Pre-Production: An Overview - Or, Fix It In Pre
It all starts in pre-production, easily the most important phase in making your film or video. It’s in pre-production that you’ll figure out, plan, and prepare everything you need for a successful shoot and completion of your project. Getting pre-production right makes the rest much smoother and more rewarding. You’ll protect yourself from unpleasant surprises and you’ll roll with confidence into the production and post-production phases. Remember, you cannot plan too much.
We know, production is the fun part, and we all want to get to it as quickly as possible, but it's a major mistake to cut short your pre-production.
You may hear the old film cliché “we’ll fix it in post.” But most likely, if you find yourself thinking that way in production, you didn’t plan as well as you should’ve in pre-production. NOW, pre-production, is the time to anticipate and solve problems so you don't have to pray for a miracle in post-production. Banish the phrase “we’ll fix it in post” from your mind. Instead, continually think “we’ll fix it in pre.”
Successful Productions Start With Good Scripts
Properly understood, a script is a set of instructions which tell every member of the cast and crew what they need to do to create the final product. That’s why it’s written as a technical document and not in prose.
With that in mind, any script starts with a story. Anything worth watching tells a story. It doesn’t matter what kind of film or video you’re making; you’re telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Before you can write the script, you must develop the story and decide how you’re going to tell it. Figure out all of the details, break down all the scenes. Know what’s going to happen step-by-step.
Revise, revise, revise the story until you tell it as efficiently as possible in the way you want to tell it. Get rid of anything unnecessary. And do keep your budget in mind, which works to your advantage – you’ll come up with really creative ways to do things with the budget you have. Remember, most creativity doesn't come from having freedom; creativity comes from having to devise your way around restrictions and limitations.
When you’ve worked a story through, you should then write a detailed outline, broken down into scenes, with detailed descriptions of what will happen in each scene. And with that fat, meaty outline in hand, you can begin to write the script, fully fleshing out each scene according to your outline.
Again, remember, your scripts are technical documents, sets of instructions, not literature. The script contains your story, but the script isn’t your story, and it isn’t your movie. It’s your method of putting to paper what everyone in the cast and crew need to do to create the elements you’ll use to make your movie. Use descriptive language, not poetry. If your actors or your art director or your editor can’t tell what they’re supposed to do because your instructions were too abstract or vague, you’re not writing a proper script and your movie will suffer for it.
Like you did with your story, polish, polish, polish your script. You’re really thinking about the upcoming shoot at this point, and here’s where you solve all the problems so you don’t need to fix it in post. Also, if you've got a scene that's way too long (or even unnecessary), it's infinitely easier to cut it from the script than it is to go through all the efforts to shoot it, just to end up cutting it in editing. If you're writing a comedy scene and people who read the script just kind of smirk or say "that's cute" or anything other than laughing out loud at it, then it's simply not good enough, and when you shoot it and show the finished project, people will kind of smirk at it or say "meh". At that point there's nothing to do but fix the script and bring everybody back for a reshoot - and it's infinitely, incredibly easier and cheaper to just fix it at the script stage in the first place.
A proper script tells you everything you’re going to need for production, but also for post-production, so you can plan everything you need to do in production to coordinate with post-production. Keep this in mind in a moment when we discuss assembling your crew, because you’ll want the input from your crew even as you’re developing the final version of your script.
Previsualization
Take your script and visualize everything. Know what you want each frame of your project to look like. Get it down in pictures. Storyboard everything with as much detail as you can. Even if you can only draw stick figures, draw it in stick figures. Do it on paper or with software, but do it. Animated storyboards (animatics) are also extremely effective tools.
Storyboards communicate at a glance, to everyone involved, exactly what the upcoming shot needs to be. When your AD calls out "Scene 16, shot 3", the camera crew and lighting team can check the storyboard and know exactly what you need them to do. The prop and wardrobe departments know exactly what is needed and if they will need to use the hero items, or if it's a wide shot and they can get away with using the less-detailed stuff. The sound department will know how to mic the scene, where to plan for the boom mic without entering the frame. Hair and Makeup will know how the actors are supposed to look, and for that matter which actors they need to have ready. And on and on; production is a massive undertaking with so many moving parts, and telling everyone what they need to be doing can drain you, delay them, and frustrate everyone else who doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing, but having effective storyboards reduces all of that to a glance at a picture and drastically shortens the setup time needed between takes.
The point is, don’t leave anything up in the air. Decide now, before you ever put up a light or shoot a single frame, what your final product will look like and sound like. Don’t wing this. It’s one of the most crucial steps of the entire process. And it’s also one of the most creative and rewarding steps. Above all, it makes your production and your post-production much, much smoother and better. Say it again – “fix it in pre.”
Anecdotally, this was Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite part of the movie-making process. For him, it was the most creative step; he found production boring. At the time, directors often had little control of the editing process, but because he had planned so carefully, he was able to shoot and deliver only the footage needed to make the final film exactly the way he wanted. Editors had no choice but to assemble it the way he wanted because that’s how he shot it and it’s the only footage they had to work with. He could only do that through extremely thorough planning.
