So I work as a production assistant when I can, my city isn't really a film city (yet) so I only get work when productions come here. That being said, I've worked on a lot of different sets, indie...
Exemplary
So I work as a production assistant when I can, my city isn't really a film city (yet) so I only get work when productions come here. That being said, I've worked on a lot of different sets, indie sets, TV sets, big studio sets, and streaming sets. Specifically I worked for about a week on the production of an Amazon Prime action adventure show (which I'm under NDA for, so no name dropping). If you keep up with production news nothing that I say will really be new information, but I think it's important to understand how Streaming productions operate in opposition to other productions.
The show started not with a creative idea but as a business premise. Salke wanted a global series that could take place in multiple locations and lead to country-specific spinoffs.
This is where the problem comes in. In a creative field you should have the funding, or at least the ability, to create the best of what you want in your particular field for that production. The DP should be allowed to work with the director to map shots and style, the prop master should be given some freedom to create realistic and beautiful props, etc. In a business you minimize cost and maximize profit, and in a high cost venture like film & tv that means cutting costs in production and pre-production.
When I was on set for Amazon, it was the most hectic experience of my life. I've been on some indie productions that were so awful that the production manager didn't even hire catering. Amazon was worse (not in the catering area, they had good catering). One day I was assembling some camera equipment and had to disassemble it and set up a completely different set of cameras. When I asked why, the production supervisor said they got things mixed up on the production bible and we were setting up for the wrong day. I spent a lot of time running around getting coffee and shooting permits for that production, but every time I was on set it was something else. The poor poor prop master was essentially hot gluing shit together on-the-spot according to the whims of the director. Most of the shooting was done on-location, but even still most of the cinematography was being done with the omission of the thin facades that they were passing off as sets in mind. The script supervisor was more of an idea than an actual person I saw running around... I could go on.
Even with all that shit, the worst part of it all is that we stayed entirely on schedule the whole time. That's great out of respect for my time, terrible for the quality of a show when you have so much going wrong. The entire thing was done with a "we'll fix it in post" mentality. When you give some level of scrutiny to any Amazon show, you'll see what I mean. There's a great video about Rings of Power's costumes that exemplifies what I'm talking about. Cheap, no real thought put into it, all because of the expedited production process all in the spirit of cutting costs. Which ironically loses the studios everytime because when your pre-production is almost non-existant, then your production goes bad, when your production goes bad then the best case scenario is cookie-cutter schlock that no one really wants to watch seriously.
This is also what they're fighting against in the writers strike, this assembly-lineification of a creative profession that makes things worse for the people in those creative fields and for the consumer because they get a worse piece of "art" for it.
I'm kinda rambling here and I'm not sure how to bring this post to a point, but hopefully this gives at least a little perspective into how streaming productions operate and why they're bad for the industry.
I have a friend who worked on some of their games, and his experience mirrors yours. They do enough to sound good on paper, get talented individuals, great technology, sellable theme. But the...
I have a friend who worked on some of their games, and his experience mirrors yours. They do enough to sound good on paper, get talented individuals, great technology, sellable theme. But the products aren't properly supported, mismanaged, and poorly advertised. All of the more nebulous points of game development are ignored, the soft skills, the flexibility to make a good product. They're satisfied with doing the absolute bare minimum, and then they're surprised when their sales reflect the absolute bare minimum.
See, this pretty much sums up my issue with new shows/movies. It feels like the studios have far too much say over how things are handled where the people actually creating the content are sitting...
See, this pretty much sums up my issue with new shows/movies.
It feels like the studios have far too much say over how things are handled where the people actually creating the content are sitting at the "kids table"
It's worth noting that, while I agree with you that a lot of new big studio productions do have this problem, I'd actually say we are living in a pretty great time for innovative film. A24 is a...
It's worth noting that, while I agree with you that a lot of new big studio productions do have this problem, I'd actually say we are living in a pretty great time for innovative film. A24 is a big pioneer there for sure, but even more so I'd encourage anyone who wants to see the really good stuff to look up your local film festivals and get out to those as much as you can. So, in short the more you get away from big studio films the better the film is lol.
Obviously that's a big barrier in accessibility, a lot of people don't have festivals in their general area, but all of my favorite films of the past couple of years have been in from festivals.
You're right about the Smaller films. But there's a reason all these big dollar films are flopping at the box office. It's not that we don't want to see movies, we don't want to see shitty movies
You're right about the Smaller films.
But there's a reason all these big dollar films are flopping at the box office. It's not that we don't want to see movies, we don't want to see shitty movies
That sounds like a lot of wasted effort. Isn’t pre-production cheaper? Maybe they’ll learn to spend more time planning, just out of efficiency concerns?
That sounds like a lot of wasted effort. Isn’t pre-production cheaper? Maybe they’ll learn to spend more time planning, just out of efficiency concerns?
Oh it absolutely is a lot of wasted effort. Pre-pro is often seen as a waste of time by corporations (note: no one actually in the industry thinks this) because often no tangible product is coming...
Oh it absolutely is a lot of wasted effort.
Pre-pro is often seen as a waste of time by corporations (note: no one actually in the industry thinks this) because often no tangible product is coming out of it. It's usually a producer getting a team together, and a director working with their department heads to create a production bible and talk about how to actually do the things they want to do. Pre-pro usually involves a lot of speculation, testing to see what works and what doesn't, and overall a lot of creative work that may or may not actually materialize in production. While not always expensive, it can be, it is seen as an area where corners can be cut.
