Every programme that is created will generate a great deal of paperwork. All this paperwork needs to be collated and kept in a logical order. The diary starts on the first day a programme is requested and closes on the day the final invoice is paid.
Because it represents the programme from beginning to end it is easier to think of it as a daily record of its life, a diary. Sometimes it is called a production log, sometimes a production file; whatever you have been told to call it I am calling it a production diary and you are going to have to keep one for each production you ever do!
As with any other diary you must get into the habit of putting everything that happens into it, when it happens. It is no good thinking ‘boring paperwork’ and then trying to remember a phone number or an idea for a credit sequence several weeks later.
The production diary is a complete and accurate record of exactly how that programme was made. It is often seen as your ‘insurance policy’; notes relating to meetings, requests for permissions, location details, clearances, every single receipt (including those for sandwiches, pencils and petrol), in fact every single thing that happens during the production process will be there. Any legal or financial query that may arise will be settled by reference to your diary. It stands to reason, therefore, that it must be complete and accurate. The test of a good production diary is that it should allow anyone to completely recreate the programme.
You will have joined a media course because you want to make programmes, that is very understandable and exactly the right reason to be on a course. Unless you intend to make this new skill just an expensive hobby you will realize that part of the making of successful programmes is to make money, to make money you need to be running a business, to run a business you need to be highly organized. All businesses generate paperwork and it is the paperwork as well as the finished product that makes the money.
I have to assume that you are intending to make this venture your career and that is why I am generating paperwork to help you make professional productions!
Why Do we need One?
There are many reasons why we have to have a production diary. The prime reason is to log every stage of the production from start to finish. This is necessary so that nothing is missed out or repeated. Time is money. Remember that you only get paid once. If somebody on your team repeats something, or you have to have lengthy meetings to explain to each other what has been done, you will only get paid once. If everything is in the production diary it is a simple matter for the whole team to see exactly the progress of a project, or find an important phone number quickly and easily.
The production diary should allow anyone involved in the production to be able to trace the whole sequence of events, or for a new member of the team to get up to speed quickly and economically. Imagine the cost and potential time wasted if your location manager has all the arrangements for a three-day location shoot in his/her head and then unfortunately has an accident a couple of days before that shoot. You can find a replacement location manager very quickly, but what about the location plans, catering arrangements, contact telephone numbers and so on?
It may be necessary to prove that something was said or done at a later stage in the production. Things can, and do, go wrong. An example would be a security guard agreeing to open a building for you at 8 o’clock in the morning. No one turns up and at 9 o’clock nobody can remember the name of the person, the phone number or who said what. A very expensive crew, cast and tight schedule are now in jeopardy. There is a world of difference between a ‘friendly chat with one of the people on site’ and the professional formal letter you sent confirming the arrangement that Mr Smith would be available to open the building at 8 o’clock. If the production diary shows to whom the letter was sent, with its reply and the phone numbers, the matter could be resolved very quickly. If you lose time (time is money!) you may be required to produce the evidence of the arrangements in order to claim any compensation.
Often, particularly if money is involved, clients will ‘forget’ that something was agreed during a meeting. In the enthusiasm of creating a programme lots of ideas are discussed. Often a timid ‘well that would cost extra’ from you will turn out to be your expense if the client wasn’t fully informed, in writing, how much extra and a written confirmation agreeing the extra expense can’t be found later.
There are no fixed rules regarding who is responsible for maintaining the diary. In the professional world of large production companies, an administrative team, under the control of the production manager, would look after all the paperwork, smaller companies may make it the responsibility of the PA team. If you are on a production course, part of your course work, and your final mark, will be your production diary. You will have to compile it and present it with your finished programme. Normally it is expected that you will have some help from the rest of your team, but it will be up to you to ensure that it is complete.
What’s in It?
There is only one answer to this question – everything!
If you look at the contents page of this book you will see that I have listed most of the headings you will use there and the book will run through them one by one. What is important to remember is that wherever possible the documents should be originals. Some of the ideas, phone contacts, notes, etc. may be on scraps of paper, backs of menus, anything. For the sake of neatness and easy access you may, sensibly, type them all out for your diary. Whatever you do, keep the originals, even if it means keeping them separately in another folder. It is the originals that will be required by insurance companies, or courts of law, if a dispute arises. A vital, but often missed, section is the receipts section. In here will go everything that your accountant can cost against the production to save tax. This means doing a petty cash sheet for each week, and attaching the receipts, for things like food, notepads, pencils and of course the ring binder you keep the diary in!
