Hello from France — emerging independent film producer

Hi everyone,

I'm a French emerging independent film producer currently developing a first short-film project. I'm especially interested in visual storytelling, production design, science fiction, and the practical realities of bringing an ambitious idea to the screen with limited resources.

I joined DVXuser to learn from experienced filmmakers, exchange honest feedback, and discover how others approach development and production. Looking forward to meeting you and seeing your work.

Welcome! Hope to hear a lot about your work and processes.

Tell us about how your short development is going. Any issues finding crew or cast? Do you have locations? Did you pay for them? There is so much learned from the first short. It is a great experience. Good luck.

Thanks, Paul. We’re still early in development, so casting, crew, and locations are not locked yet. The main challenge is defining a visual approach ambitious enough to carry the concept while keeping the short realistically producible. I’m especially interested in how other first-time teams decide what to simplify before pre-production rather than during the shoot.

And i must admit that this project, is a bit .... singular in his material ... ( surprise later maybe... )

Cheers

PS : My english is some time very french, sorry.

There are a few experts here on making shorts. Hopefully, they will chime in. As to visual approach, it naturally depends on your goals, capabilities, budget, and available time. Of course, the setups are what take all the time. If you plan on a rich visual experience, than much time will be spent on lighting, set decorating, a mutitude of camera setups. If you want to have a successful first shoot, that all needs to be sorted out in pre-production. Leave nothing to chance during production. Work out the blocking and shot list during pre-production. Rehearsals if needed.

Here are two examples of shorts that were done on very different time schedules. Perhaps this can be a basis for discussing your goals/questions. Both were micro-budget projects.

This one was shot in five days of which only one was 12 hours. The other days were about six hours. It had all the time needed for writing, shot list, location scouting, lighting discussion, blocking and post. Only the last scene was rehearsed in advance, with blocking sorted out during rehearsals.
This one was shot in four 12-hour nights after having been written in the 24 hours the day before the shooting started. No pre-production was done. The script was written and shooting started the next day.. 5 days were used for post-production. The total pre-production, production, and post was 10 days.

That turnaround is astonishing. It makes me wonder whether the key simplification is limiting locations and setups rather than trying to plan every detail. Looking back, what kept those four nights from becoming chaotic: a very small crew, a strict shot list, or flexible coverage?

It shows two different styles and talents. Each producer/director has a way of working and capabilities. I produced/directed the first one. I plan everything in detail, work out shot lists, do scouting with the DP and gaffer. Another team did Just Right. It is a good comparison of talents and capabilities. I could not do Just Right the way they did it. I don't work that way. I really admire what they accomplished.

Just Right was done at 4 locations (two different locations were used for her house interiors). The key to Just Right was a brilliant DP who does not work with shot lists. He just has the shots and coverage all in his head. He and the producer/gaffer knew each other and worked seamlessly doing setups. But they did not rush anything. The DP and gaffer took all the time they needed to get what they wanted. The crew for JR was producer/gaffer, director, DP, AC, mixer, boom op/grip, PA. The crew for Revenge was producer/director, DP, AC, gaffer, 2 grips, mixer, boom op, script super, PA.

You may find the Production Diaries section of this forum useful. Of note, Charles Papert wrote up his experience with a short that had to be shot in what was it? 24 hours? It is an annual festival that has to be shot in the restaurant that hosts the festival. https://www.dvxuser.com/threads/on-the-boulevard-production-diary.5712055/

Charles is a BIG Hollywood DP.

Welcome, Mandalai!

Sound is too often an afterthought. Part of that comes from a common misunderstanding that production sound just shows up on the first day, throws mics out there, and presses “record”. And sound designers are too often recruited after production has wrapped. As you’re working through the pre-production process, I highly recommend that you get both your production sound mixer and post-production sound editor on board now. While you’re working to define your visual approach, you might be surprised at how helpful it can be to have production and post sound involved to develop the aural approach as well.

Can’t wait to hear more about this project and how it progresses!

