Sunglasses?
Water?
Are Nemo and Dory fully charged?

Hang on…did you name your iPad “Nemo” and your Apple Pencil “Dory”? That’s pretty cool.
And you’re off. With the ProductionPro iPad app, you were able to skim all the information you needed for the scout in the five minutes spent waiting for the car. How?

1. Your script at-a-glance and quick access to scene-related media.

You’ve read the script. All you really need at the moment is a quick reminder of the set and scene information related to this scout. The ProductionPro iPad app serves up a powerful dashboard – the Visual Scroll – that lets you glean such scene and character information, as well as pull up those storyboards needed with just one tap.

2. Go straight to that scene in the script (not by flipping through script pages).

You’re now on location and actually do need access to the script to take some notes. Use the focal point in the Visual Scroll to quickly navigate to the scene/s you need in the script. The best thing about this? You can switch between the script and storyboards – all in one place.

3. View references across multiple departments, scenes, and shoot days.

The team is now discussing what certain set elements may look like at the location. These weren’t part of the required materials for this scout, but you have access to EVERYTHING because you have Nemo and ProductionPro on the iPad. Use the Media Library to cross reference any set designs, storyboards, and even pre-vis for those scenes shooting at this location. And pull them up on full screen for a quick show-and-tell.

It wasn’t a swamp scout today, but you’re just as much of a superhero today as you were the last time.

To upload files to ProductionPro, please log into your account on your web browser.
Add and Tag Approved Files: Save time on responding to repeated requests for the same information.
ProductionPro on the Web: Find out how to use ProductionPro on your phone or computer.

The post Go from Breakdown to Script to Storyboard – All from One Powerful Dashboard appeared first on ProductionPro.

With ProductionPro, you’ll be able to see approved storyboards, pre-vis, concept art (and more) in one place. Even better? You can control how the information is organized based on what you need at any time.

1. See references grouped by scripted scenes, schedule, sets.

While out on a scout, you heard there are some newly-approved concepts from the Art and VFX departments. Grab your phone and group your files by “Department” for a quick view of the latest from those departments. You can even group them by “Scene” or “Schedule” to see how those changes affect scripted scenes or shoot days.

All references are updated with each script and schedule revision (that’s our job!), so you can be assured the information is up-to-date.

2. Search specific information with filters.

Remember that day you had to request files from various departments to cross-reference the set designs, location photos, and storyboards for next week’s scenes? It’s now as simple as selecting those filters in your Media Library to pull up all of those files.

And you know what else is nice? Not having to head into the office to find that information or emailing multiple people for it.

3. Share a curated view with others.

You’re about to hit the pillow and you get that 1AM text message asking for the previs and storyboards for the next two days. Here’s a tip to get them what’s needed in 30 seconds. Pull up your Media Library, choose the “Previs” and “Storyboards” filters for the next shoot days, copy the link for that, and paste it in the text message. They’ll be able to click on that link and see exactly what you’ve curated for them. Now go get some shut-eye.

The Binder: Find out how to search and use your script like a pro.
The ProductionPro iPad App: See a visual breakdown of your show and view references in script context.
Add and Tag Approved Files: Save time on responding to repeated requests for the same information.

The post All Approved References in One Place – Organized by Scripted Scenes, Schedule, Sets appeared first on ProductionPro.

Now who’s the superhero on this swamp scout? You – yes, you in the pink bib overalls and yellow rain boots – are that superhero.

1. Jump straight to scenes or references in question.

Who loves scouring the script, looking for the scene with Scott’s “Back to the Future” line? No one. What’s that? Oh, excuse me. That’s no one, except you.

Because with ProductionPro’s script search feature, you can search for lines, characters, scene descriptions – anything written in the script – and jump straight to those mentions in five seconds flat. And yes, you can do that across all ten episodes.

2. Make notes on your phone, pull them up on your computer later.

Still knee deep in swamp water and have a great idea for the scene? Grab your phone and type those notes right onto the script. With your annotations stored safely in the cloud, you’ll be able to review those notes when you’re back on dry land, and in front of your 34-inch monitor.

A supercharged pro-tip? Open your bookmarks and annotations summary to go straight to those notes, so you don’t have to flip through the script looking for them. Well, not unless you want to.

3. New script? No problem.

En route and see a new script come in? It’s all good.
Just import your script notes into this new version to check for any immediate important changes. You got this.

