Songbird
produced by Michael Bay, Catchlight Films
Weston Manville, Coordinator of Physical Production
“We used SetKeeper more than anything else and it has made things much easier for us.“ ![]()
Weston Manville
Coordinator of Physical Production on Songbird
Being a Production Coordinator
Weston Manville worked on several movies as a Production Manager in the past few years, including Fantasy Island, The Invisible Man and Black Christmas. We had the chance to meet him and ask him a few questions about his productions, his career and his future plans!
When it comes to his background, Weston recalls: “I’ve always loved to make people laugh, to put on school plays with my best friend Thomas. Throughout the years, I have had the need to create and make people laugh. I got into production as a good way to gain experience so I could write and produce my own stuff. If I want to do my own content, I need to know all the aspects of how to do it.”
Songbird, one of his recent productions powered by SetKeeper, is a look into the future when the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps the planet. It’s a sci-fi love story about how the current state of Los Angeles splits apart.
“A Production Coordinator needs to be the central hub for all information, organize everybody, and keep the train moving.”
To Weston, the most interesting part of his job as a Production Coordinator is seeing every single corner and every single piece of information; basically how everyone interacts with each other.
One of the most defining words of his job, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic is communication.
Scheduling little times to meet with each other and speak with people is crucial since not seeing people on a day-to-day basis can sometimes be an emotional rollercoaster. It’s important to make time to talk and check in and feel human.
Talking to the crew and asking the departments what they think would make for a better set and a better way to do things instead of relying only on union guides is the best way to get the most out of a production team. Asking them “What is your advice, you’re the one doing this” can be very useful, because they are the ones with the most accurate information about their jobs.
As a matter of fact, Weston applied this on the production of Songbird and people reacted very positively “Don’t try to tell them how to do their job, guide them”
Producing during Covid-19
Getting a movie produced in normal times is not an easy task, so the Covid-19 outbreak made the production of “Songbird” even more challenging. There is much less spontaneous communication: you can’t walk down the hallway and ask somebody to clarify something. Something that once took minutes now takes hours. You have to be very patient and tenacious when you want to get a task done.
Keeping everyone on the same page, especially when you don’t have people around all the time, you have to work extra hard to send out memos and information.
Psychologically, it can be difficult as you can’t read people’s faces all the time; but it’s the new way of doing things. It can be done; Weston and his team did it, but people still need to adjust to this exceptional situation.
From a health point of view, Weston and his team were following the recommendations from union guides. However, getting everyone tested, and having one department tested at a time takes extra bits of time, so people have to be very patient. Moreover, the production team doesn’t get the test results right away. If the test comes back positive, there’s a small amount of time to track and trace the people who got in contact with the infected person. “At the end of the day, these procedures are what makes everyone feel safe and keeps everyone safe.”
There are two zones on a production: the A zone with the actors and everyone around the actors, which we call the “Surgery room”, and the B zone with less people in contact with the actors. You do not want the two areas to interact with each other.
Weston and his crew tested various applications for tests, but they stuck with a specific app which was advised by their medic, and they also had a Covid officer. The app was a basic questionnaire, as Weston didn’t want to police the crew.
Producing with SetKeeper
SetKeeper helped Weston be fast. “Before using it, if something changed, I was notified 30 seconds before it happened. With SetKeeper, sending out info, especially with watermarking scripts, sending out small meeting notes, is a quick and pretty user friendly system. I use it pretty much every day. I tested out the sides system, and I might use that in the future! We used SetKeeper more than anything else and it has made things much easier for us”.