That's what them two pages are worth.
Seriously.
I'm writing this 'cause my hope with this blog is to inform/inspire those of you who dabble in preaching and producing--and by extension, when the points are transferrable, anyone who reads this who's life is a little less than ordinary.
What's been happening to me this week is from the 'darker side' of things.
On Monday I get a call. It's a bad call. I'm told I have to cut $500,000 (that would be HALF A MILLION DOLLARS!) out of one of the budgets on one of the TV series I'm producing--if we want to keep it.
Five. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars.
Now there are two things to keep in mind here:
1) The original budgets, though actual--meaning everyone was actually getting paid for the work they were doing--were not 'fat' or overblown.
2) If we refuse to find a way to work with the cuts the Network will just find another production company to do it and said production company will probably deliver a piece of crap show.
So, (1) means I have to completely redesign the way in which we produce the show while maintaining as much of the 'spirit' of the original concept and execution as possible. Not easy.
(2) Is in place because I'd rather do my best to produce a show that actually 'speaks' despite these wholesale cuts than allow some yahoo to destroy the time slot which basically means I have no choice.
Fun in'it, this show biz stuff?
So, Tuesday/Wednesday went by with my Executive Producer and I basically fighting over all of the above. He and I see things from totally different sides of the coin (he thinks like a businessman first, I think like a creative person first...) and that means we spend a lot of time arguing until we come 'round to seeing things in way that suits our perspectives and represents reality.
('aint 'reality' a bitch by the way? You're trying to create illusion in the arts. From the pulpit your trying to create a superlative or 'ideal' view of the text and it's application. "Reality? Don't talk to me about 'reality'!" But reality is always in play in our work. The way in which we work with it and around it to create that 'illusory-superlative' is why we get paid to do what we do--but that don't make it any easier...)
So we fight Tues/Wed then yesterday and today I sit at my desk and stare at a blank page trying to figure a way to redesign this thing so that it'll work; keeping in mind that this will be version 12 or 13 of the budget on this series. It's been non-stop difficulty from the get-go.
And it's not as if nothing's at stake for me here. A huge part of my income is tied up in this series so if I don't find a way to make it work, I'm staring some pretty intense financial uncertainty in the face and after my 2006/2007 (very lean years) I've about had enough of financial turmoil for a while.
But I can't design it to suit me--I have to design it so that it will work.
So I sit and I stare and I sit and I stare and slowly, ever so slowly, the ideas begin to come. I included the shot of my actual brainstorming so that you can see how messy and unsure it is. All the circles and squares around things? They come after I've begun to figure things out.
(by the way this is the exact same method I employ whether I'm designing a TV series, beginning to outline a screenplay, or preparing a sermon...)
Then today I begin to work the design into a budget.
And the freaky thing about budgets is that they're so hard to nail down. The variables race by like they're from 'The Matrix' and every change affects the whole and the real doozy of it is that each decision I make on my spreadsheet affects not just my life, but the lives of forty other people to greater or lesser degree. About fifteen people's direct livelihood depends on the choices I make.
How you like them apples?
Wanna' be a producer, working in the real world? Them's the realities friend.
But the positive thing is that--unless I've made some grave error (which is possible but not likely)--I think I've found a way to make it work. I think we're going to be O.K.
And that's the whole point of this post.
On Monday, when the 'bad news' call came I thought I was going to die. My wife and I didn't really sleep for two nights--it's was just plain awful for a bit. Then I knuckled down, chained my ass to the chair at the desk, and stared at the paper 'till a way through began to present itself.
I actually had a moment where I put my head in my hands and prayed a one word prayer:
"Help..."
And it looks like help is on its way and that's worth remembering regardless of how bleak your week is currently looking.
T