Because the diary will build day by day and it will become your working project document, it is wise to keep it in a ring binder, with dividers for the different sections. You can buy single page pockets to slip the paperwork into and then, if a particular piece is needed, a handy tip is to make sure that the sheet that was taken out is replaced with a note of what it was and who has got it. That way it will always go back in the right place and if someone else needs it, they know where it is.
You will see from the contents page that I have broken my ‘diary’ into three sections: pre production, production and post production. These are the main production stages. Remember that your diary is designed to make your production go as smoothly as possible. It may be that you have a ‘Contacts’ section containing all the phone numbers and addresses. Equally you may decide you want a ‘Letters’ section.
Remember that this is not the boring bit of the course work but the core of the programme that will ensure it goes smoothly, according to plan, on budget, on time and ensures that there are no nasty headaches or problems to get in the way of your creative work.
A good rule to follow is that about 60 to 70 per cent of the total time you spend on the production should be on planning and preparation. Only 30 to 40 per cent is spent on actual production. The more planning and preparation you do the less time you will have to spend on the very expensive production part. The less outgoing expense, the more profit for you!
If you are already thinking that this is all a bit unnecessary, because you already have this great idea for a programme and just want to get the gear out and get on with it, then I have to tell you that you are about to take up a very expensive hobby. Forget about the course, the paperwork and employment in a highly organized and competitive industry and have a lovely time with your camcorder!
Your diary should be organized in the way that you find most efficient and convenient. I cannot say to you ‘this is the way to do it’ because the way you work, and organize things, will not be the same way as I do. I can suggest to you that the easiest ‘filing system’ is the one that allows you to get on with the job quickly and efficiently. For this reason I suggest you use a ring binder because, as the project develops, the contents will grow and will need to be grouped under different headings in your production diary.
The majority of Production Diaries have three main sections, reflecting the stages of the programme. They will be called ‘Pre production’, ‘Production’, and ‘Post production’.
Each of these main sections will have divisions for things like ‘Contacts’, ‘Meetings’, ‘Phone calls’ and perhaps ‘Notes and ideas’. These will be separate from the divisions for ‘Treatment’, ‘Budget’, ‘Storyboard’, ‘Scripts’, ‘Logs’ and so on.
The first page of each division should be an index. How you organise this is crucial. It needs to be simple but, at the same time, allowing instant access to any piece of information contained within the diary. I suggest that every item has a number, perhaps in a circle on the top right hand corner, and the date of origin. It will help if there is also the author’s initials on the item somewhere. It is easy to check on something if you know who wrote it!
Let us take a simple example to try to make sense of all of this. We will assume that a letter has arrived from a prospective client, enquiring about a programme they require to be made. Elaine has written some notes, word processed several letters, one to the prospective client, one to a supplier asking for a current rate card and one to a graphic designer. Over a period of time the replies will come back.
On the top right hand corner of the letter from the client we will put ‘1’ and on the bottom right hand corner we will put ‘Elaine’. The letter to the supplier will have ‘2’ and ‘Elaine’, similarly the graphic designer will have ‘3’ and ‘Elaine’.
Each of these three letters goes into a separate A4 transparent slip pocket and is put into the section marked ‘Letters’.
Our index so far now looks like this:
Please note that all figures throughout the book represent full A4 pages in your production diary.
You will see that the letters have been numbered from 1 to 3 and the letter received has been identified with an (F) (from) and the name of the person, or with a (T) (to), obviously indicating the letter was sent to, rather than came from. Simple but vital.
The notes that were written before the letters can either be stapled to the relevant letter or kept in a separate (indexed) section marked ‘Notes’.
It is important that everything is kept. Notes made at a client meeting, for example, may need to be produced if there is some later dispute about what was actually agreed.
Let us say that Elaine has now replied to the prospective client and also received her rate card and the details she asked the graphic designer for.
These could be labelled 4, 5, and 6, but when you have a whole file full of letters and replies, and have to sort through perhaps 70 or 80 entries, you will wish there was an easier way. The probability is that other letters will be received (and sent) before the graphic designer replies. How are you going to file that if its real number should be 14?
One simple option is to call the letter to the prospective client 1A and file it in the same pocket as the original request. It makes sense to have letter and reply together.