4. Organize and share your script notes with different people.

Of course, there are those who weren’t privy to that rain-soaked excursion, and are now awaiting your show-and-tell. The thing is…you have different notes for different groups of people, and you’d really like for them to read those together with the script.

Those notes you typed onto the script earlier? You can organize your notes for each group with new annotation layers – all within the same script – and share them accordingly. This way, everyone will be able to see your specific notes for them, right next to the scenes that matter.

The Media Library: See storyboards, pre-vis etc. based on their Sets and Scenes, and when those are shooting.
The ProductionPro iPad App: See a visual breakdown of your show and view references in script context.
Add and Tag Approved Files: Save time on responding to repeated requests for the same information.

The post Script Search Made Easy appeared first on ProductionPro.

“I don’t think this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” Shiva told her mother. “Remember I wanted to be an actor?”

Shiva loved finance, and was good at her job, so this outburst shocked both her mother and her.

She grew up in a culture and environment that frowned upon those who pursued the arts full-time.

“That’s kind of why I went into banking in the first place, because my parents were like, ‘yes you can do that (theatre) on the side, just get a degree first.’”

But Shiva found she loved finance, and completely immersed herself in it. Theatre was relegated to some quiet corner of her mind…until the call of that early London morning. The outburst scared her so much that she dove right back into investment banking. She interviewed for and got offered a job in Chicago, and was making arrangements to move there when the economic crisis hit.

“Investment bankers were the first to go. I felt the universe was kind of kicking me out.”

She then spent the next nine months traveling the world, “did some soul-searching,” went back to Malaysia, and felt ready to make her move. Shiva decided to audition for a few acting programs in the United States, but only wanted to do so once, and let the results serve as a sign as whether this new trajectory was meant to be.

Everything just fell into place: Shiva got into Columbia University’s Theatre MFA Program for Acting, and she received a Malaysian scholarship – only five in the whole country receive this each year – that “covers almost everything.” Even her parents were fully supportive of her new journey.

It’s a hugely different life – being an actor. Shiva admits it’s a process, learning to embrace whatever comes with this new life. She often jokes with her friends about being “completely broke” in six weeks.

“I’ve been so used to having that paycheck and being independent, and I know it’s going to hit me hard in six weeks. But I didn’t give up all of that to not try,” says Shiva. “So no matter how much I’m going to hate it when I’m looking at a zero-balance bank account, I’m here, much more blessed than a lot of people.”

Unlike investment banking, when professional timelines and goals are almost always strictly intertwined, Shiva isn’t giving herself a deadline.

“It’s going to take time, and I know that I’m in an industry where you just have to be okay with that. I don’t know what will happen with my career, I don’t know when I’m going to get my first gig, I don’t know when somebody is going to give me a shot, I just have to keep going. I need to keep trying, you know?”

Since finishing her coursework at Columbia, Shiva has been busy producing her own shows, and going on auditions. She started her own production company – “Next In Line Productions” – with some friends because they wanted to work on things that mattered to them, and not just wait around for the next job to come along.

It’s no wonder Shiva likes producing – it allows her to employ both her business and theatrical wits – even though it stresses her out to no end at times. She had lost her set and lighting designer in her most recent endeavor – Exposure – after its workshop, and scrambled to find someone else for the production. Not really expecting anything to come of it, she called a friend in Malaysia with whom she had previously worked – for free – on a fairly challenging project, and asked if he’d help, since he was already planning to be in New York around that time.

“He changed his flights and everything. He came here and did the lights for free – not just the design, but he hung up all the lights and he brought in gels.

“So what goes around comes around. Might be years later, but somebody is watching and listening.”

Today, Shiva seems very much at peace with where she is. She’s still relatively new to the industry but feels – and appears – right at home.

“Things just happened for me. It felt like the universe was telling me ‘it’s okay, don’t freak out anymore, you’re supposed to be here.’”

Photography by @juanmdelgadocol

The post Showpeople @ Work: Shiva Kalaiselvan, Actor-Producer appeared first on ProductionPro.

“Wait…what?” I said.

Jerry chuckles, and continues, “In my little town, we were friends with the guy who owned the funeral home. I think maybe because it was always so kind of glamorous – the funeral parlor and all of that.

