For my first IMPULSE session I sat down and listened to one episode of the podcast Team Deakins. Every episode they talk to and with people from the film industry. In this specific one their guest was Gregor Wilson, the production manager of films such as Inglorious Bastards, Man of Steal, Justice League and others. Let’s see what he has to say about his very wide-ranging role.
Initially having studied Urban Design, Gregor got involved in film after a very drunk night out. After working different jobs such as construction coordinator, he finally found his place in production management. According to him, the responsibilities of his position include hiring the crew, getting the people, getting the equipment (which consumes the majority of time), working on the schedule and the budget. He works closely together with the line producer, who is one step higher up the hierarchy in a big production.
Gregor goes on to describing his standard steps when being onboarded as a PM. First he has a look at the script to have an idea on locations, necessary decisions, cameras, … right away. He then goes on to making his own schedule where he creates breakdowns of the script and a rough shooting schedule (even though normally the assistant director is responsible for the final shooting schedule) to determine possible problems. After that, the cast availability needs to be checked as well as location availability. According to Wilson, this gets harder every time. The more shows are produced the less stage space, gear, etc. is available to everyone.
To continue he briefly talks about his favorite part of shooting movies: Outdoor shoots. He particularely enjoys them because everyone has to be more flexibile with the weather and one can get light situations that they didn’t expect (which is always exciting for the DPs).
Another big point during his interview was of course the budget (which I will write more about in the next post). Something I didn’t know was that in big productions there is actually a production accountant who is responsible for that. However, the PM is involved in regular money meetings and they work together very closely. Gregor did not mention indie productions but I can imagine that in smaller undertakings, this is still a responsibility assigned to the PM.
An additional new thing for me was that apparently the greatest sin PMs and accountants can make in Hollywood is coming in under budget. This is due to the fact that as soon as there is a surplus of money, studios lose control over how it is use. Also, most studios take up loans from banks to finance the shoots. If a production ends up not using all the money, the studio has made a huge minus with all the interests they will have to pay back unnecessarily. Gregors approach to that is to “take it out on post” (which he says with a laugh).
The third and final interesting thing he mentions (although just in one sentence) is the fact that even though there are a lot of female production supervisors there are not a lot of female production managers. This is especially motivating for me to further persue this interest and maybe make a carreer out of it someday.
Some other points Gregor mentions very briefly are production reports and bond companies, which I will have to look up and research in more detail.
The final subject he talks about is stress and working hours. According to Gregor one of the biggest mistakes production managers can make is not having a good stress management. When you are responsible for so many different parts of a production, being able to make good and calm desicions is very important in the case of an emergency or something happening. Even though you have to be able to work insanely long working hours (e.g. in the US there is no penalty for having your film crew work too long, the situation in AUT will have to be found out about in a seperate post) keeping calm is something that is highly regarded and respected amongst your crew.
After making a joke about why all movies are shot in California (the good weather) the two hosts Roger Deakins and Isabella James Purefoy Ellis close the interview.
As mentioned above there are some things I will have to find out more about: production reports, bond companies and the legal working hours for film crews in Austria.
Links:
- https://www.industrialtrainer.org/production-report and https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/daily-production-report-explained-free-template/
- https://www.mediaservices.com/blog/how-to-bond-a-film-a-definitive-guide-to-completion-bonds/
- https://www.wko.at/branchen/gewerbe-handwerk/film-musikwirtschaft/start.html/ and https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/themen/arbeit_und_pension/arbeitszeit.html
Sources
Team Deakins Podcast: EPISODE 87 – GREGOR WILSON – Production Manager: https://teamdeakins.libsyn.com/gregor-wilson-production-manager (last seen 10.10.2023) (not to self: not cited correctly yet)