Production Management 101: The Real Business of Making Movies

Deborah Patz’s book, Film Production Management 101, has become one of the industry's most respected resources and is often described as the “essential roadmap to the business side of production.” The newly updated third edition covers everything from budgeting and scheduling to respectful workplaces and sustainable production practices. Deborah covers important producing skills in this podcast.

Deborah is also the author of “Write! Shoot! Edit!” for teens - both books published worldwide by MWP Productions. She has worked in the industry since the mid-80s, with a filmography that spans micro-budget to international co-productions, from family and children's programming to science fiction extravaganzas and feature films of various budget sizes with companies such as Disney, Lucasfilm, Alliance/Atlantis, Nelvana, MCA/Universal, and the IMAX space team. Currently she's working in business affairs at Telefilm Canada and teaches filmmaking skills based on her books. When not involved in books and films, she sails with her family in Pacific Northwest.

www.debpatz.com

Join our new educational platform From the Heart THRIVE and get free classes on film funding: https://fromtheheartproductions.thrivecart.com/from-the-heart-thrive/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Ever wonder who solves the countless problems that can derail a film production before they become disasters? Well, today's guest reveals how this happens.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Whether you're making your first documentary or producing your tenth feature, today's conversation will reveal the production management secrets that can save your project time, money, and unnecessary stress. So glad you could join us on the Art of Film Funding podcast. I'm Claire Papin, co-producer with Carol Dean. Today we have a very special guest whose work has helped thousands of filmmakers understand the business and logistics behind successful film and television productions. Deborah Patts has spent decades working as a production manager, production coordinator, and production executive on award-winning productions for companies including Lucasfilms, IMAX, Universal, BBC, CBC, and Disney. Her book, Film Production Management 101, has become one of the industry's most respected resources and is often described as the essential roadmap to the business side of production. The newly updated third edition covers everything from budgeting and scheduling to respectful workplaces and sustainable production practices. Deborah's practical insights can save you years of trial and error. And now I'd like to welcome the founder of From the Heart Productions, Carol Dean, who will lead today's conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Thank you, Claire. So, Deborah, welcome to the Art of Film Funding Podcast. And congratulations on your third edition, just that is incredible. Your book has become required reading for many filmmakers, and Claire and I are delighted to have this opportunity to discuss the lessons you've learned throughout your remarkable career. So let's start with what inspired you to write Film Production Management 101, and what gap did you see in the industry that needed to be filled?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Well, thank you first of all very much for the invitation. I am delighted to be here. Um, Film Production Management 101. It actually, the first time I wrote the book was back in, or actually was published in 1997. So that means I was writing it in 96. But uh in the mid-90s, I recognized there was no book on how to be a production coordinator. And I wanted to move on from coordination into management. So I wrote the book and uh got it published by Michael Weesee Productions, and that pushed it out around the world. Then a number of years later, by 2002, after I'd been um production managing, it was clear that production managers needed to know what coordinators did. And also I had a lot of skills now as production management. So I wrote a production management book and we put the two of them together. And that's actually the birth of Film Production Management 101. That's why the book is so thick, it's like about 500 pages. And then I've been basically updating it, but I don't update it too often. This is only like the third edition, but the first one was um we were still making movies on film and doing film finish. And then it moved over to digital, and now we have moved into uh definitely highlighting sustainable practices, and we have a heightened awareness about the need for the respectful workplace. So that's a lot of the focus of what this one, this edition is.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Oh, that's really important to have that update. Good for good for you for putting that in. You described the book as serving both production managers and production coordinators. So can can you explain how these roles differ and why is it important for filmmakers to understand both perspectives?