“I wanted to be a priest also – the glamour of the priesthood was also appealing, you know all the pomp and circumstance…”

“You like the show,” I offered.

“And that’s why I ended up in show business!”

Loving the movies, being inspired by characters, wanting to effect change through theatre – I’ve heard many an origin story about how each of us came into the industry. But Jerry’s funeral parlor story? That was a first.

I first met Jerry Popolis – film hair department head and Robert De Niro’s personal hairstylist – at a diner in Gramercy Park, New York City. It was hot, and the diner was hectic. But as I made my way towards the back where he was seated, I felt like I was walking into a zone of zen.

When you’re with Jerry, you feel like you’re being enveloped by a bubble of calm. You could be in a bustling diner at lunchtime, but you feel centered and focused, even though he’s relatively soft spoken. It’s no wonder, then, that the thing he values most – over his work achievements – is his reputation of “being a fair and really easy-to-work-with person.”

“One of the most important things I try to get across to other hair and makeup people – even new people starting out – is that it’s so important to work as a team. We’re there for a long time – it should be fun, it should be calm, it should be enjoyable. ”

It is this amiability and a major passion for the business that’s brought Jerry this far. He’s a 20-year theatre and film industry veteran whose major recent accomplishments include winning a Makeup and Hairstylist Guild Award for “Birdman”. He’s also a newly-minted member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

For Jerry, having those years of experience doesn’t mean he gets any less stressed.

“When I start a project, I don’t sleep for days. I mean…I do, but I’m awake in the middle of the night restlessly thinking about what I need to do.

“In the beginning of prepping for something big, it can be very stressful.”

That’s because if he isn’t on his game at all times, it could cost the company “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.” This means that a seemingly isolated departmental error or an inability to fix an issue could lead to production delays, which mean additional hours for all cast and crew, among other things.

One thing Jerry’s years of experience has taught him, however, is to be extremely adaptable to changing circumstances. So instead of viewing things as unexpected emergencies, he simply treats them as yet another production challenge to work on.

Over the years, Jerry has had to change the way he works due to the many shifts in the way film is created.

“High definition has changed us a lot. It’s made us much more critical and attentive of what we’re doing.”

This means the camera may pick up a flyaway strand of hair, even if you don’t observe it with the naked eye. In such instances, Jerry says the cameramen have his back, and would let him know if anything were out of place.

Another major shift in filmmaking in the last two decades is that “the industry has become very corporate.”

“The studios before, they allowed the departments to be free about what they’re creating. If I said I needed four wigs for this actress because she was going through all these different looks…it was never a question. The days of spending freely don’t exist anymore.”

That said, Jerry acknowledges the importance of doing his part to – at the very least – help keep production on budget. He even tries to save production some money by repurposing some wigs – if working with the same actors those wigs were made for – and reusing hair products.

Such stress aside, Jerry enjoys getting to exercise his own brand of creativity – even amidst demands and requirements set by the studio and creative team.

“We get to maybe push the trends a little bit more with the actor or actress, which obviously sets the trends of the entire country or world sometimes. Like Meg Ryan’s haircut – that changed the look of that hairstyle around the world, and every woman wanted to have that hairstyle.”

In spite of his achievements, especially in recent years, Jerry still finds it hard to be unabashedly proud of his work.

“You always doubt yourself and how good the work is. As any creative person, you always see the flaws that other people don’t see. But this last year has been pretty incredible for acknowledgements – first the Guild Award for “Birdman”, and I was able to present “Noah” to the Academy as a consideration for hair and makeup.

“The acknowledgement from your peers is a great pat on the back for you, because you don’t necessarily see what you do as being that great or impressive.”

There’s one thing Jerry holds a very silent pride – and peace – in, and that’s being able to use his professional skills to prepare his mother for her final send-off.

“When my mother died, I did her hair and makeup. I felt good about doing it… It was actually comforting to be with her at that time, to get her ready.”

So is this any indication of what he’d be doing if he weren’t in show business?

“Who knows, maybe when I retire, I’ll become an undertaker.”

Or – as he mentioned before all this undertaker talk – sell fresh produce from his garden at the local farmers market.

Jerry walked me about halfway to the subway station, where he had to diverge for another appointment. We hugged (because come on, that was quite the conversation we had, no?) and parted ways.

I floated around in that bubble of zen for the rest of the hot, humid New York day.

Did You Know?

