First 5 Things A Producer Does On A Movie Set by Zeke Zelker

FilmCourage.com
Nov 3 · 3 min read
(Watch the video interview on Youtube here)

Film Courage: I think in another interview you said you run a tight ship on set?

Zeke Zelker, Writer/Director/Producer of the transmedia project BILLBOARD: Oh…I do.

Film Courage: That’s great. What are five things a director needs to do when they first get on set?

Zeke: Okay…so are you referring to just as a director? Or are you talking about a director-producer?

Film Courage: Let’s try a director-producer.

Zeke: Okay, because that is what I do. I’ve never had the luxury of just being a director. That is why I have to ask that question because being a producer you are worried about money from day one.

“I rehearse my actors. I know what I want. I don’t vacillate onset. I know what I need to cover because I’m thinking of the edit. I shoot for the edit and then I give some freedom.”

What I do is I make sure that everybody’s on time. I’m extremely tough about that. I’ve fired people because they arrived late, straight up. Just because you have a key [grip] that is late and you have 10 people standing around even if they are 15 minutes late. 10 people times 15 is basically two and a half hours of time you’ve lost.

When you’re dealing with minuscule budgets, that kind of stuff adds up very quickly and that means money lost. I take that stuff extremely seriously.

I rehearse my actors. I know what I want. I don’t vacillate onset. I know what I need to cover because I’m thinking of the edit. I shoot for the edit and then I give some freedom. I’m very much a stickler upon my script, very much so. I don’t really allow much improv because again it comes down to budget.

With the web series we’d let a lot of improv jokes we had at different budget structure for that then we did for the feature film.

The one thing I try to do too is make breakfast for everybody. Just because 1) it puts me in the mindset of what I need to do for the day just by the repetition of doing things. Also 2) it’s a matter of welcoming people to the set that day and then also the idea of….(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

(Watch the video interview on Youtube here)

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Film Courage

Check out writing, filmmaking and acting via videos, articles, podcasts at FilmCourage.com and Youtube.com/user/filmcourage — New videos daily!

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