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah, well, the coordinator is basically the right hand of the production manager. The coordinator is so tapped into the logistics of production, it's probably they're probably the only person who knows everybody at the rap party. They basically put into action whatever the production decisions are. The production manager, however, is actually making a lot of those production decisions. And they start with that back at the budget, in that they're allocating the production money to various categories to determine which crew is going to be hired, how big is the crew, what equipment can be rented, what locations can be used, is it gonna be studio shoot or a location shoot, union, not union? So it is a monetary perspective, but they're still making those decisions. And if you make a promise or a decision in prep or on set in any department, you're basically spending the production money. So that's why the production manager has that perspective. They know they have to know how to spend the budget, but also make sure that the project comes in on time and on budget while realizing the director's vision.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Okay, so then what's the line producer doing? Do you still have a line producer with the coordinator?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yeah, uh you can. The larger the production, you you have to start splitting out into um splitting out the job into more people. And a line producer is often uh a very experienced production manager who's moving into producing. And they can be a line producer who's also a PM on a project, or there can be a line producer and a separate PM, just like you could have a PM and an assistant PM, depending on what skills people are bringing to the project.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Okay, that makes sense. Okay. One of the themes of the book is taking a project from prep through post-production. And um, you even covered the audit process, which is wonderful. So, why do so many filmmakers underestimate the importance of planning for the end of the production while they're still at the beginning?

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Well, that's probably because there's so much to do to turn a script into a film. I mean, um, you don't really learn how to prep for an audit in a film class. It's next to impossible to teach anybody how to manage a production budget in a film class because the equipment is usually part of the program, so it's basically free. The cast and crew are volunteers, so they're basically free. So, how are you tracking that money? That leaves learning by doing. So you make mistakes on one production, you learn how to do it better on the next production, and that's comes down to why I wrote the book. So that you don't have to make mistakes in the first place. You can just flip over to the thing away. Oh yeah, I got to get this ready. So, my first coordinating job, for example, I built a four-page checklist before I started based on all my experiences in production to date. By the end of that production, it had already bloomed to 11 pages. And that was the core of what became the first book, which was called Surviving Production. Now the book, like I said, is like 500 pages. It's not meant to be read in order. It's not meant to be read every chapter for every production. The idea is that it grows with you. There's chapters on legal clearances, you might not have them, uh, customs and immigration, you might not be moving people around, completion bond, all that sort of thing. But the audit, the audit happens at the end of all of them. And it it's not really surprised that it's so far away, and the production manager is no longer working on the project to recognize that everything that you prep is in order to get to that audit.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

All right. And the audit uh means what? Tell us.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Oh, the audit is uh done by an independent accountant who looks at all the uh accounting documentation and validates that you spent the money where you said you spent the money. And the idea is that the money is spent in um actual production costs, and you didn't just spend the production money and go out and buy yourself a car. Right. Um, you actually made the movie with it.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

So every expense has to have a line, uh number, an account number, and be verified with a piece of paper for every expense that you have. Wow. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

And that's why there's um uh code numbers all the way through the budget, because that is actually preparing for the audit when you are budgeting.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Right. Every code number for every item. So great. So budgeting is often intimidating for new filmmakers. So what are the biggest budgeting mistakes that you see with independent producers and how can they avoid them? Oh, that's such a good question.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

