Producing is hard

I used to think that producers didn't do very much. I would be down in the trenches, sweating over schedules and quotas and it seemed like producers just talked on the phone and sat in their office. I used to think that ... but now that I'm actually trying to produce something, I have a new appreciation for the job. Even a micro-budget production like this one seems to require a lot of effort to pull together!

Nothing happens without a producer... I suppose the writer is the start of everything, but the writer's words will go unread without a producer. It's like pushing a rock up a hill - it doesn't move on its own... not until you reach the top. Once you get it to a certain point, it should start to gain momentum and roll on its own. Then the challenge will shift from generating the forward motion to attempting to steer it. The play was sort of like that, but on a smaller scale.

Don't mean to sound down. Things are moving forward! Here's some pics of work in progress:

These are some of the buildings from the miniature for City Zero-Zero-One which is being built by the fabulous and talented Jessica Winton. They're in a rough state at the moment, but they are coming along nicely. I decided to go with miniatures rather than CG for the cityscape to give the show a more handmade feel - I have always been a fan of classic sci-fi. Doctor Who, Space 1999, Star Trek, The Starlost... there's a kind of magic that these shows managed to capture, which is a lot more difficult to pull off with computer animation.

Here's the new CCC eye, built by the steadfast and crafty Jim Edwards. In the play, the Central Control Computer was depicted as a giant mechanical eye, projected on a screen. Doing a movie requires me to think things out a bit more literally. I had to figure out how the CCC terminals would work in a practical sense within the world of The Overlord. I settled on this column idea - these poles would be seen throughout the city, each one supporting a gizmo that functions as a camera and a hologram projector.

That's the update for now. More coming soon!