MFJF map · UK
The production office: the switchboard of the film
Every film has a set, where the pictures get made, and an office, where everything that lets the set happen gets arranged. Every hire, rental, booking, deal, contract and cost runs through it. It opens an hour before the set's call and stays open an hour after wrap, and on day one the runner is the newest person in it, in the best seat in the building for learning how a film is made.
Who is in the officeIn rough order of seniority
Learn the names on the crew list before you need them; you will be sent to find a head of department on a set of two hundred people.
The bottom rungRunner, office PA, green steward
The runner is the only person in the office whose job is to be interruptible. Everyone else has a desk full of work they cannot put down. You are the person who can go.
Pre-productionFour weeks to four months
The office is often the first thing that exists. Before a frame is shot the coordinator and supervisor hire the office itself, then the stages, the locations and the contractual framework for every member of cast and crew.
Principal photographyOne step ahead of the schedule
Once the shoot starts all eyes go to set, but the office does not slow down. Its job is to stay one step ahead and absorb every change the schedule throws at it.
A runner's dayHour by hour, on a shooting day
Notice how much of the day is not running at all. It is checking, counting, filing and being ready.
The rules of the roomThe phone, the float, the five urgent tasks
Good on day one is not brilliance. It is early, tidy, discreet and closed-loop on every task.
