Posts Tagged → movie

How to make sides in 30 seconds or less

Yes its possible! You can make sides in 30 seconds or less.

Imagine it’s 9:30PM on a Thursday and you’ve had a long day on set as the 2nd AD. You are about to wrap and are trying to get the call sheet sent out as soon as wrap is called so that everyone can go to sleep with the info for tomorrow. The UPM has asked that digital sides be sent out with the call sheet so you know that if anything changes it will be paramount that these sides are made quickly by whoever does them. The 1st AD has just informed you that yes indeed they are pushing a scene and adding a pickup. The sides need to be made or re-done quickly.

7 Steps to making sides in 30 seconds or less

  1. Choose a software that can make digital sides. Two of my favorite platforms for this purpose are Croogloo and Setkeeper. Both platforms are incredible for script distro, watermarking, creating sides and more…
  2. Upload your script to the platform. Once you decide on a platform you will need to upload a CLEAN version of the script to either platform. I prefer to go into final draft, select all, clear asterisks and save the version as a clean version. Seeing asterisks on sides is oftentimes unnecessary and can make it difficult to read.
  3. Decide what scenes will be in the sides. Usually the sides are listed on the shooting schedule or one-liner, or the advance on the call sheet. Most times there will be a small change or addition that only the 1st AD and 2nd AD know about. Its best to always check with the 2nd AD before making the sides.
  4. Select the sides in the program. Login to your software and jump into the side making section. Once you are there you can choose the scenes you want to make and the order you want to list them in. I typically prefer to list them in script order because it can be confusing to look for scene 1 at the end of the sides.
  5. Decide what format you need the arrows and shading. Within these programs you can decide whether or not to gray out the previous scenes or what type of arrows to use. Graying out can be helpful, however if you have a tight budget it can make the toner waist a lot of ink.
  6. Attach the front of the Call Sheet. This can be helpful so you don’t have to do this later.
  7. Download the sides as a pdf. You will be given the option to put one or two to page. In general I like to download one to a page because I can print two to a page in printer settings (if using a mac) pretty easily. Once you have downloaded the sides you can either attach the front of the Call Sheet or print them as is and then attach the front when its ready. The easiest way to attach the front of the call sheet is to drag the pdf into pdf viewer and then click save.

What Gets Measured Gets Improved

Peter Drucker said this phrase “What Gets Measured Gets Improved” 40 years ago. There is a lot of truth to this phrase for both individuals and companies alike.

When it comes to the film industry there are tools to measure the work day and often this is formatted in the (often outdated) form of a Production Report or PR. PR’s provide a lot of useful information such as out times, reasons for delays, scene completion info, hard drive data and more. While PR’s can be helpful they are often formatted in legal format that can be difficult to parse and really determine what the real problem areas are.

Several tech companies are working on solutions that will hopefully be alternatives to the standard PR.

One of these companies “Cinapse” has recently launched an exciting product Cinapse Live. What’s unique about Cinapse Live is its ability to track real-time info for the AD Dept that is often communicated over walkies, group texts or emails.

Having real time metrics can be very critical to finding solutions to problems and communicating that information efficiently.

My favorite part of Cinapse Live is the ability to change the day’s scene orders at the click of a button and then push notify the crew who are part of the app.

Book your demo today!

Learn from the Legends

What do “Star Wars”, “The Godfather”, “Back to the Future”, “Batman”, “Goonies”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Top Gun”, “Pirate of the Caribbean”, “Interstellar” and “Pulp Fiction” all have in common?

Simple: Amazing Assistant Directors.

A never been done before movie about Film heroes. These ADs have collected numerous stories from legendary films. These inspirational film veterans have the best advice and wisdom for those who strive to become film makers and stories that would intrigue any movie watcher.

Legendary AD’s of the most famous and Legendary movies of all time….

TRAILER

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