And I could talk for ages about budgets, but um let me approach the intimidation factor and the budgeting mistakes by dispelling some myths. The first myth about budgeting, when you're about to start budgeting a project, is you will never have enough time and money to make your project. So just relax. You're never going to. Um, I've worked on micro budget films, I've worked on multi-million dollar films where I'm still telling people, I'm sorry, I don't have enough money to pay you more and all that stuff. The bigger the budget, it usually is the bigger the logistics. And so there is just more that has to be in the budget. So at least you can relax with that one. Now, the budget includes both time and money. So this is another thing to know. You're not alone. The first AD is key in managing the schedule, and the key and the PM is key in managing the budget. So you're already working as a team. The director's gonna have input, the producer's gonna have input. There's um, I've got online resources on my website, debats.com, their companion links for the book. And that will help you find rate sheets and stuff to help you with budgeting. So that's another nice thing to know. Um, another myth, you're not actually budgeting, in that you're not saying how much is this going to cost. You're allocating funds that have already been raised. So it's a kind of reverse budgeting. You raise a certain amount of the producer's going to raise a certain amount of money to make a movie, and you need just have to allocate the funds to the various categories in the budget. So it's it's not like a blank check. You just have to sort of figure out where you're going to put that. But the trick, and this is where your experience will help. And that's why it it's very hard to jump in as a production manager. You want to actually have some production experience getting there. Is that what are the production choices that have to be made to realize the budget at that budget level to realize the director's vision? So those are the production decisions that the production manager has to make. So, for example, are there going to be Vista shots, which are expensive because you have to close off a lot of space, or are they going to be shooting it with close-ups in front of a hedge? Well, that's not a lot of space to, you know, physical space to use up. So that'll actually be cheaper. So when you think about it, the production manager needs to know how to make a movie in order to do some of the budgeting. Um and when you're do make writing the budget, you're also making a list of assumptions. And so that's anything like how many days is going to be the shoot? Are you using unions or not? Is it a fall shoot? But the script is for winter, which means you need snow making. So any of those production decisions you make as you're doing the budget, you make a list of assumptions so that you can explain what's going on. And the final myth I'm gonna um it's not the final one, but the third myth that I'm gonna dispel is draft one of the budget will not be draft final. Just like the script goes through script revisions, the budget will go through budget revisions. So you don't have to be perfect the first time. Um, but you did ask about mistakes, so I'm gonna give you one mistake that's really worth thinking about. The biggest mistake I've seen is you're not leaving enough money for post. Make sure that the post is well budgeted, make sure you save at least 40% of contingency because you're post, because if you don't finish the film, there's no film to sell in the market afterward.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Wow, that's so important. You're right. I've said I run into films that have gotten into post, started, run out of money, and are still sitting there waiting to be finished. Yeah, it's really bad when you spend all that time on the film. Well, tell me what percentage of the budget normally goes to the producers. I heard you could budget six to ten percent. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Well, um, it depends. It depends on what the percentage is based on. It depends on who's financing your project, and it also depends on what is your definition of producer. So six to ten percent is it of the whole budget or is it the below the line costs? Because the budget is divided into above the line, which is uh the costs that were um assembled during development of the script, which is like story write, script, uh writer development costs, producer, director, star. Uh, and those things, those costs can vary dramatically. On a big budget, they can be unusually high. And on a micro budget, they can be painfully low. So since that range is so huge, you usually don't bother including that in your calculation for what is the percentage of the producer fee. Um, below the line costs would be is usually divided into two sections, below the line production, which is principal photography, and below the line posts. And so those are considered like the direct production costs. And typically you would do a percentage of those costs because they're a lot more predictable. There is another section at the bottom for like financing and insurance and legal. And again, depending on how you're financing the project, they can those costs can range dramatically because they're not actually about hiring the craft, hiring the crew, and hiring the locations which are direct costs. So often those also get left out of the calculation. And then some financiers will have restrictions on what the producer's fees are. So they might say that 20% of uh direct costs, or 30% if it's a low budget documentary. Um and then finally, um, who is the producer? There are so many producer titles. You mentioned line producer, there's also supervising producers, executive producers, co-producers, and straight producers. Um, in some cases, financiers require they all end up sharing the same producer fee. And in some cases, it's just the shareholders of the company that share that producer fee. So, again, that's again where it gets tied into financiers. So, not really the answer you wanted, because I could have just said yes or no. Um, I would say though, six to ten percent of the overall budget. Well, if you have to over-generalize, it's not out of line for the first draft of this of the budget. But as you start assembling um all the different parts, you probably have to revise the producer fee.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Okay, but you do have an idea somewhere in there to get started. Exactly. You really need that number to raise the funds. So you should probably lean on the higher side, higher percentage. If you can, yep. Well, from what you said, um, the production manager has to have a good amount of experience for you to turn your money and film over to them. They have to have made some films before, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Uh, well, I mean, the somebody's got to manage for the first time. So production managers can come up through a number of different ways on production. I came up through the production coordination route. I've seen people come up through production accounting, which of course they'll be very strong in the money side of things. I've also seen really good production managers come up through location management because again, you're dealing with a lot of the logistics on set and locations and stuff. So, and uh so it really varies. So you don't actually have to know everything when you're doing it, but that's that's where my book was designed to be open on the desk as you're working, so that if you need a mentor to say, Oh my gosh, how do I deal with X, you can just flip to the chapter and go, okay, good, somebody's given me some ideas. And uh and and really, and I've seen people do that. I mean, that's the reason I wrote it so that I could do it. I would have it open, right? I gave myself a checklist at the beginning. And uh and there is a checklist out there to count down through to production to go, I have three weeks before shooting. Have you done this? And uh so you don't have to know everything, but you'll you're gonna learn on every production.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yes, you will learn on every production, and you need to know where to find the information you don't know. That's what you mean. That's true. Okay. Uh well, how do you decide which producer gets what job? Because sometimes you see six or more producers on films, and you realize that each one must have a separate responsibility. So who makes that decision?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, there's so many producer titles. Um I guess, in short, the producer team, the producing team has to get together and decide among us amongst themselves. Just like a production manager can come up through several paths, producers come up through several paths. Some of them will come up through production management, some will come up through legal, some will come up through um working on script and story, some of them through acting. So there's no one route to producing. And if there is more than one producer, they're usually working together because they have complementary skills. So they will decide amongst themselves what that is. Now, the line producer we already talked about is you think very often the very experienced production manager, very work, very much working with the logistics of the production. Executive producer or associate producer, they can be credits that are given out as a courtesy. Um, so those people may not even show up on set. Or they can be paid positions and they're a very active part of the producing team. So it totally varies on every production. But the title that is just like straight producer, no leading qualifier, that is the main producer and the one who has to make the final decision, most responsible. And you can have more than one of those, but try to reduce it to one where possible.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

