My Day

My day generally starts about 6:30 when I leisurely place a phone call to the telecine house we’re using to find out how many reels of film were delivered the night before and when they’ll be ready for me to pick-up. Now the telecine house receives the digitized footage then down-converts it from HDCam to DVCam and syncs up the sound. They also add color bars and tone and a front slate describing what the footage is. This footage is Dailies. These are the complete takes that were printed for each shot taken the day before. While the show is being shot 16x9, it is also being framed within that as a 4x3 for broadcast. Until the show is bought, no one knows if the network will allow it to be letterboxed or not, so the footage has to work in both full screen and letterbox.

We’re running at about four pages of script shot each day. The telecine house also burns a DVD for each reel so that we can reproduce these for distribution each day to the people at the Production company to view, for the main crew (Director, writer, producer, DP, etc.) and for the network who is looking at buying the show. So the number of reels I pick-up are between 2 and 3. There is usually only a third reel if the director shoots extra footage on his own camera, which he’s doing most days.

Now I really need to be able to pick-up everything by 8:30 to make the whole machine run smoothly, but this almost never happens. Yesterday was a prime example of how it went a bit wonky. I was told the first reel would be done by 8:45 and after waiting at the telecine house for 45 minutes I finally got it into my hands. So I took it back to the office and we started burning the 24 duplicates we need and then I returned directly to the telecine house and picked-up the second DVD, which I then returned to the office with and then had to make a final trip to pick-up the third. What complicates this is that beyond just burning the DVDs, we’re printing labels directly on them with each person’s name and all the info of what’s on the disk and can only print them one at a time. So a complete run of each disk takes about and hour and a half just to print the labels on them.

Our office is connected to the editing suite where it's edited roughly each day. This is another reason I need the pick-up on time. The DVCam tapes have to got to the editor's assistant to be captured and loaded up so the editor can access them as quickly as possible. Also, so we can make sure there aren't any sync issues or takes lacking slates. If there is a memo has to be generated and placed with each copy of the dailies it applies to so that when people watch them they don't freak out about something that can easily be fixed in post.

Once we have at least the first batch ready, I run them to the Production Company and distribute them to the recipients, which are somewhat spread out in three buildings on the studio lot. Then if I have the second batch with me it’s off to set, wherever that might be, to distribute to the main crew. After that it’s back to the office, and if I make it in time and we’ve been approved to deliver, I grab the final set and head to the network. If I’m not back in time the post coordinator runs these out. What this boils down to is moving without stopping for about 8 hours. Between all this are other tasks such as picking up supplies and running paper work about for appropriate signatures and what not. Out of the first five days I’ve worked, I’ve had time to eat “lunch” only twice. At least there are only 14 days of shooting left.

Luckily the people I’m working with and for all seem to be good people. No one’s lost their temper with me yet, which is good. I don’t handle people yelling at me well. I tend to turn around and walk away.