Spreadsheets!!!

Do you know what the best part about being a producer is? The spreadsheets. Ok, I’m lying but not really. I have found that my best organizational tool is an old-fashioned Excel spreadsheet. I can keep track of what I have to shoot, when I’m going to shoot it, what parts are on the shot list, what parts I have ordered, what part I have yet to order, how much everything costs, what I have to edit, when it was edited, what the embed code is, what shoots had problems, what those problems were, etc... All that on just one spreadsheet! I have many more that have key pieces of data that I need to understand for any particular video.

That said, the hardest (read; most boring, tedious, time-consuming) part of my job is updating the spreadsheets. When I had an assistant it was easier but now that I’m a one woman operation I have to actually update all of the spreadsheets myself. And as I update the spreadsheets, I get crazy ideas about new spreadsheets to keep track of more specific pieces of information and it all just snowballs until I look at the clock and realize I haven’t even started to cut today’s video.

The strangest part? I have no idea how to properly use Excel. Our HR/Accounting super-hero has to set everything up for me. And then I ask her to do crazy impossible things like “Count all the videos that have an embed code and no edited on date” and she can actually show me how to do it. I am starting to suspect that Excel runs on some sort of magic.

That’s the glamorous life of a repair video producer. My mornings are spent emailing, meeting, thinking, reviewing, spread-sheeting (it’s a verb now) and occasionally script-writing. My afternoons are spent in the glorious realm of editing where time does not exist (video editors know exactly what I mean). None of this would be possible without my spreadsheets. I would be completely lost and have no way of finding myself without them.

One of these days I will actually learn how to use them.

My Life as a Producer

Being a producer is a lot like being an executive assistant, or an HR person. There is far more running around, cleaning up other people’s messes and organizing unruly employees than you’d think. I organize and manage my own time, my videographer’s time and my talent’s time. I liaise between marketing, public relations/the press, and the execs. I do the (sometimes literally) dirty work or at the very least ensure that the dirty work is done. I write, I edit, I plan, and I worry. If something goes wrong, it is my fault.

There is actually very little creative work done for instructional videos. I am trying to launch some new ideas however I have to wait for the marketing team to develop some strategies and adapt their own ideas. I create many things but the work is as much technical and organizational as it is creative. I’m mostly stuck expressing myself though crochet.

I frequently dream of producing something a little more me, an extension of my interests and life but I worry that there are already so many other vlogs and video content that I will get lost in the fray and never make an impact.

So I will stick to our repair videos, occasionally making some fun or informational content and I will continue to crochet. Check out this guy!