And that you can only have three producers if uh they go up for an Academy Award. That's all that's that's right.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, they reduce that at the Academy Awards because there's too many people taking the producer category. I mean, if too many, it it starts to devalue the position if there's too many people sharing it and they're not actually doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

And I noticed on Spielberg's new film, there's only he and one other person as the producer. There's only two names there. The main yeah. So um this has become this is very important to know going in, because we all think that the this film we're working on has a chance at an Academy Award. So I think that solved first uh the first question is who's going on the stage?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

with whom that's right now we're getting into chapter six hiring the crew uh and i was told by another uh producer that she uh would always uh call uh every referral when she's looking to hire someone she would call who they said for referral and then if she found two people who were similar with experience and feedback she would pick the one that was uh easier to get along with on the set is that is common honestly I don't know if I've ever found two people who are that similar but but theoretically if I did I mean yes definitely call references definitely call contacts on previous productions so they may not be references as listed on a on a CV uh but if I see a project a previous project I could definitely call a previous uh previous production and also find out more about this person because think about it film productions they have to come together really quickly the team has to work together very intensely and it's for a very short time if someone happens to be problematic on that team you might choose to keep them to the end of production because there's no time to replace them and that's one of the reasons you really need to call references. On the other hand there is also personality clashes that can happen and so not in the reference may not be valid because you might be able to get along with them. So you have to be mindful when you're actually doing that.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah yeah because you've got to have that crew communicating with each other and happy to work there together.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Yeah because it's it's all about creating a team right you have to have a team that works really well together. And so you know the production manager and the producer will be hiring keys who will in turn typically be hiring their teams. So it is about building a team that's going to work together. And so theoretically if you're in that choice where there's two of the same people you have to know they're gonna work the if you get a sense that they're gonna work together as a team that will be great.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

So usually when you hire a director of photography he brings his crew absolutely right and that's a I will tell a story about a project I did where it was a short that I managed to do an entire almost entirely upgrading crew. I wanted to work on this film I read the script from this writer director and uh it was rather experimental but I could see how it all took place in um a house set and I was working at the time on a project that had a beautiful house set. And so I was the coordinator on that show and I was managing the short. So I asked if I could use the set and they said well you'll have to find one of the the key crew to work on it. Well I knew the gaffer wanted to become a DP so I offered the gaffer a position as a DP well that set so many things in into position because then when he fit into that position his electric and grip team that were working with him for the last two years all upgraded once on on the project and joined him because they wanted to support him as a new DP and then um and then I also got um well the equipment warehouse was very happy to help support him as well um and the camera team they all upgraded one. So the clapper loader became the focus puller the trainee became the clapper loader and then the sound team which of course there was only two of them he says okay you can't hire everybody and not us. I know we're not upgrading but we're gonna join you too so I was able to put this this short together with a crew that had basically been working together for two years on this set. So it was completely beautiful but you know that doesn't happen all the time but but it is that whole thing about how people will work together in teams and they will also upgrade together in teams because once you start working with people and you get that sort of second language going on set, you want to keep it going on other productions.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yes that's brilliant well done now um you've worked on productions of many sizes so what production management principles remain the same whether you're making a small documentary or a major studio project okay I'm gonna give you two principles.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

