"The Devil's In The Details" (a.k.a. "Where's the key...?")

The Boy Scout motto 'Be Prepared' can be applied to anything in life, but it is nowhere more required or more often forgotten, than by young filmmakers, this one included!

Sometimes it happens because too few people are saddled with too many responsibilities (a common plight for young filmmakers with more vision than money to get their ideas up on the screen).  Other times (and for this there is NO EXCUSE)  a person responsible for a task or a group of tasks either fails to prepare a detailed checklist of what has to be done or they make the list and then don't check it and double check it and triple check it to make sure every item on the list is done and done properly! 

Two experiences as a young director taught me this lesson well...

After college, I became staff television director for a big Chicago ad agency, working out of their Hollywood office.  Their most important client was hosting a New Year's Eve national television special.  I would direct.  The agency owner's son, a guy named Ted, was producer.  Talent schedules meant the show would have to be pre-taped in London.   Arrangements were made with a London producer with whom the Agency had worked in the past.  He would arrange the studio, equipment, crew, set construction, everything.  The Agency brass, my boss Ted (the producer), and myself would just  jaunt across the pond a day before the shoot, rest up, do the shoot the next day, take in a day of holiday shopping, then fly home.  Simple, right?  (Hint...Don't answer that yet!) 

It's early December.  We arrive in Merry Ole' England, decked out for Christmas, covered in a blanket of fresh snow (a page out of a Dickens novel (okay I tend to romanticize a tad).  We check into the VERY romantic Savoy Hotel (the most famous, if not also most expensive hotel in London).  The agency knows how to do things first class!  After a sumptuos dinner we take in a play at the equally famous Savoy Theater next door.  Before the play begins we stand and sing "God Save The Queen" to the refrain of the American patriotic song "My Country Tis of Thee".  A little wierd.  Very British!  I like it! The next morning dawns cold and snowy.  I'm grateful we have nothing planned but to rest up for the shoot tomorrow.  Later I plan to check out the legendary English pubs I've heard so much about, sit by a roaring fire,  maybe listen to some Shakespear over an English pint!   Scrap that!  After breakfast my producer Ted casually mentions he's going to go see the studio where they're getting ready for our shoot the next day.  He invites me to come along.  I reply 'Sure'! (I have a choice?!)

We take a cab, one of those boxy black numbers for which London was famous, to the address where the big set for tomorrow's taping is to be set up this afternoon.  The cabby stops.  Ted looks around.  There is nothing that looks remotely like a TV studio in any direction.  Ted double checks the address with the cabby, who assures us this IS the address we gave him.  We get out, perplexed.  Just then one of us notices a small sign at the top of an alley with the numerals of the address we're looking for.  The alley descends for a couple hundred yards to a small door over which a non-descript sign bears the name of the studio where we are supposed to be.  I can tell from his expression that this is NOT what Ted expected.

We go inside to find a small stage barely large enough for a low budget commercial.  Several dozen dancers, musicians, and costumed extras are in the middle of shooting a rock band music video. Cigarette smoke and atmospheric fog mix in the air, adding to the clostrophobia.  Ted looks at me and says, "We're in trouble!"

In less than 24 hours, the Agency's leading client will be arriving to shoot a prime-time television special for global broadcast and the best facilities we can muster is a back alley music video garage studio?!!  Whether or not our client would have been upset by the obviously inferior condition of the studio and blamed it on the Agency's incompetence is inmaterial.   Ted is convinced that disaster looms in the client relations department.  People lose their jobs over stuff like this!

This is pre-cell phone London.  We rush back to the hotel.  Ted takes an empty phone booth in the lobby and calls upstairs to inform the Agency brass of the situation.  He fumes about the London producer they hired to make the arrangements.  But at the moment the priority is tomorrow.  Ted is informed in no uncertain terms that He has to do whatever he has to and correct the situation.  Cost is not a consideration.  Ted hangs up to find that the man he has just verbally excoriated is in the next phone booth, having overheard Ted's rant on the phone.   The exchange that follows is not pleasant.  But then comes the real challenge.  This is London, already noon on the day before we have to shoot.  Where can we find a major studio that can be booked on short notice, assemble a crew, move the set across town, set it up, light it and prep the show in less than 24 hours and make it all seem to anyone walking in tomorrow that this was the plan all along?! 

