Bill Edwards discusses behind the scenes in the making of the film “Please Talk With Me”


Synopsis of today’s AM on PM on the project management of film production

We learned a whole lot about all the incredible effort that goes on behind the scenes in producing a film. Bill Edwards, PMP led a fascinating summary of how he applied all of the nine knowledge areas in the production of the independent film, “Please Talk with Me”. For instance, the actual shooting of the film was arguably the shortest duration of the various phases taking only 6-8 weeks of the 3 year life cycle. The longest phase was post production which took two years.

Human Resource Management was a critical area in the production; they interviewed between 250-300 actors after screening a couple of thousand resumes, all to get down to the 25-30 actors that they needed for the film. Just like any project, they found that sometimes the team wasn’t the right mix and was counterproductive to their goals and had to make personnel changes as a consequence.

The contracts and procurement part of the project was probably the most challenging with Bill having to deal with a variety of laws, copyrights, trademarks, and insurance issues.

Regarding cost management, the revenues gained were all private donations but they kept within their budget of $10K. In comparison, Bill shared that the film Paranormal Activity was done for $15K and Blair Witch for $25K. Advertising costs however were astronomical in comparison for these films, running into millions.

As you can imagine, with a budget of $10K scope management became critical because there was only so much you could do and include and still stay within budget. Yet the end result was very professional and as I told the group, “Awesome!”.

I hope that Bill is able to find a distributor so that we can all see the film (he did show us one of the trailers – which in itself was great.

For more info on the film (and to see the trailer) you can go to their website athttp://ptwmthefilm.com/ . They also have a facebook page that you can go to and learn about what events are taking place with regards to the production. ==>http://www.facebook.com/pleasetalk?fref=ts

What did you all think of today’s event??