The first one is every cast and crew member is valuable sounds obvious but on the bigger crews it's very hard for each person to see their contribution to the whole and so it really helps if you can help them see it. Because it's not just about the numbers it's about the people who are making the film and so that is a really important concept that you have to get across because you know if there's only 10 people on the project everybody's doing so much. But if there's 150 people doing the same amount of work as it were everybody's doing a very small slice of that big production the second principle I was going to I'm just going to I would say is the production manager needs no needs to know how to say no, which is often what they're known for but they also have to know when to say yes and that comes to spending the production budget. So the production manager needs to know where is the story in the script and I mean the director's vision of the story. So just as an example it's an exterior exterior of a building the character's walking into the building it's a separate location it's a unit move can is that scene completely necessary or can you tell that story the same way by the character arriving into the room taking off their coat and now you have not done a location move so you've actually saved a lot of production time. And I mean you can you can't answer that because part of it is the director's vision. Okay. I will take I will give you another example and that was this was when I was doing IMAX uh IMAX 3D IMAX it was a space city x outside the space city is 3D animation and the set was a a set and we needed to connect the two of them so we created a shot that was supposedly um constant started full frame animation went down into the space city where you would see the animated background with with real people plugged into it so that they look like they were walking and then the camera keeps going down into one of the buildings and you're in this you're in the set so you're you think you're in the building and we've now connected the animation to the set and you feel like you're in space not like you're on a studio set. But there were eight seconds where we had an animated background where we had to put actual people in we ended up renting the Skydome in Toronto putting people walking around on the green screen of the of the outfield and plugging them in. It was a really expensive shot but it was the sell shot and totally required for the story of that movie. So we knew we had to make that so that's when you need to know when to say yes. Absolutely but this I think this is really important to bring to the attention uh when you see a shot that could be condensed into from two shots to one uh save money and time but who takes this information to whom uh well that's where you're having meetings with um producer and director and and that's where that's where the PM often gets noticed as the no person because it's they're challenging ideas of do we need this? Can we combine that? Right and that's where you get that sense of oh they always say no but also needs to know when to say yes. Exactly so your book get goes into a discussion on script breakdowns and scheduling which is so important and tell us how much money and stress can a well prepared schedule save during production basically you're talking about pre-production work and that is so essential today more than ever. When we did green screen you would have a green screen on the set and CGI computer imagery would be created for that background while you were shooting and during post it would get inserted. But today we now do things like virtual production which was made famous on the Mandalorian and what happens is that CGI background imagery is added onto a volume stage which is like a huge wraparound TV screen background and that imagery is there on the shoot day. Well that tells you that you're not building that while you're shooting you're building that in prep in order to get to the shoot day. So that's putting a lot more pressure on prep work in order to get to the shoot day instead of saying oh yeah we'll add that later in post. So the ADs are using the breakdowns to know what actually has to show up on that shoot day. If the character reaches for a glass that glass better be there and props will make sure it's there you end up reusing those script breakdowns at least the coordinator will end up reusing it into the um shooting schedules and then reuse it again onto the call sheet when it gets to the call sheet it's not really news for anybody because you've had so many meetings about it and everybody has been working to get there. But you end up re keep reusing it which is very useful. But that concept of uh prep is really important in that there was a sign that this art department put up once which I just loved and it was called they would put it up on the entrance to the art department and that was fast, good, cheap, pick two because you won't get all three and prep is about doing everything cheap and and good because you have time in prep you haven't actually started shooting. As soon as you start shooting there's no time left you've gotten an X number of days in order to capture the imagery. So shoot will be fast. And so if you can only pick one of the other two it's either going to be good or it's going to be cheap. Well you're not gonna choose I don't want it to be good. So when you're shooting it will be fast and it will be expensive in order to make it happen. So the only where you can save money is in prep when you actually have time wow that's really good advice. Good well all right now let's talk about cost reports and cash flow management because you go into detail about these so really the question is why are these financial tools so critical and what can happen when filmmakers ignore them well the production manager is require to monitor the spending of the production money and that's basically cost reporting. At the end of every shoot day for example or at the end of a shoot day there might be a question that comes up and that is we're really close to finishing we might need an hour of overtime should we do the hour of overtime or should we come back to this location tomorrow? And the producer would make that decision because the producer's the last one to make that decision is the most responsible the director and the first AD will have a point of view based on what's there and the production manager will be able to contribute the cost estimate of the two choices. So that the producer makes an informed decision gets the input from the director the first AD and the production manager and decides you know what nope we're gonna wrap now come back tomorrow or we're gonna shoot that extra hour in order to get the day and move on to another location. Okay. So yeah so that's on a daily basis you you're doing that kind of verbally on a weekly basis you're actually doing the cost report um and that's partly because the financiers need to know that you're spending the money appropriately and that way you can also find out you know how are you doing on spending the contingency are you saving enough for post all that kind of stuff. Cash flow is a totally different concept. Cash flow is a document well the cash flow document is a chart of when the various costs in the budget will happen over the course of production and post like what week it will happen and what months it compares those outflows then with the monetary inflows from the financiers which are known as drawdowns. The financiers you see they don't give you the money all up front they might be giving you the money enough money to make the movie to for your whole budget but they're going to release their money on milestones like a percentage on first day of principal photography maybe a percentage on last day of of the shoot a percentage on rough cut delivery final costs so you're spending most of your money though during principal photography but if you're not receiving some of that money until it's like completed and at final costs there's going to be a moment in production where your bank balance is going to go negative and that's called negative cash flow. It usually happens around mid-shoot, end of the shoot, sometimes as late as early post. Depends on your financiers and what drawdowns you've negotiated. So what you end up having to do then is borrow money from a bank or an interim lender in order to positively cash flow the production. So what you basically do is you sell those last drawdowns at final cost to the bank they loan you the money up front they charge you interest and then they collect those final costs at the end those final cost drawdowns so the cash flow document is critical so that as you get through production even though you have enough money on paper you won't run out of money in the bank account Wow that's very important right okay let's go to location management which I understand is most important what are some of the most common mistakes filmmakers make when choosing and managing locations I should have start giving you some shorter answers. Location management mistakes uh probably the biggest one listen to the location because replacing the sound in post can be very expensive. And so um yeah it's so it's so funny how often you go on surveys and scouts where they're actually physically looking at the location but not actually listening to what's going to happen. Survey the location with the key crew so they can prep for it. That's where you're also it minimizes your surprises and your sound department will tell you what the noises are. Another part of it is time of day of the shoot does it match the time of day when you're surveying so for example you can go and survey a place and go oh yeah this is perfect and then you show up later and the tide is out so it's like okay if you've got a tide to deal with or you've got traffic to deal with that happens at different times of day so you you want to think about not only just the location but when are you using that location and then unit logistics parking lunch location it's not just about filming the set what are all the um logistics that you need around the set who are all the other people in the neighborhood or companies in the neighborhood that are going to be affected by what you're doing and that's why experienced location managers do really well as production managers because they are thinking beyond just the set to all the things that support the set around it.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Wow that's important I hadn't thought of those things now production insurance and completion bonds aren't topics that filmmakers get excited about so why are they so important?

