The most overlooked process of Film and video production is Pre-production. Pre-production is the planning and organising stage before shooting starts, even though it is an essential part of film making it is regularly rushed or overlooked completely.
Pre-production involves making all the necessary preparations to bring the film to life. This includes: script writing, location scouting, casting, budgeting, storyboarding, scheduling, booking crew, acquiring equipment, insurance, contracts – It’s a lot of work! When done right production and Post production stages will run smoothly.
During pre-production, we as film makers are always thinking about the pitfalls and challenges that the script includes. We look at ways that we could save money, reduce any wasted time and keep our crew happy and productive whilst always trying to make sure the production will stay on track.
Sadly pre-production is often overlooked because it is not as glamorous as the shooting or exciting as post production stages. Filmmakers often want to get down to telling the story as soon as possible. But I would compare the pre-production stage of any film to that of the foundations of a house, without strong and robust foundations the house will crumble. At Offset Films we begin all our projects with a thorough analysis of the script. The script will give all the people involved a clear goal. We will interrogate it: make sure it reads well, think about word choice and clarity of message. From there we breakdown the script into the component shots, and build a shot list. While on set we can then tick these off as we go, making doubly sure we are getting the right content and enough of it to fill the script.
We prefer to work with scripts to create the framework and body of the film because the other way of working would be to ask your talent a series of questions. But working from questions means you cannot guarantee what your talent will say, the entire time through your pre production you cannot plan what cut away shots you will need and you will end up going into edit with a prayer that you have covered everything, hoping that your message isn’t lost to vocal filler and hesitation.
Get in contact as soon as possible, so we can give adequate time to the pre production for your film now.
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