Production Supervisor
As the production supervisor I managed developing workflow pipelines for each department, facilitate interdepartmental communication and collaboration, and cleared roadblocks before they could seriously hinder the production.
ROLE
Getting into the flow
During pre-production I met with each department head and went over our goals for the production and what items on the asset itinerary were high priority and which were low priority. After organizing that list I worked with the department heads to create deadlines that felt fair to all parties and left it to each department head to assign the tasks to their team members. I would check in with each department to make sure milestones were being met on time and learn of any possible roadblocks before they became an issue for production. When milestones were missed I worked to identify the point of failure and meet with department heads to discuss possible solutions. Be that extra hands or a readjustment of their sprints in order to better meet the teams needs while still keeping the greater production schedule on time.
Working Across Disciplines
All the departments on a film must be able to work together in order for a production to succeed. Part of my job as the production supervisor is to make sure that each department is aware of each others needs and help facilitate collaboration between departments during filming.
An example of this is ensuring that the special effects department, VFX in video game terms, and the Props department understand what each department needs to do during or after a scene as they often overlap in the physical areas on set that they need to access. To that end I would ensure that both the special effects and props departments know what each others plans are for the scene and have worked together to create a priority list of who needs to be where first. In order to do this I have become adept and communicating with all levels of personnel in each department so that I can make sure to pick up any communicative slack that may occur.
Dealing With Setbacks
It is an inevitability with all projects that were will be an issue that you did not forsee that will bring things to a grinding halt. For Up on The House Top that issue was our reindeer. The puppet we had purchased during shipment had gotten its pelt damaged and because of this ended up looking more like a Muppet than a terrifying yuletide beast. Of course this realization came all to late as the day it arrived was also the day it would be used on the shoot. An emergency meeting was held where I determined that the best course of action so as not to delay production would be to redraw the shot list and play the deer as more of an unseen antagonist than it was originally intended. Working with the director, the director of photography, and the stunt coordinator we quickly created a version of the deer scenes that would allow for suspense while also showing the deer as little as possible.