Time constraints and personnel

Time constraints and personnel info:

What does the term time constraint mean?

A constraint is something that limits your freedom to what you want to do. A constraint related to time between items/events.

What is a time constraint?

Examples of time constraints include completing a prototype design in time for a client demonstration and completing a financial audit before the fiscal year-end. 

Resource constraints refer to the limitations on staffing, equipment and other resources that are necessary to complete a project. Another example of a time constraint might be having employees for a certain period of time and so having to complete the project within that amount of time, this could mean long hours with few breaks.

What is personnel?

 The people who work for a company or organisation.

Time constraints:

• Final deadlines
• Interim deadlines (project often built backwards from this)
• Availability of people
• Availability of equipment
• Days/hours that people can work
• Relying on volunteers
• Holiday/seasonal issues 

Personnel:

•  Skills
• Number of people
• Experience of your personnel
• Audit of knowledge
• Some may need to be provided with training (e.g. sound technician)  

Poster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnV0GNtHlyU

1. What does the role of production designer entail?

(They need to read the script and understand it the way the director understands it, and how the director sees it and what they want to visually accomplish. 

During pre production they're given the script and the budget, and they have to try to get the sets made - from a garden, palace to a garbage dumb. They use practical locations as well as built sets depending on the script.)

The primary responsibility is responding to the script and trying to make your vision fit with the restraints of any budget, also maintaining a good work relationship with everyone on the team.

The production designer is in charge of making sure each shooting location is perfect, prepared, and on point with the vision of the film. Film is a language of visual storytelling, and so the visuals captured by the camera matter immensely. 

Your locations, sets, costumes, lights, etc. all work together to create a world on screen, and this world is a crucial part of telling your film’s story. Having an incredible script and cast of actors onboard won’t be enough if what the audience will be looking at doesn’t tell a cohesive story.

 This is why the production designer’s job starts during pre-production alongside the director and producer of the project. The production designer takes the writer’s work, the director’s vision, and the producer’s plan, and synthesises it into a visual story.

2. During a production, what other members does the production designer co-ordinate with?

Theres a lead man, set dressers, buyers, coordinator, costume designers, set artists. 

3. What issues can occur for a production designer?

Issues that can occur for a production designer can include;

“You’re a sculptor in space,” 

 “Your spatial awareness should be 100 per cent. That’s our complete language in a way: how you divide that space, how one space counterbalances another. It has to be fluid as well."

“You have a massive responsibility in how you take an audience into the beginning of a show and what characters you might want them to be involved with,”

“You have to be aware of blind spots and the energy of the place and you have to care about the sound of it.”

4. What skills, education, experience and training are beneficial for a production designer to have? 

Skills: 

• a flair for generation original creative ideas 
• the ability to communicate ideas through technical drawing and model making 
• a good working knowledge of the visual arts and production processes
• a critical view of film, television or theatre and familiarity with the work of specific designers 
• persistence to follow up leads and gain work 
• the ability to work with others, at all levels, as part of a team 
• the capacity to manage a design project from start to finish, to tight deadlines 
• the ability to be resourceful and adaptable and be able to solve practical and conceptual problems
• the capability to work independently 
• the confidence and ability to appoint and supervise a design team or art department.

Relevant qualifications beneficial for a production designer:

• architecture 
• creative, performing or technical arts 
• drama or theatre studies 
• fine art or visual art 
• graphic design or illustration
• interior design 
• landscape architecture and design 
• theatre or performance design 
• 3D design 

(multitasking - staying calm when there's lots of jobs to do
social skills- being able to fit into any situation
spend hours researching - getting good referencing
theatre - filming, set building, costume making
short film
get into any work experience in the film making industry
art history, interior design, production courses
internships with a set decorator - shadow someone
if you really love something you will get there anyway)

work experience: 

As with most jobs in the creative industries, competition is fierce. Getting involved with student theatre, film or music societies will enable you to make contacts, gain experience of working on a production and build up your portfolio with examples of spatial design.

Finding and entering competitions is another good way to put yourself ahead, as successful entrants have the chance to work with leading British companies on opera, theatre or dance productions. Competitions sometimes give short-listed designers the opportunity to exhibit their models and designs.

You could start by working as an assistant to an established freelancer, who might take on an extra pair of hands for a particular project if timescales are short.

In film, an accepted route to gaining practical experience of the production process is to start as a runner in the art department, progressing through design assistant to art director.

In theatre, some new entrants assist experienced designers with model-making. Working on fringe productions is also a good way into the theatre scene, enabling you to showcase your work to potential employers.

Most designers start with irregular contracts and low wages and this can be difficult to manage if you have financial commitments. However, a move across from a related area, e.g. interior design or architecture, may be possible mid-career