Prep time before shooting a feature

Imaginate

Imaginate

Well-known member
Are there any directors out there who could share with me the amount of time that they spent in prep/development time before the first day of shooting? Did you track your hours or could you give a rough estimate?
 
For my first film I spent a couple months in pre-production. Finding a location, writing and re-writing the script several times, casting, re-hearsing, getting the exact crew I needed, storyboarding. And how long was the actually shoot day?- It took about 4 hours to shoot my short film. The piece is about 6 minutes long. Was it enough time? It worked for me.

My second piece doubled my pre-production time to 4 months. How long was the actually shoot day for that short film about 12 hours. Was it enough time? Seemed to work out great. Now everyone is different. I firmly believe in storyboarding each shot and having pre-production meetings with the crew. Just seems to help the day go by smoother. I know some directors show up on set with "all the shots in their head". I can't work like that. Days get to long and something always gets missed. But who knows what works for you.
 
On "Leap", which is a feature, I wrote the outline in January 2008, the script in Feb, took March and April off. May I cast the film and started training the actors in parkour. June was training and location scouting. July was training. Shot in August.
 
for me i spent a few months of pre production on my feature, rewriting the script, rehearsing, planning the shoot, going over things with the crew, etc. where i dropped the ball was on scheduling. it was too straight forward and i didnt plan for multiple actors having conflicts. i was working with 30 actors (not all at the same time) and we had some situations that couldn't be avoided for them like one actress moved to LA and all her scenes had to be moved up to shoot within a certain amount of days, another actor's dayjob transferred him 2 hours away in another city, etc. the project turned out good but ended up taking longer to film because we had gaps in the schedule where we couldnt film.
 
I spent about three weeks planning out a short film. I think it all depends on how quickly all of the aspects come together. We didn't do any re-writes but we waited on some storyboards, and shopped around for a good cinematographer and heck I even started planning the post production.

IMO you should know your film 100% before starting production. Things will change but the process will go a lot smoother.
 
FilmBoy77 said:
for me i spent a few months of pre production on my feature, rewriting the script, rehearsing, planning the shoot, going over things with the crew, etc. where i dropped the ball was on scheduling. it was too straight forward and i didnt plan for multiple actors having conflicts. i was working with 30 actors (not all at the same time) and we had some situations that couldn't be avoided for them like one actress moved to LA and all her scenes had to be moved up to shoot within a certain amount of days, another actor's day job transferred him 2 hours away in another city, etc. the project turned out good but ended up taking longer to film because we had gaps in the schedule where we couldnt film.
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This is the gap that we ran into as well on our film. The 1st AD had worked out a shooting schedule purely based around the actors schedule but he didn't factor in the setups that the camera department was having to do to accommodate. Its like the scheduling needed to have a representative from the camera department there and it could have been way more efficient.

I'm thinking next film someone could be scheduling at least 6 weeks before production.

Who does the scheduling on your films?
 
Imaginate said:
This is the gap that we ran into as well on our film. The 1st AD had worked out a shooting schedule purely based around the actors schedule but he didn't factor in the setups that the camera department was having to do to accommodate. Its like the scheduling needed to have a representative from the camera department there and it could have been way more efficient.

I'm thinking next film someone could be scheduling at least 6 weeks before production.

Who does the scheduling on your films?
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i did the scheduling with my 1st AD and a couple other crew members. i made sure my main crew was available first before i proposed the initial schedule to the actors. a lot of my actors were flipping odd jobs and on multiple projects so it got real tricky really quick.

have you gotten distribution form your feature yet or are you doing ok just by selling yours from the website?
 
It depends.

Also consider there are two parts of pre-production.
1. Scheduling and business aspects (ideally you have ADs and producers to help shoulder this)
2. Preparing the script and the artistic aspects (rehearsal, storyboards, ect...)

Either one of those vary greatly from film to film, and I strongly recommend having someone very experienced with you in pre-production to help see where the holes are before you fall in them during production.
 
We spent about 3 1/2 Months of Pre-Production (non-fulltime jobs with 3 main producers and 1 director) for our 21 day Feature Shoot...which itself lasted 2 1/2 months to complete because of the nature of crew and cast availability. So lots of prep was also done in between shoot days.

-M
 
I wouldn't even think about pre-production or shooting until you have a rock solid script. Rehearsals with cast and crew are vital. I make very little changes to a script but if you make changes this is the time to do it. Scheduling is absolutely critical to a smooth shoot. I am not good at schedualing, so have someone help me with this. Last but not least if nobody is being paid, do whatever you can to help feed them if they working a 8-12 hour day with no pay. Someone making no money, but is at least being fed, will be much happier and in turn more productive for you :thumbsup:
 
have you gotten distribution form your feature yet or are you doing ok just by selling yours from the website?[/QUOTE]


I've never shot a feature, Whats a distribution form?
 
BrandonTodd said:
I wouldn't even think about pre-production or shooting until you have a rock solid script.
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Absolutely. Nothing should start until the script is finished and funds are in the bank.

I generally like to spend 3 to 5 months prepping for a feature unless it's "people in a room talking" (at one location), which I'm 3 months from doing and still very much into prep.

The more time you spend prepping, the less wasted time you can achieve, the more time you can spend actually shooting usable footage with a good cast.

.
 
For a 13 day feature shoot I prepped for about 4 or 5 months with about 6-8 weeks before that to have the script written. Make sure you plan for post just as much as for shooting. It is something that a lot of people don't do and it can save you a huge amount of time. Also make sure you have a budget for post. For my feature, in the end, it took roughly 4-5 days of work (Pre, Pro, or Post) per minute of finished movie. This may or may not be a good way for you to judge your film depending on it's genre and budget.
 
Wow there are some serious pre-pro guys. I think I generally spend 2 months, maybe 3 depending on what I need. BUT I don't consider time spent writing a screenplay pre-pro. I only consider once a screenplay is 90% that you can even enter into true pre-pro.
 
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