Don't skimp on the VFX says McCoy; On the set of Monster Date with Producer/Writer/Director Elsa Morena, Producer/Writer/Director Amy Doherty and VFX Editor James Choi.

Our “ask a pro” guest interview this week is with line producer Jonathan McCoy. McCoy began his career in advertising where he produced TV and radio commercials for Fisher-Price Power Wheels®. After confronting the moral dilemma of hawking gas-guzzling toys to children, he made the switch to independent film in 1999. McCoy’s recent projects include co-producing The East (Fox Searchlight/Scott Free – coming out fall 2012) and A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas (New Line).

See a full list of McCoy’s credits here.

1.    Don’t skimp on prep time: Although it is important to keep up momentum to get cast and financing to synergize and it’s easy to save costs by minimizing the amount of time department heads are on payroll, prep time is much cheaper than shoot time and the better prepared the film is, the more organized and successful each shoot day will be. The goal is to get as much movie for the money you have, not just the bottom line, and the best way to do that is to allow the different departments enough time to prepare to do their jobs well.

 
2.    Don’t choose a location based on tax credits alone: I’ve seen quite often producers who will take a budget for Los Angeles and slap on a tax credit by taking the production to a different state and think all they need to do is add a few hotel rooms. Before you take a film on location to capture a tax incentive, really make sure you understand the crew base available. Every movie has to bring some crew, and three is not going to cut it. Make sure to consider travel time and idle days and car rentals and additional drivers that will be needed to handle all the imported crew. However many crew you think you will need, it will end up being more, so don’t shoot yourself in the foot by assuming there are “great local crews” all over the country. There are, but they’re probably working on the biggest movies that come to town instead of the indie movies.

3.    Don’t fear VFX:  Most producers I know are afraid of visual effects because it seems expensive and like something big fancy movies do. VFX for basic work such as composites and basic corrections/replacements are more affordable now than they’ve ever been. Technology has greatly improved and become cheaper, and there are more VFX artists competing for work than ever before. Many times VFX can help reduce costs and speed up production time. I’d recommend any producer bid out their script with VFX companies (why not…it’s free!) before deciding to go into production with archaic conceptions of how things are done just because we’ve done driving, stunt, set augmentation, critters and Martians quite expensively for the past 70 years. Stop the waste.

Jonathan McCoy will be teaching a seminar on budgeting and scheduling at Film Independent.  Get your tickets now. 

By Kelly Thomas for Film Independent

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February 8th, 2012 • No Comments