14 The Director and PA on location
On location, with a portable single camera (PSC) shoot, the Director is just as busy and the PA still has much to do. Both of them are just as pivotal to the programme’s success as their equivalents in studio.
In the stage before shooting much of the preparatory work required on studio productions still has to be done. The Director will still be involved with the development of the shooting script, planning camera angles, casting then rehearsing performers, schedules planning.
Each of these will be different in emphasis from the similar studio based process. The shooting script is no longer limited to what can be shot in a reasonably sized, reasonably priced set. Any setting is now possible, but there is still a financial constraint. Tempting as it may be to plan a week’s shooting in the Bahamas the cost of transporting crew, performers and equipment to such an exotic destination would rule it out for most programmes. The cheapest productions are the ones that involve the minimum of travel. A wise Director will not only keep the travel costs down by working close to base, but will also be inventive about how perhaps quite small areas of locations can be cheated to look as the programme needs - just because you’re out on location doesn’t mean every shot is a long shot.
In planning camera angles the Director now has total freedom to put the cameras anywhere, but realistically will limit the positions the camera is to be set up. Particular care needs to be taken that shots will cut together - not always the case if the camera position is leaping wildly all over the place. Thought needs to be given to the practicality of each camera set-up - has the camera operator got room to achieve the shot? Remember that what probably takes the biggest element of time in PSC production is the set-up and strip-down time for the camera equipment.
The tendency for PSC is to spend less time rehearsing since each set-up only deals with one shot, and there is time for performers to run through their actions while the technical crew are setting up. What the Director does need to work out, though, is which performers are needed at which location and when. This often becomes quite a protracted period, and may be more difficult to cast for than a studio shoot which might all be over in a couple of days.
Planning the schedule is also considerably more complex than for a studio production. In studio the usual pattern is to book the whole set-up for a short, intensive period. On location the cost conscious Director will have an intricate schedule of exactly what equipment and which personnel are needed over a number of days. Time must be allowed for travel, set-up and strip-down and, importantly, for the schedule slipping due to, for instance, bad weather delays.
An additional responsibility of the Director which pulls together a number of the above processes is to go and recce all the locations, making detailed plans about how they are going to be used.
The PA still has to assist with all the admin work of setting up a programme, but additionally he will have to arrange for permissions to be acquired for all the intended locations, arrange transport, catering and perhaps accommodation for everyone involved, and book equipment.
On an actual shoot the way both Director and PA operate is very different from in studio. They are no longer in a separate area from the action, so they cannot speak during the takes (or the microphones will pick them up). The Director will give detailed instructions before the recording starts to all the crew and performers, perhaps trying a couple of dummy runs before going to record. She must ensure that each shot has sufficient overlap at beginning and end to allow for later editing, and must get plenty of cutaways. Often a Director may shoot the same sequence from different angles, and with different shot sizes to allow for decisions to be made at the edit.
The PA will not be concerned with script reading and warning, since each shot is relatively short everyone will know exactly where they are in it. Similarly there is a lot less need for timing to be precisely adhered to at this stage. Often the timing can be manipulated at the edit, removing the need to get it exact at the shoot.
Two areas of the PA’s duties become much more significant. Firstly everything that is recorded must be accurately logged. This saves enormous amounts of time at the edit stage, and therefore lots of money!
Secondly the continuity of action must be scrupulously recorded and corrected. Any errors may lead to impossibility of cutting and again much expense.
At the edit stage the Director is obviously still intimately involved in decision making, choosing which shot to cut to, how to layer up the sounds and so on. The PA will be of great help by referring to shooting logs ensuring that the minimum of time is wasted searching for the required shots.
The whole editing and post-production process is covered in more detail towards the end of the book.