We have a short teaser demo, for those who want to have a look... early birds.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMoPU2gK9c

We are looking for a composer, since Michel Legrand wont be available... haha

Paul F said:

You may find the Production Diaries section of this forum useful. Of note, Charles Papert wrote up his experience with a short that had to be shot in what was it? 24 hours? It is an annual festival that has to be shot in the restaurant that hosts the festival. https://www.dvxuser.com/threads/on-the-boulevard-production-diary.5712055/

Charles is a BIG Hollywood DP.

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Thanks Paul! 24 hours to shoot would have been delightful (not consecutively, of course!) This was a 9.5 hr shoot (10 with lunch), including dressing the location for period, due to restrictions at the restaurant. It was most likely the tightest schedule I have ever worked under and required a voluminous amount of planning, as I described in (surely ponderous) detail in that thread. I had plenty of time for prep and post though.

HI Mandalai. I think the best advice I could give in your scenario of being a first time producer is to ensure that you have brought in experienced people to help make your project, and trust their recommendations. As Paul pointed out in those two examples, there are many different styles of working. I prefer to have a firm game plan, because you can always deviate on the day if something better reveals itself, but I find it irresponsible to the cast and crew (especially if rates are minimal) to take up valuable production time figuring things out that should have been worked through in prep. Unfortunately, I've had this happen even shooting network TV series.

Mandalai said:

We have a short teaser demo, for those who want to have a look... early birds.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMoPU2gK9c

Click to expand...

Very clever. Looking forward to seeing it.

Thank you both. The point about planning as respect for a low-budget crew is especially useful. I’m going to treat prep as the place to make expensive decisions cheaply: lock the essential beats, bring experienced department heads in early, and still leave room to adapt without arriving vague. Paul, I’m glad the teaser communicated something. Charles, on a 9.5-hour shoot, which prep document proved most useful once you were actually on the clock: the shot list, floor plan, schedule, lighting plan, or something else?

Mandalai said:

Charles, on a 9.5-hour shoot, which prep document proved most useful once you were actually on the clock: the shot list, floor plan, schedule, lighting plan, or something else?

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Normally the setup I'm used to would be a shot list, possibly overhead diagrams and/or photoboards for the play-by-play of it all. On a more macro scale, the call sheet backed up by the one-liner for the order of scenes. In this instance I prepared a special one-liner thatt listed out each shot and the production requirements (actors involved, props required, any specialty notes) so that my AD could have everything ready one setup ahead. I've never built as specific a document as that one, but it was crucial. My DP was working off my shotlist and photoboards, I had built a script that had the pages for each shot with my notes along with the diagrams and photoboards attached to each setup. Again, super-duper specific and detailed, but making this day required this level of planning, and the result was moving in a straight line with all questions pre-answered. I barely had to communicate with the DP and AD!

That is extremely useful. The special one-liner sounds like the real control document: not just the order of scenes, but every shot tied to actors, props and specialty requirements so the AD can stay one setup ahead. I also like the division of labor—shot list and photoboards for the DP, production requirements for the AD, and annotated script pages for you. I’ll borrow that principle of one source of truth tailored to each department. Thank you for explaining it so concretely.

Mandalai said:

That is extremely useful. The special one-liner sounds like the real control document: not just the order of scenes, but every shot tied to actors, props and specialty requirements so the AD can stay one setup ahead. I also like the division of labor—shot list and photoboards for the DP, production requirements for the AD, and annotated script pages for you. I’ll borrow that principle of one source of truth tailored to each department. Thank you for explaining it so concretely.

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If it helps for your research, here is the one-liner and shot list I referenced earlier.

Charles, thank you — those files are exactly the kind of concrete reference we needed. We’re launching our Kickstarter tomorrow to move THE WATCHER from teaser to production, and I’ll use your one-liner/shot-list structure as a planning backbone: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/watchmen/the-watcher-0. I’ll report back once we’ve adapted it to our shoot.