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Oh God I remember when I was writing the book and I called up an insurance company that I've dealt with a lot and I said you know I'd like you to look at this and see if I've lost anything out. He was so excited he goes oh my God somebody's writing about insurance because he likes his job. But anyway um the completion bond is basically malpractice insurance for insurance for filmmakers. Investors are buying a movie that doesn't exist yet it's very high risk financing and the bond will ensure the film's going to be completed. There will be a film to sell at the end and therefore they will still they will have potential to make their money back from their investment and earn a profit when they release it. Now not all investors require a bond but some of them do. Like a Hollywood studio film they don't actually use a bond. If there's a problem they just raise the budget which actually is a lot simpler than it sounds they need a reasonable expectation that they're going when they sell the film at the higher budget they'll actually make the money back. So they they do a lot of due diligence around that. But um I included a story in my book which I think explains the bond pretty well and that was I was working on a project that was going over budget. I was not the PM so I gotta say that by the way and uh the bond the bond rep showed up on set every day on a regular basis made everybody totally nervous because a bond what they do is if they take over the production they think it's going out of control they can fire whoever they want and finish the movie because that's that's what their work that's what their insurance is there for is that they will finish the movie. But the crew learned quite quickly that they're not going to fire the third grip or something like that. They're gonna fire the director the producer the DOP the first AD or the PM or any of them so they're they're only looking at the keys. So those are the guys that get really nervous. And for but from visiting every day and just hanging out on the set that gave enough pressure to those keys to become more decisive and get their days.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