It's amazing what can happen when those five words are spoken "cost is not a consideration"!  A chunk of heaven and earth can, and in this case, DOES get moved...moved across town and into the most prestigious television studio complex in London.  On their backlot is a complete Shakespearean London set that includes a full-scale Globe Theater.  The stage we are assigned is one of the biggest television studios in London, the same stage where Julie Andrews holiday music specials have been filmed.  They even call it The Julie Andrews Studio.   The set is assembled over night, propped, lit and reset by morning.  The British Director's Guild grants me a special dispensation so I can direct a London union studio crew.   I learn the British term 'vision mixer', what they call our TD (the Technical Director who switches cameras in the booth).  I learn that British crews take Tea Time seriously and so does their union.  The next morning, the talent arrives, never suspecting this wasn't the studio booked for the shoot all along.  We change the talent call time by two hours, but no one suspects the reason.   For me, the whole thing is a great experience working in a famous studio with a crew of professionals who all talk with the same accent as my darling wife Gloria  (who's  also British).  Unlike some American crews, no one here seems to look down on a very young director (I'm 27 and still look 18 at the time).  The shoot goes well.   Everyone goes home happy.  The Agency prestige is still intact.  Everyone keeps their job (being the owner's son saves Ted).  All that is left behind in London is a boatload of cash that didn't have to be spent had someone planned more carefully, had anyone checked and double checked details,  had those in charge not waited until the last minute to discover disaster loomed because of someone's incompetence!  My excuse was that I was still a wet-behind-the-ears kid who didn't know any better.  But I was learning fast...!

Well...maybe not THAT fast.  Fast forward a couple of years.  I'm shooting a Revolutionary War musical drama at historic Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York.  The producer is a nice enough guy, runs the west coast office of the agency where I'm a director, but way over his head on a big period drama.

We have been shooting scenes for several days in historic locations in the area.  But the most important scenes are set inside the Fort itself.  One problem (okay, call it a challenge!).   Fort Ticonderoga is one of upstate New York's most popular tourist attrations.   The curators will only shut down the fort from tourists for ONE DAY!    I scout the Fort several times, prepare storyboards of every scene, map out a detailed schedule that will get everything shot in one very long shoot day and night.  We can do this!  We have meetings with the department heads.  Nothing is left to chance...or so I think as I get up at 3:00am on the morning of the Fort shoot.

 I ride with the DP and camera crew out to the site.  It's pitch black in the dense forests that surround the national park where the Fort silently looms over the landscape. 

At 4:00 am, a caravan of production trucks pulls into the parking lot, just beyond the gates of the empty Fort.  There's no one around, not even a night guard.  The grip crew set up a bank of floodlights, powered by a portable generator, illuminating a small army of technicians and workers who begin unloading equipment, setting up tents for makeup, wardrobe, props and catering.  By 5:00 am another caravan of buses and cars has delivered  the cast and 200 extras for makeup and wardrobe.  We're on schedule.  A few minues later, the executive producers ('the money suits', I call them) arrive to watch us work. We're spending their money.  I understand.

About this time, the  Director of Photography comes up to me and asks, "Who has the key to the Fort?"  I have a crew of 100 and a cast of 200 all expecting to walk through those gates any minute, not to mention the frugal minded cost-conscious money suits who have arrived 'to watch'.  This is not a question I want to hear!   I respond in as calm a voice as I can, "I don't know.   I'll find out."  I hurry off to find my producer who suddenly realizes nobody, certainly not he,  bothered to make sure the gatekeeper would show up at 5:00 in the morning to let us in.  It never occured to him!  We don't even have a name or an after hours phone number for ANYONE from the Fort. Now I AM in a panic.   If the money dudes discover our incompetence while the clock is ticking on THEIR money, let's just say 'it will not go well'! 

I instruct my department heads to do some of the work here in the parking lot that they were planning on doing after they got inside the fort - to stall for time.  (That plan will only work for so long though and not for all departments.  It's rather hard to focus lights without being in the room where you want to put them!).  But I'll do anything to keep from having everyone crowd around the locked gates just waiting!   I figure as long as the exec producers see everyone doing 'stuff' they won't suspect anything and therefore won't ask any questions, either.  I also start praying!

Drawing on my mid-western logic, I conclude that the gatekeeper likely lives in one of the houses we passed along the road leading to the fort.  This is not a big town!   We send one of the assistant directors to knock on doors.  It's still dark, just past 5:30 in the morning!   When was the last time someone pounded on YOUR door at 5:30 in the morning?!   We consider breaking the lock, but decide doing that might set off alarms and summon the local police who would arrest us all (or maybe just me!)  for tresspasing!  How would that go down?!   We keep stalling instead.  Maybe we'll get lucky and find the gatekeeper at home.


