COVID-19 - A positive case on set doesn’t have to be the end of the world - and could in fact bring about new possibilities.

While filming The Starling, a member of the team tested positive. It could have been a nerve-wracking experience, but for a professional like Jessica, it was all part of a day’s work: “Our health safety manager and supervisor, they were so great. We did not have to worry about it...We didn't have to shut down that day or anything, but we had to change our schedule.”

The rhythm of work in the production office shifted, too. How do you handle communication and coordination when you’re suddenly all working from home? In Jessica’s view, “I like being there with people. I think it's in some ways more efficient because if something's up, everyone can just talk about it right there instead of having written an email or participating in a call.”

On the other hand, she finds that the remote makes the atmosphere calmer. In the future, she predicts that pre-production will have more remote-work flexibility and physical production will, as its name suggests, involve more presence in the office - combining the best of both worlds and accommodating the working styles of the entire production.

How to advance in the Production field: effort is more important than skill

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times - to get ahead in the production world, you have to be a “hard worker.” But what does that mean? Jessica gave us an example. “For example, I hired a production secretary, and I saw that he was a really great hard worker. I knew he could do the job because he tried so hard, even though he had things to learn. He became the production secretary, I gave him more responsibility and on the next movie we did after that because he was so great.”

The moral of the story? Even if you’re new to the production world, effort counts for a lot. Look for opportunities to organize something, lead something, run an errand, take responsibility for a routine task (such as organizing production reports or invoices destined for the accounting team).

“I would say, adapting to everybody and having a good attitude always helps. It's difficult when you're working with people that just don't have a good attitude.”

SetKeeper helps with distribution and delegation

Success as a production coordinator is impossible without delegation. The first step is to hire people you like, get along with, and can trust. The second step? Use tools that allow you to delegate.

Jessica loves the distribution features and how easy it is to add or remove people from daily distribution lists. But there are two under-the-radar features she loves the most: duplicate and draft.

It’s easy to duplicate and resend an exact copy of a message, and Jessica used the feature frequently. “If I have an email that I've already sent to everybody and I realize [I should add someone else], all I had to do was duplicate it and send it out. That’s always nice.”

Drafting messages helps her delegate, focus on the most important tasks, and keep the production informed: “I like the ability to draft messages. On the last show I did, we had a lot of updates to send to the crew. The assistant coordinator would draft a message and I could go in and look at the draft and say, okay, it looks good to send, and he would manage the distro and send it out.”

Instead of having to dig through an inbox to find the sent draft of a message, SetKeeper provides a coordinated place to review and authorize messages before they’re sent to the entire crew.

No matter the obstacles, difficulties or setbacks, production coordinators are the superheroes that keep the show on the road! Take it from Jessica - SetKeeper will help you shine your brightest in your production role!