We did end up shooting one extra day on the shoot but you know which is costly but we finished the film and they didn't have to take over the project wow that was close yeah okay so let's go into technology and how it has transformed filmmaking over the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Which technological changes have had the biggest impact on production management and what skills should emerging filmmakers focus on this is such a good question because I've certainly been around enough to see a lot of technological changes and technology is always changing But honestly, it they're just tools. From a PM's perspective, prototype tools and equipment, they're costly. But if it's important for the production, then it happens. You know, we worked on a worked on a project with IMAX, which is the 3D IMAX movie. There was only two cameras because it was prototype. And one of them was always being repaired. And the other one was on set. And so when that one showed up, the other one broke down and that one went with to be repaired. There was a time when they were both being repaired. And we just had to work overtime in order to make sure that they could show up, be ready in order to be on set. So it can be costly, but it was really important for that film. But looking forward, if you're going to stay in film for years, you have to know that whatever technological tools that you learn today, they're going to evolve and replace be replaced in years to come. When I started working in film, it was before computers, before Google, before iPads. iPads didn't even exist. We're now wrestling with how to work with AI responsibly as a tool, not you know, not to replace creativity in people. At film school, I learned how to cut film on film stock, and now it's digital. I mean, the mechanics are the same, but the tools are different. I now hire a PM who knows how to use those current tools. But what is lasting is how to cut the scenes together to create the story and the emotion. And whether I was doing that with film or it's done digitally now, that's the same. So you know, and then but from a PM perspective, what would be the biggest thing that you would learn? The the biggest effect is probably smartphones. Because now the communication travels a little differently with everybody carrying a smartphone. Um so but that's been around now for some time. So I don't know what else is gonna what else is gonna be uh new in the future, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Right. It's gonna see exciting right now. So many new things are happening. So if the filmmaker listening today could implement just one lesson from your book, what would you want that lesson to be and why?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Oh, that's so hard. It's 500 pages. Um the production manager is about making decisions. And honestly, as soon as you write your first budget, you're gonna ask that question going, oh, but I don't even know what to do here. Well, you get to make a decision about it and part of that making decisions is knowing when to say no and when to say yes. So it is, it comes back to understanding the story because it's it as a production manager, you're using your expertise in management to realize the story on screen.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Exactly. It's all about the story, right? When you come to the bottom line, it's all about story. Because when people ask me about the film grant, what's the most important thing? And I say, story, story, and more story. That's what we care about. So good job. Thank you so much, Deborah, for sharing your knowledge and your experience and your book, Film Production Management 101. It's clearly an invaluable resource for filmmakers who want to master both creative and business sides of production. And thank you to our listeners for joining us on the Art of Film Funding podcast. If you're developing a film, a documentary, or a television project, and you need support, be sure to visit FromTheHeart Productions at FromTheHeartProctions.com. For more than three decades, we have helped independent filmmakers move their projects forward through sponsorship and grant opportunities. We have a lot of educational resources and personal mentoring on our website. And sponsorship can make your project eligible to receive tax-deductible donations, while our grant program helps filmmakers tell stories that might not otherwise be funded. So visit From the Heart for free classes on film funding and learn about our grants. And until next week, keep telling your stories and keep following your heart.