The Roar of the crowd
©
I can't state this strongly enough. One of the most important factors in pre-production is communication.
The beauty of a production office that is clicking on all cylinders is that you have many people working both independently, and yet as one. As producer, it is your responsibility to guide this lumbering ship smoothly toward the first day of principal photography.
I always bring my Assistant Director on as early as I can afford. One reason for this is the symbiotic relationship between the schedule and the securing of locations.
Early on, when you first put together a budget, you prepared a "perfect schedule". That schedule assumed that you could get certain locations on certain days, and that you could pair certain locations in order to shoot out certain actors. Now, in pre-production, you face realities.
As producer, the location manager should be running all of his best choices past you. While the director will have to give final approval, there is no point in wasting the director's time with locations that either have logistical problems or locations that will never work within your budget.
You should be narrowing down choices with the AD; the director, the DP and the designer, then letting the AD put together a schedule of looking at these locations. I try to go on these scouts if I can. AS producer, you are the ultimate mediator, and God help the producer who lets his director fall in love with a location that you know will become difficult to secure later. The same goes for resolving disputes between the production team in the selection process - and they do happen.
Most often, these disputes revolve around artistic differences. For example, the DP loves the way light comes through a certain location, but the designer hates the architecture of the building. If you are not there as producer, then the director comes in the middle of the argument. It's the favortie-child factor.
Ah, the favorite-child factor.
Much as siblings will compete for the love of parents, department heads often fight for approval of the director. People who become artists are usually those kids who raised their hands right away when the teacher asked a question to show how smart they were. Me, I plead guilty. I was one of those kids. That's why I know it when I see it in department heads.
Which leads me to another priority of pre-production: time management. This refers not only to managing your time, but the director's.