The rate card isn’t really a reply to a letter. You may want a separate section called ‘Rates and quotes’. How do you deal with that?
One option is to keep a database on your computer to index, and cross reference, everything. You may even decide to use a scanner and keep everything on the computer. You should still have all the originals filed in a production diary as back up. It isn’t a question of ‘if the computer crashes’ but ‘when it crashes’!
Your index page may now look like this:
You will see that the rate card is referenced as 2, which will lead you to the request letter, and has been placed in a separate section (Rates and quotes) as 1.
There is also another letter in the file. Simon has written to MCPS to ask for their current rate card.
It may be that you now need to open a new section called ‘Contacts’. Already you have several names, addresses and phone numbers which may be easier to find quickly in an ‘address book’ style section.
This is a simple, but limited, example of organization. It may be that nothing further happens about the prospective client and programme, in which case the programme file is closed and filed. Never throw anything away, one day you will need to refer back to it!
Of course the hope is that this will develop into a real programme and real work. The idea of keeping separate sections, with indexes that can be cross referenced, now makes even more sense and becomes more important.
You may choose to use a database to organize all the paperwork relevant to the programme into a series of fields that will allow you to do detailed searches. Whilst this is undoubtedly quicker you must still keep all the original paperwork in separate sections of a folder.
As the programme builds, and the paper mountain grows, make regular back up copies, and a hard copy of all your work. Never rely on ‘automatic time saved back ups’. Computers can be absolutely guaranteed to crash at the most inconvenient moment.
An Outline of our Production
To make this book as real as possible I have borrowed a production made by Ace Productions. It is typical of the sort of productions you will do for your course. During your course, or when you are just starting out in business, you will need to know a little about business procedures. What follows is a realistic overview of life in a small production company and how they go about getting work. There are lots of ideas included that will help you to understand how you need to start.
Ace Productions is a small company that specializes in short corporate style programmes for a range of small to medium sized companies and some public sector organizations. Two people run it. Elaine is the programme producer and director. She works with Simon, who acts as production manager and PA. At the moment they do not employ anybody directly and work from a small office that has two rooms. One is the ‘front office’ where meetings with clients, crew and performers take place. The paperwork and general running of the company also take place in this room. The other room is the ‘engine room’. In here is a VHS edit suite, a small computer graphics facility, and a few odd bits of equipment like a Hi8 recorder, a Polaroid camera, a portable mini disc recorder, a few very basic lights and a photocopier.
They decided on the VHS edit suite because VHS is still the most common replay system in homes and offices and they find it helpful to give clients copies of ideas, rough cuts of the programme and so on. They also know that they can have a VHS copy of anything they may shoot made very cheaply. They do rough cut edits here to see how the programme is going together. They have used it for off line editing (using burnt in time code) for low budget productions.
Elaine deals with the clients and she will often direct the programme, having written the script. Simon looks after the locations, organizes a studio, books the crew and cast, keeps all the programme notes and logs and in all other ways manages the production.
Around them they have a team of freelance people who do the camera work, sound, lighting and editing. Elaine and Simon find it cheaper for a small production company to buy in these experts for each production because, as specialists in their field, they either have, or can provide the right type of equipment for each programme. These freelancers have all worked together and have formed a real crew spirit with Elaine and Simon.
Both Elaine and Simon have spent time on sending out direct mail shots to their chosen client base and have built up a reputation for being able to provide very professional programmes within budget and on time. Today a letter has arrived from Pat Hermandes, who is a projects officer with a company called Fashions for You, asking Ace Productions to make contact regarding a short video they need shooting to highlight the care that goes into the making of their clothes. They will run this video on their stand at trade shows, to attract more retail outlets to stock their range of casual clothing for young adults.
Elaine and Simon read the letter and decide that this is the sort of programme they can handle. This single sheet of paper is all that is needed to start the whole ball rolling towards another successful Ace Productions programme. Elaine and Simon know that it is more than possible that other companies will have got the same letter and there is no certainty that they will be given the contract to produce the video. They realize that their initial reply will be crucial in securing the contract.
This then is the scenario for the rest of this book. You will see how Elaine and Simon deal with everything from this first contact to the final hand over of the programme. Remember that this is not a book about how to produce a video; others in this ‘basics’ series deal with that aspect. Here we are only concerned with the paperwork that goes with a programme.