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Death of the Binder Posted by Leslie Short
(I swear I wrote this before the binder full of woman!)
My background is in theater and one of the things I can clearly recall from my time as a young dancer is watching the stage manager always running around with a binder. Truth be told, anyone with a position of importance was running around with a binder.
As I grew up in the industry and became in charge of dancers and schedules, I too acquired a binder. Then I started doing events and boy oh boy did I have a binder – filled to the brim with invoices, contracts, scripts, lighting cues, floor plans and timelines. Even while prop shopping, I always had a small binder clasped inside of a larger binder to keep track of receipts and loan slips.
I also remember color selecting binders based on the client and the branding of the client’s company and a few days before an event handing them off to each staff member with full production timelines in them. Eventually the fax and computer made things simpler so some things didn’t have to be carried in the binder (unless you were running the show, then your binder always took on a life of its own). Cell phones, two-way pagers, PDAs and BlackBerrys made contacting people easier and again led to less paperwork in the binder.
Which leads me to the announcement – R.I.P. Binders! Well sort of, because as the owner of the company I still keep a small binder on set with me in case I need to refer back to a contract. But I have great memories of the first wedding where my entire staff replaced their binders with iPads more than two years ago. We had headsets, were dressed in all black and carried iPads; as a result quite a few people came up to me and asked if we were a new security company.
I don’t mind declaring R.I.P. binders because my entire staff now works off of iPads or some type of electronic by downloading the entire production book, table layout and contracts onto their devices. This allows the staff to look professional; no more flipping through pages looking for things, it’s all at our fingertips. Not to mention we are doing our part to save the planet by not wasting so much paper!
So again R.I.P. Binders, well for the most part. Paper is still my back up and it’s one of my favorite trade shows (yes, there is a trade show dedicated solely to paper). But in regards to working an event it’s all about electronics.
Do you still use a binder for your production book the day of an event? And if so why?
Leslie Short
www.kim-media.com