Tutorial Production dailies, scripts and location lists

[Tom]

@Dadrian @miamijimf @Paul Veres  @airtommy

I finally managed to get my original production notes from the basement. I used them to write my episode guide but I haven´t seen them in years. These are the materials that the production office kept for each episode and some got sold after the series was over. All have "Mark" written on them, because Mark LaFata was production ccordinator and he was the one who kept these in boxes after filming.

As not everyone is familiar with these materials I thought it´d be good to make a short tutorial how to use and read them, so when I post this stuff over time you will be able to check it yourself. Here are the overview pictures and a final list of all episodes with filming dates (funny enough Michael Mann is listed as director for the pilot) 

@Ferrariman @timm525 maybe the admins can pin this post here in the location section to be found on top?

Each episode´s package consists of: 

1) Shooting Scripts (usually the final one is white as per date, the prior versions have other colors and prior dates

2) Location lists: Usually done on first day of shooting for all locations. 2-5 pages depending on number of locations per episode. Sometimes locations are not decided at this point ("TBA") or change and are only correct in the dailies. I will show such a case with one of the episodes I will publish. But the location lists are good to get an overview and see what was filmed on location and what was (planned) for studio shots (often sets had to be built, only the OCB was a permanent set on stage A).

3) Daily production reports. All 1st and second units shots for the episode. All details are covered ,including who got sick, who came late and what film was used. On the back side (2-page report per day) are the present crew members listed and other comments. In Walk-alone which is shown here on first filming day as an example, Olivia Brown and PMT showed up late for 1 and 1/2 hour. The hair stylist got sick. And filming on the hospital set in studio was delayed 4 1/2 hours as the art department had to repaint the whole set in a lighter color and thus rigging the set could not start. funny details indeed.

I marked the most important points from location sleuthing perspective below: day of report, the scene numbers filmed and the location actually used on that day. The rest is details of who filmed from when to when, was dismissed when from set and so on.

I will post the material I have in the respective episode sections in the next weeks.

ENJOY! 

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Tom

[pahonu]

Very well explained Tom, thanks!  When I worked as a PA, I would get the daily production sheet at the end of the shooting day for the following day.  I wasn’t given any thing else as I was essentially a gopher, but there was one other thing.  If the next day was not at the studio, or the usual beach filming location that everyone on the crew was familiar with, they would provide a hand drawn map of the location, how to get there, where to park, etc…  Do your packets have any of these?  
 

Quite a few years ago I found one of the daily production sheets that I worked on, and another that a friend worked on.  Mine was at Marina Del Rey, and I remember the day vaguely.   The other was at the waterfront in San Diego where I met my friend.  The sheets had somehow gotten in with some of my wife’s sheet music, and both had the maps I asked about.  I, like much of the crew I’d bet, just tossed the daily paperwork when we were done.  It’s great that you have all this from the production coordinator.  Thanks again for posting.  It brings back quite a few memories.

[Tom]

vor 20 Minuten schrieb pahonu:

Very well explained Tom, thanks!  When I worked as a PA, I would get the daily production sheet at the end of the shooting day for the following day.  I wasn’t given any thing else as I was essentially a gopher, but there was one other thing.  If the next day was not at the studio, or the usual beach filming location that everyone on the crew was familiar with, they would provide a hand drawn map of the location, how to get there, where to park, etc…  Do your packets have any of these?  
 

Quite a few years ago I found one of the daily production sheets that I worked on, and another that a friend worked on.  Mine was at Marina Del Rey, and I remember the day vaguely.   The other was at the waterfront in San Diego where I met my friend.  The sheets had somehow gotten in with some of my wife’s sheet music, and both had the maps I asked about.  I, like much of the crew I’d bet, just tossed the daily paperwork when we were done.  It’s great that you have all this from the production coordinator.  Thanks again for posting.  It brings back quite a few memories.

I know these location drawings but these usually come together with the daily location call sheets handed out to cast and crew. I posted some of these recently, eg the Little Prince thread. 
 

what I posted here are the production notes packages archived at the production office, not the cast&crew handouts. The latter were mostly thrown away by actors and crew as you correctly stated and not kept by production office. Michael Talbott kept most of his call sheets and was kind enough to share them.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Tom

[miamijimf]

Thanks Tom.  If I remember correctly you were living on the Beach at the time and found these boxes discarded.  Is that how you got all this paperwork?

[Tom]

vor 16 Minuten schrieb miamijimf:

Thanks Tom.  If I remember correctly you were living on the Beach at the time and found these boxes discarded.  Is that how you got all this paperwork?

No I wish that was the case but then I‘d have all episodes on sheets 

I lived there in 1991 and had no idea about these materials back then. A guy called Robert who had lived next door to production office in 1989 found big boxes of nearly all episodes in the trash can and sold each ep separately on eBay in 2006.  Bids went up astronomically but I was able to get a dozen or so. Other winning bidders were so nice to share theirs (around 5 eps) on the old forum as jpegs. Pictures of these got lost with the old server but I rescued all addresses on these lost sheets too for my guide.

the remaining 90% of locations we found on our own as you know 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Tom

[timm525]

F-man beat me to it. 

[Tom]

Baby blues posted in the respective location thread with all dailies.