About six o'clock a minor miracle occurs.  I take that back...For me it is a BIG miracle!  The gatekeeper just shows up on his own.  Apparently he woke up, wondered why no one from the film company had asked for the gate key, and just decided to come on down and make sure everything was okay!  Was he a sight for sore eyes!!!  There IS a God!

Disaser was averted.  The executive producers never suspected our incompetence.  My DP DID extract a small pint of blood for losing an hour of his lighting set up time.  But all in all, the rest of the day was a success...just barely!!!

Lessons?  Don't stretch yourself too far.   Have enough people on whatever you're doing so each one can do their job well.  Don't put someone in a job they aren't qualified to do.  If they happen to be the nephew of the boss or a big investor, then give them an assistant who knows what needs to be done and can discreetly make sure it gets done without having to take credit though they did the real work!  Think through every step of every aspect of a shoot or an event or a stage performance.   Plan for things to go wrong.  They will.  They ALWAYS will.  But if you plan well, if you build redundancy (backup) into your procedures and your people, you'll minimize the potential for disaster when bad things happen.  You'll also make life a lot easier for you and everyone else.  You might even end up having fun!   Look at it this way, 'The devil's only in the details unless you get there first!"

"Will The Show Really Go On?"

If you were to wander into the cockpit of a 747 jumbo jet or the cabin of the Space Shuttle, you'd be  struck by the redundant systems on board these engineering marvels.  Okay, you'd probably be shot by an Air Marshall or an Air Force Marine first, but as you were falling to the floor that's what you'd see!   The builders of these technological marvels realized that no machine is fail safe.  Sooner or later the best designed and built systems will mallfunction in some way.  If the failure occurs in a primary system in mid-flight, the result can be distastrous, even fatal for hundreds of people.  There's no pulling over to the side of the road to wait for the Auto Club to bring a tow truck!

The same is true if you're the producer or director of a live show - or plan to be one somewhere in your future. Personally, I've produced everything from small church events to VIP black tie Hollywood Charity dinners for a thousand, arena shows for 50,000, stage plays and movie premiers, and my share of music concerts for 30,000 screaming teenagers.  The principles at work are the same for all of them.  Once the curtain goes up or the show starts, there's no stopping until the final curtain call or the smoke clears from the finale pyrotechnics and the hall empties.  Yet all too many producers and directors fail to take precautions to avoid showstoppers of the non-welcome variety! 

Several years ago, I had an experience that jolted my awareness of this truth.

I was producing and directing what turned out to be the last public event of the legendary "King and Queen of the Cowboys", a star-studded tribute to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.  Co-hosted by Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, and Roy and Dale's close friend Dr. Billy Graham, the guest list read like a who's who of a bygone era of television and the movies.  But my favorite guest, the one star who made the event special for me personally, was none other than the masked man himself, The Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore.  I remember going out to meet him and his dear wife at their home outside  of Los Angeles several days before the show.  I'm driving down the freeway when it suddenly hits me.  I'm about to meet the Lone Ranger himself and without his mask.  This is an awesome moment for a kid who grew up watching re-run cowboy movie serials every Saturday morning.  The visit was no less delightful.  The Moores graciously hosted me in their home.  Before I left, Clayton autographed pictures for both me and my young son, even though David's movie stars were still confined to the Sesame Street Muppet universe at that point.   I reluctantly left, feeling higher than a kite!  I had met the Lone Ranger.  How could your life be the same after that?!

So here we were on the day of the show.  It was a black tie, $1,000 a plate dinner, the proceeds going to the good work of The Salvation Army (a group of dedicated folks I've had the privilege of serving on several projects over the years).   We finished rehearsals with the young singers and dancers who were to perform on the show, then took a break.  It was early afternoon.  The show call for cast and crew was several hours away.  I needed to go back to my office for something (I forget now just what) but in any event, I left the venue, the Universal City Hilton ballroom, perched just above Universal Studios.  My office was in Hollywood, just over the hill.  I could easily make it back before the show call.  I hurried outside and drove away.

A couple hours later, my mission away accomplished, I'm driving back to Universal City on the 101 Hollywood Freeway when I suddenly had a frightening thought.  Were something to happen to me right then and I didn't get back to the Hilton ballroom, the entire show would collapse.  No one else knew all of the cues, knew the live script well enough to call the show backwards and forwards, knew it well enough to deal with anything that might come up.  In short, I was indispensible to the show's success - not a good thing, not a good thing at all!

