VACANCY FOR PRODUCTION DESIGNER

The last two weeks was very challenging, my opinion is that any production that is not challenging will probably not come out tops .

I was Line Producer/Production Manager for a TVC and what i went through i have never experienced. The production planning process was top of the line we left all Pre-Preoduction Meetings with agency and client smiling with very little or no input from them not that they dont know what to input but we had all end closed. We also had a foreign producer from UK (Brett ) in who worked with a Local Producer whom i will call (F.O) until i can get permission to use his name and the Director was from UK too (Mike) . We had three commercials to shoot in a space of  three days and one day for setup, the fisrt challenge we faced that had terrible effect on other days was on the first day, the set design/production designer got to the studio and found out that the studio had been rented out to another production that will not finish till about 10pm, we where due into the studio by 2pm and the facility managers were nt even aware that the previuos production stayed till 10pm the truth of matter is that the setup guys did nt have the courage to bash in and disturb the production , but really the production outfit sholud have been fair enough to stop and allow the setup to start, most of all the setup guys did not report to the producer that they have not been allowed to stat setup and you can imagine the next day have been planned to have the set  standing (An aspirational Kitchen) after all siad and done the setup guys were able to still get the kitchen wating for the final approval of the director ( having at the back of our mind that TVC's is all about approvals (Director, Agency and client).

Day 2 

Today was a dissater ,the Director came in to start the days blocking and setup his shots, but alas he was disappointed by what he saw . The finishing of the set is "CRAP" using his words and he said there is no way on earth he will use the set , i had to quikly call for a meeting of the local producer and the agency, the botom line we lost that day .

Day 3 

By now we had already contacted another set designer to support, also the Local producer had gone out to look for already made Kitchen  set got but the maker will not let us have it out of his work shop but we can use his work shop as studio; this is not possible considering that his workshop is not sound proof and space constrain for camera movement and angle. Just so that the day is not lost we had to move to the other exterior shoot we had planned for the last day due to logistics reason being that we found a spot suitable for that scene wethin the studio environment it was a soccer scene . We started and we were half way thru the whole shoot we wanted to do for three days...we had to work till 12midnigth, because we had agreed to have a 12 hour turn around becasue the main set will not be ready till mid day next day anyway .

Day 4

We had a late call today and he most imprtant thing is that we finished all we wanted to do and the client was happy though we took them through a ride of a life time thanks to the production designer.

My take is that in Nigeria we have a dearth of competent production designers , set designer/builders .