Assembling Your Crew
While there’s obviously work to do before you get to the step of recruiting and hiring crew, get your people in place as early as possible so you can leverage their input while developing the final script. They will bring experience and invaluable insights to the table, and you should trust them to shepherd your script development to the best and most efficient (and therefore most effective) it can be.
Bring in the most experienced people you can find and can afford. If you want your final product to look and sound good, you want people who know how to do it. Choose people based on how well they’ll play their roles.
And speaking of roles, audition your actors and choose them not only because of how they look, but also because they can do well with the parts. Record them, choose the best, then gather your finalists together to see their chemistry together. The right cast can make magic; the wrong cast can kill your production.
Get your crew together early, so your production team can coordinate with your post-production team and work out ways to make post-production as smooth as possible. We cannot emphasize enough that here, with input from your entire crew, is where you anticipate and solve your problems rather than leaving it all to post.
Script Breakdown
A script breakdown identifies and lists everything you’ll need, scene by scene, to make your film. It spells out wardrobe, location, props, any practical effects, time of day, equipment, specific personnel, and everything else needed for each scene. You use it to estimate how much everything will cost and how long scenes will take to shoot. Your crew uses it to know what they need and what they must procure to do their own jobs.
Choosing Locations
A lot of factors go into choosing locations. They absolutely need to be visually appropriate, but they also need to service your shoot in other ways. You need enough room for your equipment and crew to move around easily, and often you need ample space for the best lighting, camera, and microphone setups. Cramped rooms limit your technical and creative choices.
Importantly, scout locations for sound, too. Visually ideal locations can also lead to disaster if you can’t record good sound in them, if unwanted outside or nearby sounds constantly intrude, or if the space itself echoes or has constant background noise. Know what you’re getting into. Bring your cinematographer and sound mixer with you so they can anticipate problems you might not.
Always scout a location at the time of day when you’ll shoot in it. Avoid unwanted surprises. Know if the sun burns out your room at a certain time of day, or if there’s a nearby whistle which blows every day at the time you’ll be shooting, or if there’s a band which rehearses in another part of the building you’re planning on using, etc.
Make a Shooting Plan
With all of that in mind, and with your crew’s input, you can plan your shoot. You should know about how long it will take to shoot everything, when you’ll have access to your locations, and everything else you’ll need for your shoot. Plan your shoot as efficiently as possible.
When unexpected things inevitably happen, a good plan will make it easier to deal with them. A good plan even makes on-set creativity more possible, not least because an efficient production makes it more likely that you’ll find time for some flexibility or experimentation.
We know, production is the fun part, and we all want to get to it as quickly as possible, but it's a major mistake to cut short your pre-production.
You may hear the old film cliché “we’ll fix it in post.” But most likely, if you find yourself thinking that way in production, you didn’t plan as well as you should’ve in pre-production. NOW, pre-production, is the time to anticipate and solve problems so you don't have to pray for a miracle in post-production. Banish the phrase “we’ll fix it in post” from your mind. Instead, continually think “we’ll fix it in pre.”
Successful Productions Start With Good Scripts
Properly understood, a script is a set of instructions which tell every member of the cast and crew what they need to do to create the final product. That’s why it’s written as a technical document and not in prose.
With that in mind, any script starts with a story. Anything worth watching tells a story. It doesn’t matter what kind of film or video you’re making; you’re telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Before you can write the script, you must develop the story and decide how you’re going to tell it. Figure out all of the details, break down all the scenes. Know what’s going to happen step-by-step.
Revise, revise, revise the story until you tell it as efficiently as possible in the way you want to tell it. Get rid of anything unnecessary. And do keep your budget in mind, which works to your advantage – you’ll come up with really creative ways to do things with the budget you have. Remember, most creativity doesn't come from having freedom; creativity comes from having to devise your way around restrictions and limitations.
When you’ve worked a story through, you should then write a detailed outline, broken down into scenes, with detailed descriptions of what will happen in each scene. And with that fat, meaty outline in hand, you can begin to write the script, fully fleshing out each scene according to your outline.
Again, remember, your scripts are technical documents, sets of instructions, not literature. The script contains your story, but the script isn’t your story, and it isn’t your movie. It’s your method of putting to paper what everyone in the cast and crew need to do to create the elements you’ll use to make your movie. Use descriptive language, not poetry. If your actors or your art director or your editor can’t tell what they’re supposed to do because your instructions were too abstract or vague, you’re not writing a proper script and your movie will suffer for it.