I made a decision that afternoon that would forever change how I work.  I determined I would never again put myself in a position to be indispensible to the succcess of a live show or event I was producing or directing. I would make certain that someone else knew everything they would need to know to replace me without the audience ever knowing I was not there.  But not only me, I determined on shows I produced  to make certain every department head assigned someone on their team to be their shadow as well, in the event THEY were prevented from carrying out their responsibilities for a performance.   Stage performers have done this for generations.  How many famous careers have been launched because a celebrity couldn't go on and their understudy filled in at the last minute?   I simply applied the same principle to the positions of producer and director and the other staff positions vital to a live show.  I DID make it back that night.  The Roy and Dale tribute was a great success, but more about that in a moment...

Fast forward a few years.   David Moore, Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a close personal friend, calls me one afternoon about producing and directing the official Groundblessing Ceremonies for the new Cathedral of Los Angeles, "Our Lady of the Angels".   I'm thinking 'groundblessing', 'groundbreaking', a few old guys standing around a hole with gold painted shovels, wearing hard hats, making a few boring speeches, posing for pictures. Why do they need me?

I found out soon enough.  Not only will this be the last cathedral to be built in the world in the 20th century, but the GroundBlessing is to be a City of Los Angeles official event.  A parade of 6,000 in uniformed dress will march through the streets of downtown LA from the old cathedral to the site of the new one. A thousand voice choir will greet the parade at the new Cathedral site where the mayor and city officials join church leaders for a festive ceremony.  Pope John Paul II will send a Papal greeting to the audience of 20,000 assembled from across Southern California (a traffic logistics challenge).   A bulldozer will move the earth as balloons are released over the sky above Los Angeles.  This is a big deal!

I have three dozen department heads managing an event staff of some 200, who in turn oversee over a thousand volunteers.  The event is a year in the planning.  At our first planning meeting, I hand out a form on which each department head not only fills out their own information, but must identify and provide contact information for the individual they have designated as their shadow, the person who will do their job on the day of the event should they fall sick of donut poisoning and die during rehearsals the day before.   The 'backup' staff will be asked to join key planning meetings.  In most cases, the person chosen is already the senior assistant to the person they are shadowing.

Beyond insuring that there is a backup person for every vital position on the live show crew, I have learned in the years of doing this that it makes everyone a better manager (including me), more thoughtful, more careful about the details of their job.  It makes sense.  If you have to communicate everything you are doing to someone else, you become more aware and intentional about what you're doing yourself. The level of excellence rises at every level of the production. 

 The night before the Ground Blessing  event  I walk through the empty site.  A bright moon pierces a star filled night sky overhead.  Long silk banners flutter from the white towers that frame the stage I designed to evoke a sense of Cathedral towers of yesteryear.  A holy peace seems to fill the space.  In a few hours thousands of the faithful will gather to make history as they dedicate this site forever to the worship of almighty God in the great Cathedral that will soon rise on this land.  I walk to the spot in the middle of the audience where blueprints tell me the altar of the new church will be built.  Tomorrow, the Cardinal will walk from the stage to this spot and bless it.  I am humbled to be here.

The last rehearsal ended hours ago. Every department head has checked in.  We are ready.  I go home. But the night is short.  I return just after dawn.  Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, who will be the Cathedral's first pastor,  holds mass under the choir bleachers for the production staff and volunteers.  It is unofficially the first mass to be held at the new Cathedral. I have a sense I am part of something historic.  The Cathedral has been planned to stand for hundreds of years.   

The event goes off without a hitch.  No staff backup replacements are needed but they are there and ready had they been.  I go home exhausted and pleased.  So do 20,000 people who have taken part in an historic event in Los Angeles today.

Back to that Roy Rogers tribute event...  It's a good thing I DID make it back.  In the middle of the show, a big musical medley was being performed by a soloist and a troup of dancers.  The opening dance sequence had bridged into a solo performance by the vocalist while the dancers (still on stage) waited for the next section to begin. Suddenly in the middle of the singer's solo, the background music stopped.  The audio engineer and I looked at each other totally perplexed.  The playback audio deck had frozen without explanation.  On stage, the singer amazingly kept singing like this was SUPPOSED to be an acappella section. What a trouper!  But I knew what was coming.  In 60 seconds,  the dancers are supposed to join the singer to complete the eight minute sequence with a high energy vocal / dance finale.  It will not happen without music.  The show...MY SHOW...will come to a crashingly embarrassing halt.  

