What does mastery look like? Part 9: Put it out there.
Produce and distribute a completed webseries.
Film is a collaborative art form. If you're not being collaborative, you probably shouldn't be working in film. You don't do it on your own. People who understand that, cultivate that, get the best results.
Michael Pitt
I have three series ideas that I want to produce. Two are non-fiction, reality-type, semi-scripted shows. The fiction show has had the most work done on it, but it will be the one that both takes the longest to finish and has the most amount of people involved. It should be able to be shot relatively inexpensively, but relatively inexpensive is still waaaaay more money than I can put my hands on right now. If I drop everything in my life, I could theoretically get this done in a year, but as I want to shoot this show in the spring and summer, I will be very pressed for time. I am not giving up on this one, but I will triage my efforts. Even if I don’t get this one produce and distributed, I must have the following things finished in a year:
Have a full season written. A season will be ten episodes. I have one complete episode, and two fragments. I have about nine episodes to write. The episodes are 7 - 10 minutes long. So I have about eighty-five to ninety pages to write.
Have a complete shooting schedule worked out, with some padding for inevitable hiccups.
Have a complete budget worked out, with some padding for inevitable hiccups.
Have as much pre-production worked out as can be done before recruiting others.
The non-fiction shows I wish to make are a travel/lifestyle show and a cooking show. I love the idea for both shows. The shows would be hosted by and co-created with talented people that I very much want to work with. I had to very quickly decide which one I want to try to make first, and I think that I have chosen well.
The travel/lifestyle show will need a decent-sized crew and also, by its very nature, be filmed in multiple locations. The first very short (five episodes) season will not require travel outside of Chicago, but it will still need a large amount of location shoots, and location shooting requires a lot of coordination and time. Time and money. Because of these factors, I think that this show is going to be my second priority for this year. Here is what I must get done on this show:
Make a detailed shooting plan for each episode. It’s not scripted, but I need an outline that shows what we wish to put on the screen.
Secure locations, permits, and hire crew. I will be the producer, but the co-creator/host has producing duties as well. I plan to direct most of the episodes, but I do not see how I can do all of them. At the very minimum we will need an assistant director who will be the director on episodes I am unable to direct, a director of photography/camera operator, a sound recordist who can hopefully double as a boom operator, and at least one production assistant for the inevitable problems that pop up that need fixed on the fly.
Have a post-production plan in place:
I can do the expensive, fast and good route. Included in this are hiring an editor, composer, someone to mix sound, and probably a colorist if the editor does not do color correction. If we do voiceover, which is likely, we will need to use a recording studio. None of these people or services are cheap, but I want them to be paid properly.
I could do the cheap, slow, and (hopefully) passable route where I edit, color correct, and mix sound myself. I would then acquire inexpensive stock music and fudge some sort of home recording studio. I would most likely pull my hair out at this point. Sometimes the cheapest thing is money.
Have a budget in place, padded a bit for inevitable catastrophes.
Have a shooting schedule in place, padded a bit for inevitable catastrophes.
The final show is the cooking show. I believe that this show is the one that I will be making my push to finish in a year. I think that we have an underrepresented cuisine to present. It is also a food culture that is frankly visually stunning. This cuisine values visually beautiful food that is also delicious. It feeds the eye and the belly.
The host is warm, funny, friendly, passionate about her food, which makes her perfect, in my opinion, to host her own show. She is just a tiny bit camera-shy, but I have a feeling that with plenty of rehearsal and shooting of test footage, that she will relax into her role as soon as we begin rolling for the first episode.
She has a blog and Instagram stream of her food that is beautifully photographed and well-written. Most of the writing just has to be adapted for the screen. If we shoot episodes based on the food that she already has made on her blog and Insta, we should be able to begin shooting within a couple of months.
We should be able to shoot the vast majority of the show in one location, but I think that two or three places should be ideal.
The production of the this show will be relatively simple. Simple does not mean easy, it just requires far fewer people to complete. I feel confident that I can produce, direct, shoot, record sound etc. for this show. With very little money outlay I can also put together a shooting package. If I am able to get a budget, I will hire a proper crew and a more robust shooting package. To get this up to screen, I will need to do the following things:
Meet with the co-creator/host and determine how many episodes and what food will be shown.
Write the scripts. Cooking shows do not have to be scripted—Julia Child, for instance, never used one. She just followed a general shooting plan, but I think that we will be happier with scripts.
Figure out a budget for the show, including things like food costs.
Create a shooting schedule with things like rehearsal time included.
Have a post-production plan and schedule in place. The plan is for me to edit, color correct, mix sound, acquire music, and record voiceover, if needed—hopefully we will not.
Finish editing.
Find hosting for the show.
Enter into contests for web series.
Market and promote the series.
This is the first and only challenge that requires others in order for me to complete it. Don’t think that I haven’t thought of that. I used to always complain about how flaky other people in theatre or film are while ignoring the fact that nothing ever got done rarely had anything to do with anyone else failing to come through, and everything to do with me never having done all of the necessary advance work. I was expecting people to drop everything and make time for my only half-finished work. Laughable isn’t it?
This post is much longer than I originally thought it would be—thank you for reading this far. The vastly longer introduction to this piece will be its own post soon.
Contact me at: jeremydnichols@gmail.com
Follow me on Twitter: @jeremydnichols