Like you did with your story, polish, polish, polish your script. You’re really thinking about the upcoming shoot at this point, and here’s where you solve all the problems so you don’t need to fix it in post. Also, if you've got a scene that's way too long (or even unnecessary), it's infinitely easier to cut it from the script than it is to go through all the efforts to shoot it, just to end up cutting it in editing. If you're writing a comedy scene and people who read the script just kind of smirk or say "that's cute" or anything other than laughing out loud at it, then it's simply not good enough, and when you shoot it and show the finished project, people will kind of smirk at it or say "meh". At that point there's nothing to do but fix the script and bring everybody back for a reshoot - and it's infinitely, incredibly easier and cheaper to just fix it at the script stage in the first place.
A proper script tells you everything you’re going to need for production, but also for post-production, so you can plan everything you need to do in production to coordinate with post-production. Keep this in mind in a moment when we discuss assembling your crew, because you’ll want the input from your crew even as you’re developing the final version of your script.
Previsualization
Take your script and visualize everything. Know what you want each frame of your project to look like. Get it down in pictures. Storyboard everything with as much detail as you can. Even if you can only draw stick figures, draw it in stick figures. Do it on paper or with software, but do it. Animated storyboards (animatics) are also extremely effective tools.
Storyboards communicate at a glance, to everyone involved, exactly what the upcoming shot needs to be. When your AD calls out "Scene 16, shot 3", the camera crew and lighting team can check the storyboard and know exactly what you need them to do. The prop and wardrobe departments know exactly what is needed and if they will need to use the hero items, or if it's a wide shot and they can get away with using the less-detailed stuff. The sound department will know how to mic the scene, where to plan for the boom mic without entering the frame. Hair and Makeup will know how the actors are supposed to look, and for that matter which actors they need to have ready. And on and on; production is a massive undertaking with so many moving parts, and telling everyone what they need to be doing can drain you, delay them, and frustrate everyone else who doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing, but having effective storyboards reduces all of that to a glance at a picture and drastically shortens the setup time needed between takes.
The point is, don’t leave anything up in the air. Decide now, before you ever put up a light or shoot a single frame, what your final product will look like and sound like. Don’t wing this. It’s one of the most crucial steps of the entire process. And it’s also one of the most creative and rewarding steps. Above all, it makes your production and your post-production much, much smoother and better. Say it again – “fix it in pre.”
Anecdotally, this was Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite part of the movie-making process. For him, it was the most creative step; he found production boring. At the time, directors often had little control of the editing process, but because he had planned so carefully, he was able to shoot and deliver only the footage needed to make the final film exactly the way he wanted. Editors had no choice but to assemble it the way he wanted because that’s how he shot it and it’s the only footage they had to work with. He could only do that through extremely thorough planning.
Assembling Your Crew
While there’s obviously work to do before you get to the step of recruiting and hiring crew, get your people in place as early as possible so you can leverage their input while developing the final script. They will bring experience and invaluable insights to the table, and you should trust them to shepherd your script development to the best and most efficient (and therefore most effective) it can be.
Bring in the most experienced people you can find and can afford. If you want your final product to look and sound good, you want people who know how to do it. Choose people based on how well they’ll play their roles.
And speaking of roles, audition your actors and choose them not only because of how they look, but also because they can do well with the parts. Record them, choose the best, then gather your finalists together to see their chemistry together. The right cast can make magic; the wrong cast can kill your production.
Get your crew together early, so your production team can coordinate with your post-production team and work out ways to make post-production as smooth as possible. We cannot emphasize enough that here, with input from your entire crew, is where you anticipate and solve your problems rather than leaving it all to post.
Script Breakdown
A script breakdown identifies and lists everything you’ll need, scene by scene, to make your film. It spells out wardrobe, location, props, any practical effects, time of day, equipment, specific personnel, and everything else needed for each scene. You use it to estimate how much everything will cost and how long scenes will take to shoot. Your crew uses it to know what they need and what they must procure to do their own jobs.
Choosing Locations
A lot of factors go into choosing locations. They absolutely need to be visually appropriate, but they also need to service your shoot in other ways. You need enough room for your equipment and crew to move around easily, and often you need ample space for the best lighting, camera, and microphone setups. Cramped rooms limit your technical and creative choices.
Importantly, scout locations for sound, too. Visually ideal locations can also lead to disaster if you can’t record good sound in them, if unwanted outside or nearby sounds constantly intrude, or if the space itself echoes or has constant background noise. Know what you’re getting into. Bring your cinematographer and sound mixer with you so they can anticipate problems you might not.
Always scout a location at the time of day when you’ll shoot in it. Avoid unwanted surprises. Know if the sun burns out your room at a certain time of day, or if there’s a nearby whistle which blows every day at the time you’ll be shooting, or if there’s a band which rehearses in another part of the building you’re planning on using, etc.
Make a Shooting Plan
With all of that in mind, and with your crew’s input, you can plan your shoot. You should know about how long it will take to shoot everything, when you’ll have access to your locations, and everything else you’ll need for your shoot. Plan your shoot as efficiently as possible.
When unexpected things inevitably happen, a good plan will make it easier to deal with them. A good plan even makes on-set creativity more possible, not least because an efficient production makes it more likely that you’ll find time for some flexibility or experimentation.