The Three-Day Shoot That Taught Me How to Lead a Production Team

One of my first large team projects was a three-day hackathon. There were seven of us, including me, and I had never been responsible for planning something at that scale.

Before the event, I built task lists for each person, assigned the gear, mapped the itinerary, and placed the team at different stations. The schedule kept moving, so the plan had to tell everyone where they belonged before the next live moment arrived.

Things still went wrong. When an urgent shot appeared, I called whoever was free and directed it on the spot. If nobody was available, I went and captured it myself.

I reviewed the assets coming back from the team, sent people into the field again where coverage was missing, and kept communication moving while still doing my own production work.

At the end of each day, everyone returned to the media room. I made sure the footage existed in more than one place, organized it by rooms, events, speakers, and interviews, then tagged which camera and team member it came from. That organization was what made three days of separate decisions usable afterward.

People want to focus on the role they were hired to do. Leading a production means protecting that focus while you are still responsible for your own work, the client's requests, and every live moment that cannot be repeated.

That project taught me more about management, communication, team ability, and decision-making than a smaller controlled shoot could have. It was exhausting, but it was successful, and the raw footage and deliverables went out.

It also became a turning point. I learned that I could take on something larger than my experience suggested, keep the team moving, and pull it off. That was when I knew I wanted to do this full time.