Pre-Production

Whilst you will not have to do everything on this list, your basic pre-production for a any film project - including:

Narrative: shorts and features.
Documentary: shorts and features.
Television: broadcast news, scripted program, talk shows, web-series.
Corporate: Promos, recruiting, explainers, training.
Event: weddings, parties, company events.
Social: vlog, video essays, promos, live streams.

all require the following:

The Pitch

The pitch is a brief person to person/s delivery of an idea for a film. It is intended to intrigue the audience (producers, investors, actors, funding bodies, other interested parties). It can be delivered spontaneously, or at an organised meeting. It is NOT a good idea to outline the entire plot of the film, rather, sell it with a clear central message, starting concept or insight leaving the audience wanting more.

Legend has it that the pitch for the movie “TWINS” was:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, TWINS!

At the other extreme, director Kerry Condon spent five years working on a six minute short as his pitch for “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”. A Pitch ensures you are clear in your own mind about the central idea or goal. This is essential if you want others to share the film making journey with you.

The Treatment

Another commonly used planning document is the treatment. It provides an idea of how a particular scene should be treated. It describes what we will see on the screen in the finished product.

Treatments are usually written in the present tense and in prose style, making use of short, easy to read paragraphs.

The screen fades to black as we hear the sound of birds chirping in the morning. We see a small suburban house, framed as an extreme long shot. We are taken inside the house where we see MICHAEL, a middle aged man, standing in the kitchen reading a newspaper. He seems particularly interested in the used-car section and doesn’t notice that the bread he put in the toaster has become caught and is starting to smoke. Eventually, Michael notices the smell and turns to notice the burning toast that he has obviously forgotten. He curses and moves quickly to the toaster, which now has flames coming out of it. He manages to pull out the burnt bread and throws it into the sink, but not before burning his fingers. Michael’s wife JENNY, enters the kitchen wondering what the smell is and stares at Michael who now has his fingers in his mouth and is sucking them like a baby to stop the burning. Jenny laughs.

They are particularly useful as a first draft from which a script can be developed. They are also suitable for planning productions with little or no dialogue, such as a music video clip.

The Script

There are many ways of preparing a script, the following format, however, is commonly used in television and film productions:

The Storyboard

The storyboard is a visual representation of the script, not unlike a comic book. Storyboards come in all shapes and sizes, from stick figures to fully rendered works of art, to 3D computer versions of an entire film.

The storyboard is usually a collaboration between the director, the cinematographer and the storyboard artist. The storyboard artist is usually well verse in cinematic and editing techniques. Have a look at the chapters on cinematography and editing before beginning your own storyboard.

Why storyboard?

It saves you time when shooting, as the basic camera shots have already been worked out - the same way writing a script saves you working out dialogue on the day ! It means EVERYBODY working on the film has an idea about how each scene is supposed to be set up, and it saves you having to go back and shoot extra scenes because you forgot that all important close-up. It helps enormously with continuity.

Every working director in Hollywood will give you a different answer about how they use storyboards:

Steven Spielberg draws his own storyboards for every scene using stick figures before hiring a professional storyboard artist to redraw them.
George Lucas creates 3-D animated storyboards showing every last minute detail of the camera movement, and the character positions within that shot
Rob Reiner almost never uses storyboards except for specific action sequences (such as running from the train in “Stand By Me”)
Frank Darabont uses storyboards for complicated scenes - not necessarily ‘action’ sequences, but ones that involve more visual rather than verbal aspects of storytelling.

Dialogue scenes require far less storyboarding than action or complicated camera scenes. A basic idea of camera angle and shot selections are probably all that is required. Complicated action, however, can be a nightmare if not storyboarded correctly.

Intro to Storyboarding.MP4

Location Scouting

Before you begin your project, you’ll need to pick out your location(s). You may or may not have a studio available to you, so it’s important to consider the following things:

background noise
lighting availability
room for setups

Production Design

Production design is a major contributor to the mood, or emotional tone, of a film, as well as outlining the film's themes and characters.

This is usually the starting point of the design process. Visual research is gathered that depicts the mood or atmosphere that best supports the story. Assembled, these images become mood boards and are a highly effective means for communicating what is a non-literal quality.

These images are used to reach an agreement with the director on the direction that the design concept will take and form a key framework for the decisions the production designer makes from then on.

Colour is one the most powerful tools production designers have at their disposal.

Production Design — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors Ep2.MP4

Casting

Obviously you don't have much choice here... but appropriate casting is essential to the success of any film!

Putting it all together...

An excerpt from “The Shawshank Redemption”

The following script and storyboard is from Frank Darabont’s film “The Shawshank Redemption”. The reason for using storyboards was due to the physical complications involved in the scene - a giant prison, 500 extras, nearly a dozen lead actors, a bus, and a helicopter shot. The last thing needed during this shoot was a conversation trying to work out where to place the camera.

Shawshank Redemption Andy's entrance.MP4

...and finally the clip of the film!

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