CHALLENGES & TAKEAWAYS

This project had a larger scope and a higher budget than projects I’d previously worked on at NYU. As the lead physical producer, I oversaw everything logistical from checkouts to returns. Because there were so many moving parts, I had the opportunity to delegate meals, hotel booking, and the shepherding of extras to my U.P.M. and 2nd A.D., and I was able to focus more on the big picture rather than set gofering.

We split production into one local, self-reporting weekend in NYC, and one “away” weekend in New Jersey. There were a lot of locations in this film, including a historic movie theater, a high school, a home exterior in Staten Island, a dance studio, and a retro diner. This made for a tight schedule with lots of moves. Getting from point A to B to C on time and without leaving anything behind or forgetting to pay someone was my responsibility.

One of the trickier things I had to do for this film was find a picture car from the 1980s for a driving scene and devise a workaround to NYU’s tricky, auto-omitting insurance policy. Our Production Supervisor was adamant that the actor could not drive the car, but the director was really pushing for it. In the end, I appealed to NYU Risk Management with a plan that involved the actor driving the car only 10 unobstructed feet for an exterior wide shot and utilizing poor man’s process for the rest of the scene. The plan was approved, I found a studio in Greenpoint with workable rates, and I coaxed the director into sacrificing a smidge of his vision.

My biggest takeaways from this project were that I became better at delegating and better at making the initial contact. I secured 4 locations on my own, and I was the primary contact for all of the location owners, plus the picture car owner. I had to delegate the more tedious tasks because I had to be present in case any one of the moving parts stopped working and a creative solution was needed.