Planning Your Shoot

How do you plan your shoot?

So, you’ve got your script.  You’ve structured your short story around items that are easily available.  Now’s the time to jump into planning your shoot or pre-production.  Pre-production is planning the execution of your movie and how you’re going make it happen.  You may be doing a short film or a full-length feature and most likely you’re on a limited budget.  The only way that you’re going to be able FINISH it and not spend more money than you wanted to and that is to have done your diligence in pre-production.  It’s very easy to go over budget and run out of time if you’ve over looked something in pre-production.  It’s easier to throw money at it to fix it when you’re in the heat of filming than to take the time to find a creative way to fix it (time that you’re most likely not going to have). 

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Start with the four major things:

Who:  What people are going to be involved, both cast and crew?

What:  What are you shooting?  Do you have a script?

When:  How many days are you going to shoot?  When are you going to shoot?  Does your script call for a specific season or seasonal setting?

Where:  What are your locations?  How many are there and what will you need to your whole company (all people involved) to these locations.

The more detailed your planning before you shoot, the smoothly your shoot will actually go!

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