The audio engineer checks the playback deck.  Whatever caused it to freeze has unfrozen!  The deck is working fine.  I have an idea of how to save the show!   I throw on a pair of headphones and fast forward on the track as quickly as I can to find the point on the track where the dancers come back in.  (If you are a musician you know that there is no melody line on background tracks for vocalists, only harmony.  The singer provides the melody.  Finding the downbeat for an edit point on a harmony track in the middle of an 8 minute medley is easier said than done!)  With only a few seconds to spare and a silent prayer, I find the note starting the next part of the medley.  I signal the engineer.  I will hit play and he is to instantly slide up the volume, not fade it in.  If we do it right, it will seem to the audience that this was the way it is supposed to be!  I count the beats of the music as the vocalist approaches the mark for the dancers to join.  On stage, I can tell they have no idea what's going on and we have no way to warn them.  We hit the moment.  I restart the track.  On stage the dancers don't miss a beat.  The show is saved.  So am I.  Disaster is averted.  Had I not been there, no one else could have saved the moment.  No one else knew the show, knew the music, would have known what to do.  Today, they would!

Why wouldn't anybody working on a show want to have a backup to protect the continuity of a live performance that their absence could jeopardize.   It's simple. It takes a risk to make yourself 'dispensible'.  It goes against what we have been taught about job security.  It defies our selfish logic that tells us we SHOULD make ourselves indispensible to any endeavor's success, that to do so affirms our worth, increases our value.  But in the world of theater and live events, a higher logic must prevail: a commitment to the success of the show that compells a true professional to make certain you have done your very best to insure that no matter what, "The Show WILL go on!"   The person who works with that kind of attitude is someone I want to work with...someone that to me IS indispensible!

"SELL THE DREAM FIRST..."

I was jazzed!  My company had been invited to pitch a new television series to a major cable tv network.  What's more, the idea for the series had come from the network, they had funded the development costs, and I was the ONLY producer invited to pitch the show toh the top brass.

The reason I was the only producer pitching the network their own show was because I had a long time prior relationship with their executive vice president and he'd pushed us to the top brass.   I can't over-stress how important it is to cultivate and maintain strong friendships in every area of your life.  If they're genuine (people quickly see through networking strategies camouflaged as artificial 'friendships') your friends and long time respected acquaintances will often be the keys that unlock doors of opportunity.   You have to walk through with the goods, but your friends get you there.  It's been that way for 99% of  the jobs I've ever landed as a writer, producer, or director.

Back to the big meeting...

The network flew our presentation team to their headquarters, put us up at a five star hotel, and the next morning we were ushered into a richly appointed conference room on the executive floor of the network.  We set up our charts, checked the PowerPoint, layed out glossy Pitch Notebooks at each chair.  We were ready.

At the appointed hour, a dozen or so top brass arrived.  After idle conversation over gourmet coffee and Danish pastries served on silver platters, the network president arrived and the meeting started.  I began my well-rehearsed presentation.   Suddenly I glanced over at the President.  His head was buried in the notebook in front of him.  Instead of listening to my phenomenal sales presentation, he was hurriedly flipping through the pages till he reached the last section.  I instatntly knew what he was doing.  He had looked till he found the budget and from that moment on, he didn't hear a word I said.  I sensed I was in trouble.  I was right!

At the end of the presentation, the President got up, shook my hand and quickly left the room.  After a brief discussion with the other brass, cordial goodbyes were shared and we flew home without a deal or even the promise of one.  What seemed a 'done deal' evaporated that morning.  I didn't know why...till later.

Six months after, another producer was invited to pitch the same series -- same concept, same show, different outcome.  He got the job and for a budget twice as much as we had proposed!   My friend, the executive vice president, called me to tell me what happened.  At their pitch meeting, the second producer didn't include a budget in any of the materials handed out up front.  In fact, they handed out nothing until after their live presentation that pitched their vision for the show.  They got everyone excited, including the network president.   Once they were all emotionally engaged in the creative concept and the production credentials of the producer to implement it, agreeing to a budget was an easy sell.  They had sold the dream first...paying for it was just after-the-fact necessary housekeeping.

I learned a valuable lesson through that experience.  Once you get people energized by a vision, a concept, a dream,  they'll go the distance to find a way to pay for it and make it happen.  It's a tried and true principle in retail sales.  Convince someone that they MUST HAVE whatever it is you want to sell them, and they'll find a way to pay for it.  "Sell the sizzle" is the way one producer put it!

Don't mistake this to mean you don't have to do your homework and have a thoroughly vetted production plan, budget, schedule and everything else 'due diligence' requires.  At the end of the day, if they do say 'yes' you'll have to perform on time and on budget if you ever want to work for this producer or network again (or with anyone they know!).  But make sure you also never forget that before they ever buy your project, they will have to buy your dream first.  That's what you sell.  The rest is housekeeping!