In a vacuum, passionate creatives will always want more time. But we live in the real world where budgets and time constraints are equally important as getting the ideal shot. Here’s a story of how we acquired a creative’s most useful and dreaded tool.
During preparation for an intense video/photo shoot (see Hawaiian Telcom Fioptics Project), it was evident that we needed a down-to-the-minute solution to keep us on time and on budget. So we employed a quiet, objective-focused crew member. One who never speaks, never grumbles, but lets you know minute after minute that there’s that much less time to get the job done.
Meet “The Timer” — our programmable, large-display countdown clock to help manage a tight schedule.
He enables us to make critical decisions based on the time allocated in the schedule, and verifies (or disproves) if we’ve allocated time appropriately. He also provides a constant—and instant—reference of where we are in the schedule. Nothing is left to chance — everything gets a time allotment because little things add up. Everything from arriving at a location, parking the production trucks, finding the location contact, camera and lighting set up, transitions between scenes, lunch breaks, etc., has an allocated time associated with it.
Our new crew member worked so well for the HT project, we employ him for most of our time-sensitive shoots. You can find The Timer at the center of production, mounted on a camera cart for all to see.