Custom wigs usually take about six weeks to make, and cost between $7,000 and $9,000 each, depending on how intricate it is and who’s making it. Every single strand of hair is put in by hand, and is made to the exact specifications of the production – including how they’d want the hair to move.

“For a lead actor who has to wear the wig for the entire film – he’s the one that the audience is going to be looking at on a screen in high definition – you can’t have something that’s not perfect. Sometimes you make a plaster mold of that actor’s head to get exact shape of his head, outline the hairline,  and get the measurements sent off to wigmaker.”

Photography by @juanmdelgadocol

The post Showpeople @ Work: Jerry Popolis, Film Hair Dept. Head appeared first on ProductionPro.

“Did you do this for us?” I asked, as we encountered a beautifully laid out table in the garden, all set for tea. We – Alex, Juan (the photographer), and I – had driven deep into Queens to meet with the McCarthy sisters, film makeup extraordinaires and enthusiasts.

The sisters laughed, and said they always had tea while discussing work.

As we sat down at what felt like a mini tea party – with a touch of continuity lookbooks and makeup – for a chat, Louise and Joanna McCarthy seemed to meld into the scene, like it was their natural habitat.

Louise and Joanna have come a long way since they started out in the business working on low-budget films. Joanna remembers an intense incident.

“We were doing an outdoors on a road, cordoned off. Next thing this car shot down, two guys got out, there were guns all around. I was like, ‘oh this is interesting, is this part of the script?’ No, it’s totally not.

“Then security ran and went, ‘everyone get down!’”

“It was a good few years ago, but you get so caught up in what you’re doing that you kind of forget there are real things,” adds Louise.

Louise knew she wanted to be a makeup artist since she was 16. She apprenticed and started working in television in the UK, eventually making her way across the pond because she wanted to work in film, and had found it easier to get such work in the US.

“It was easier to come here and start, especially when you have family. Because you can take low-budget movies to pay your dues – spend your time, work for free, do non-union stuff – and you really need to have people around you who can support you financially and giving you lifts and picking you up at three in the morning.”

She then worked her way up, and now heads makeup departments on major feature films such as “Love the Coopers,” “The Intern,” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

Joanna then decided to follow in Louise’s footsteps, even though she’d just gotten a degree in fashion buying.

“The fashion industry wasn’t creative enough for me. I was watching Louise and the projects she was on, and I thought that’s so much more interesting.

“When Louise really started department-heading big jobs, she said, ‘you’re helping me.” And we’re a really good team.”

You’d only need to speak with Louise and Joanna to understand how they just work well together. But if there was any doubt about their chemistry, Joanna’s anecdote about fixing a little makeup emergency says it all.

“It was a makeup test day, and it’s a high level of stress. The actress – we had these special effects on her – was moving so much and smiling, it stuck, and we had five minutes before she went in to see the producer.”

Louise chimed in, “I got called to set first. He wanted to see me and I was in the middle of trying to fix this disaster. I just looked at Joanna and said ‘you’ve got to try and fix this because now I have to go…’”

“The latex basically stuck where she smiled, and when she un-smiled, there was a hole. But we fixed it, and they never knew,” said Joanna, with a little smile.

Speaking with the McCarthy sisters, you’d get completely caught up in their excitement talking about the work. It’s no wonder, given their love for the movies began way before they had decided on their careers.

Louise mentioned their mom being “a model and stand-in in Dublin in the sixties,” and was doing a “a lot of background and commercials.”

“She’d always looked glamorous getting dressed to go out. We’d be like ‘oh where are you going, what are you doing?’ And then we’d see her on TV,” Joanna added.

Both sisters reminisced about that one time when their mom – instead of taking them to school – brought them to see a movie.

“She was like ‘oh my god you’re mitching off school,’ because that’s what she used to do. She took all four daughters to see “E.T.”

“It was that kind of enthusiasm and love for movies…it was because of her that we moved into it,” quipped Joanna, with a twinkle in her eye. (Seriously, these ladies have really bright eyes.)

We ended our time with the McCarthys in their living room, because it started pouring outside.

We took our time to leave, partly because we didn’t feel like running out into the rain, but mostly because we really just wanted to have another cup of tea with Louise and Joanna.

Photography by @juanmdelgadocol

The post Showpeople @ Work: Sisters Louise and Joanna McCarthy appeared first on ProductionPro.