As producer and director of this feature film, I estimate that I’ll have to make about a million decisions. And, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration.

It’s amazing how many decisions you need to make. In a sense, you are running a small company for a few months, so you have all of the business decisions you need to make as if running a small company, like finances, marketing, leadership, managers, payroll, insurance, guilds, unions, schedules, milestones, tasks, budgets, personnel, taxes, investors, lawyers, accountants and finances. Did I mention finances?

Oh yeah, and we’re making a movie. So, there are all those decisions, like creative, visuals, scripts, production design, lighting, camera packages, film stock, formats, digitization, workflow, deliveries, post production, effects, CGI, locations, permissions, casting, and finances.

It’s like each area has a thousand decisions, and each one needs to be made as accurately as possible. (Anyone see “The Butterfly Effect”?)

Here’s my problem: I’m a thinker. During my corporate stint, we took these personality evaluations. There were team leaders, creatives, motivators, and workerbees. I was classified as a “monitor/evaluator”. I’m the one in a meeting who doesn’t say much, because I’m monitoring and evaluating to determine the best course of action.

I like to make decisions based on good, solid, reliable information. Then, I evaluate it and make the best possible decision. It doesn’t sound bad, unless you need to make a million decisions. If I’m not careful, the monitor/evaluator in me can extend our production schedule from 4 months to 4 years.

I quickly realized that I can’t be this way on this production as producer and director. I can’t ponder my decisions very long. I have do the best as fast as I can and then live with the consequences. I don’t see this as a bad thing, just different than what I’m used to.

I have more to say on this, but I’m trying to decide…