away from the big end of town for a minute and look at the same premise but within a film crew structure. Most of you already know that, in the absence of a First AD and when on set the Director rules the roost, the Producer has some serious clout and the DP and some other select crew members carry some major responsibilities and the right to an on-set opinion that goes along with it.

These people, the crew - have the responsibility, the support and unlimited blessing of the client and agency team to go out and blow 30k, 50k, sometimes 100K a day – all the time working to the premise of ‘adding value’ and bringing the ‘wow factor’ to the fore.

Making decisions on the spot, overcoming unforeseen challenges in the heat of battle and always dealing with the unknown are common place…. collective experience counts and so does the cohesive nature of your team.

Just imagine for a minute, the DP thought he could direct better than the Director, the lighting dept thought they were better Art Directors than the guy that’s been doing it for ten years, the grip was telling everyone he was a much better Producer than the one who employed him for that day !

Sounds a bit silly doesn’t it, why would you do it ?

The answer is of course… the lolly, or as we all like to call it – the budget.

Good or bad, silly and sad or clever and frugal – just like every single production project, the best solution is yet to be designed. Every brief, budget, script and or production project should be managed in a fashion that best suits the individual challenges of the job and to best deliver the desired outcome.

Then there is the next question… who is going to do that ?