It's a necessary step to get creative and innovative art. But the big-wig's take is that it's an unnecessarily long step for what could be accomplished by doing things completely by-the-books. This doesn't take into account that no two productions are the same unless they're soap operas, but more often than not money men can't really tell the difference anyways, hence we get hellish productions like that, thus we get the writers strike.
Wow it is uncanny how relatable this is to a totally different field - Data Science. The number of times I've seen companies dismissing or cutting down opportunity analysis and exploratory data...
Pre-pro is often seen as a waste of time by corporations (note: no one actually in the industry thinks this) because often no tangible product is coming out of it.
Wow it is uncanny how relatable this is to a totally different field - Data Science. The number of times I've seen companies dismissing or cutting down opportunity analysis and exploratory data analysis in the interest of "efficiency" because of those exact concerns is unimaginable.
So I work as a production assistant when I can, my city isn't really a film city (yet) so I only get work when productions come here. That being said, I've worked on a lot of different sets, indie sets, TV sets, big studio sets, and streaming sets. Specifically I worked for about a week on the production of an Amazon Prime action adventure show (which I'm under NDA for, so no name dropping). If you keep up with production news nothing that I say will really be new information, but I think it's important to understand how Streaming productions operate in opposition to other productions.
This is where the problem comes in. In a creative field you should have the funding, or at least the ability, to create the best of what you want in your particular field for that production. The DP should be allowed to work with the director to map shots and style, the prop master should be given some freedom to create realistic and beautiful props, etc. In a business you minimize cost and maximize profit, and in a high cost venture like film & tv that means cutting costs in production and pre-production.
When I was on set for Amazon, it was the most hectic experience of my life. I've been on some indie productions that were so awful that the production manager didn't even hire catering. Amazon was worse (not in the catering area, they had good catering). One day I was assembling some camera equipment and had to disassemble it and set up a completely different set of cameras. When I asked why, the production supervisor said they got things mixed up on the production bible and we were setting up for the wrong day. I spent a lot of time running around getting coffee and shooting permits for that production, but every time I was on set it was something else. The poor poor prop master was essentially hot gluing shit together on-the-spot according to the whims of the director. Most of the shooting was done on-location, but even still most of the cinematography was being done with the omission of the thin facades that they were passing off as sets in mind. The script supervisor was more of an idea than an actual person I saw running around... I could go on.
Even with all that shit, the worst part of it all is that we stayed entirely on schedule the whole time. That's great out of respect for my time, terrible for the quality of a show when you have so much going wrong. The entire thing was done with a "we'll fix it in post" mentality. When you give some level of scrutiny to any Amazon show, you'll see what I mean. There's a great video about Rings of Power's costumes that exemplifies what I'm talking about. Cheap, no real thought put into it, all because of the expedited production process all in the spirit of cutting costs. Which ironically loses the studios everytime because when your pre-production is almost non-existant, then your production goes bad, when your production goes bad then the best case scenario is cookie-cutter schlock that no one really wants to watch seriously.
This is also what they're fighting against in the writers strike, this assembly-lineification of a creative profession that makes things worse for the people in those creative fields and for the consumer because they get a worse piece of "art" for it.
I'm kinda rambling here and I'm not sure how to bring this post to a point, but hopefully this gives at least a little perspective into how streaming productions operate and why they're bad for the industry.
Edit: correcting typos from my fat fingers.
I have a friend who worked on some of their games, and his experience mirrors yours. They do enough to sound good on paper, get talented individuals, great technology, sellable theme. But the products aren't properly supported, mismanaged, and poorly advertised. All of the more nebulous points of game development are ignored, the soft skills, the flexibility to make a good product. They're satisfied with doing the absolute bare minimum, and then they're surprised when their sales reflect the absolute bare minimum.
See, this pretty much sums up my issue with new shows/movies.
It feels like the studios have far too much say over how things are handled where the people actually creating the content are sitting at the "kids table"
It's worth noting that, while I agree with you that a lot of new big studio productions do have this problem, I'd actually say we are living in a pretty great time for innovative film. A24 is a big pioneer there for sure, but even more so I'd encourage anyone who wants to see the really good stuff to look up your local film festivals and get out to those as much as you can. So, in short the more you get away from big studio films the better the film is lol.
Obviously that's a big barrier in accessibility, a lot of people don't have festivals in their general area, but all of my favorite films of the past couple of years have been in from festivals.
You're right about the Smaller films.
But there's a reason all these big dollar films are flopping at the box office. It's not that we don't want to see movies, we don't want to see shitty movies
That sounds like a lot of wasted effort. Isn’t pre-production cheaper? Maybe they’ll learn to spend more time planning, just out of efficiency concerns?
Oh it absolutely is a lot of wasted effort.
Pre-pro is often seen as a waste of time by corporations (note: no one actually in the industry thinks this) because often no tangible product is coming out of it. It's usually a producer getting a team together, and a director working with their department heads to create a production bible and talk about how to actually do the things they want to do. Pre-pro usually involves a lot of speculation, testing to see what works and what doesn't, and overall a lot of creative work that may or may not actually materialize in production. While not always expensive, it can be, it is seen as an area where corners can be cut.
It's a necessary step to get creative and innovative art. But the big-wig's take is that it's an unnecessarily long step for what could be accomplished by doing things completely by-the-books. This doesn't take into account that no two productions are the same unless they're soap operas, but more often than not money men can't really tell the difference anyways, hence we get hellish productions like that, thus we get the writers strike.
Wow it is uncanny how relatable this is to a totally different field - Data Science. The number of times I've seen companies dismissing or cutting down opportunity analysis and exploratory data analysis in the interest of "efficiency" because of those exact concerns is unimaginable.