Double Booking - Dealing with Scheduling Conflicts

When you're just getting started in this industry, you are eager to jump at every exciting opportunity that comes your way. We are quickly finding that scheduling conflicts, however, arise no matter what stages of the game you're at.

So Dylan booked a UCLA student film. We were so excited as he would be playing the lead role!!

Fast forward a few days - Dylan and Ellery booked a feature film as brother and sister and it started shooting on 02/13. The UCLA film was scheduled to start on the 15th! Ut oh!

Our manager called us, "Guys we have scheduling conflicts and Dylan may not be able to shoot the student film."

"No way. We love the script and there must be a way to shoot both!"

By now we had established a relationship with the student film director and did not want to back out of the film. We, our agent, our manager, the feature film production AD, and the student film director were all working to get both films done. After days of creative scheduling and caring patience from everyone we figure it out. We were beyond pleased that everyone worked in favor of Dylan; ultimately as a team we accomplished everyone's objectives.

At one point I was ready to walk away from the student film. It was getting very complicated and the student film director was making all the sacrifices which didn't sit well with us. We wanted her film to be everything she envisioned and it was becoming unfair to her.

In May our oldest daughter will graduate from college with a major in marketing and photography; we know first hand how important student work is and have the utmost respect for their commitments.

But things worked out in the end and thankfully everyone was able to get what they needed. The bonus for our cooperation was Dylan's ability to work on two different projects.

My advice when scheduling conflicts come up is to do your best to think of everyone's needs. If needs can't be met, then choices obviously have to be made, but if you can think rationally as a team, often things can work out.