PRODUCTION MANAGER in our 10-minute shortfilms Savu and Maria

by Jonna Vainio and Maarit Vaahteranoksa

How did Savu and Maria end up in the production?

Movies to production were chosen from the 3rd year students’ scripts done in the script writing course. Unlike in the past, this time the screenwriters would also direct their own scripts.
We couldn’t just focus on the story when we were trying to decide which movies would be taken into production, we had to take several things into consideration: we didn’t have unlimited time and money at our hands. Too much to do in too little time would be something we didn’t want.
Our selection jury consisted of lecturers of screenwriting, cinematography and editing.
Each director had 30minutes to convince us that his/her movie was the one that should be chosen. Luckily we, the production managers and the rest of the jury also had a chance to ask questions before making the big decision. The decision wasn’t easy but it was the right one.

About the pre-production

We had only a two-week pre-production period for each movie. What this meant for us production managers was that quick decisions and 100% dedication were a must. Luckily we were able to recruit the entire crew relatively fast.
We had a lot of meetings with the heads of departments to keep on track with the development of the production. There had to be meeting with the entire crew also to share the information. For the meetings were reserved the classrooms and also informed the crew via email and Facebook. We also made sure everyone signed the contract of employment.

About the money

We were given a budget of 500euros which we had to divide to each department as fast as possible so especially the wardrobe and art direction department were able to start doing their job. At first it looked like we would soon end up to the street to beg more money to actually do what we had planned. 500 euros may seem like a decent amount of money but at these gas prices only the traveling expenses would be a major percentage of our budget.
In the end we managed. Although most of the departments had very limited but still somehow sufficient resources.
A big thank you goes to the team of people who dedicated themselves to the search of sponsors. Our sponsors include a couple of fleamarkets where wardrobe and art direction departments were allowed to borrow some stuff. In addition some sponsors donated us bread, coffee, juice, baguettes and candies. All the things we got from our sponsors saved us a tremendous amount of money! We couldn’t have done what we did without our sponsors.

Right persons to the right roles

For ”Maria” we had to cast a few roles for adults and also one for a young boy. We didn’t have much experience in casting kids but personally I had some experience working with young actors and actresses so the task didn’t feel that scary or too big of a deal. After working with 150 child-performers at a time( like in movie Ella and friends last summer ) casting one young boy for an awesome and absolutely adorable role was easy and fun. We also felt that the role was also something fun for the boy: as an actor he would get to make funny faces and eat candies.
Casting that I did for Maria is for sure my masterpiece of all the castings I’ve done before. Casting’s one of my favourite parts of making a movie and as succeeding is always nice, this production was very rewarding right from the beginning. Most of the actors and actresses where somewhat familiar since I had worked with them before in some previous production.
Savu’s casting was an intense part of the production. We needed to find the exactly right people to the roles and therefore a lot of people were asked to come to audition. The director chose her actors and actresses from a huge group of both professional and amateur actors and actresses.

When we finally got on the set..

In both productions, sets were really great. In Maria we shot in three very different but mind-blowingly awesome locations. I’m afraid I cannot tell you more about the locations, you just gotta wait for the premiere.
Some locations weren’t that close to the centre of Turku and some even in that remote places that the public trasportation wasn’t much help when trying to get the entire crew on the set.
In ”Savu” the production manager had be a part-time runner, caterer and assistant director. So still no rest for the production manager. Instead of being a part-time ”what-ever-is-needed” isn’t something production manager is for on set, for example we handled some of the legal stuff that includes contracts with our actors and actresses.

The shooting of Savu and Maria started in November so the weather had its chance to either do good or bad to us. Maria dodged the biggest bullet since Savu was shot first. There was something most of us weren’t quite prepared for…snow. Sure we all knew it was possible that it would snow but very few of the car owners (including our school) had changed the tires. Due to weather conditions, we couldn’t shoot Savu that day. Cancelation of one day meant that those scenes had to be re-scheduled. For the re-scheduled day all the actors and locations and several other things had to be checked: it would have been a disaster if the actors/actresses had been unavailable for this re-scheduled day. Luckily everything went fine!

The most important tools for us production managers were a phone and a computer. We spent a lot of time in our production office at school during the pre-production. Phones were ringing and the keyboards of our computer were almost on fire (not really! There was no fire-hazard in any part of our productions!) as we sent tons of emails and made phone calls to ensure everything was in order for us to start shooting.
We got some students from production class to the help and we were able to share some of our responsibilities to them. That really came handy when we got problems for example with car reservations. Not having enough vehicles to transport all the filming equipment and the crew to the set remarkably complicates shooting a movie! Also sometimes we just needed to make some quick phone call, sometimes to gather or distribute information to the crew and sometimes it was just nice to know there’s people who are there to help if needed.

There wasn’t even two whole weeks between the shooting of Maria and Savu. Although many worked in both films, we got things done pretty much in schedule and no one got burn-out..at least not yet! Us production manager will keep on working until the premiere supervising the post-production and trying to keep all the post-production work in schedule also. It’s already less than 3months to the premiere 15th of february! Yikes!

We would both like to thank both hard-working crews, extremely talented actresses and actors and also our sponsors! We made it all together.

See you all in the premiere!