Action! The basics of film production

I’m Joe Cianciotto, a lover of cinema. As a movie buff, one of my biggest frustrations is filmmaking. But it’s something I know I can work toward. I’ve been doing research on how movies are made – and here’s the basic flow of it. Before everything, the filmmaker secures the funds to finance a project. He talks to investors and pitches his ideas. If they have a script already written, they share the script with potential producers and executive producers. Once the script is developed and the financing is secured, pre-production starts. This can also be called the planning stage in which everything from casting to location scouting to setting the vision of the film is planned. Producers then tap production managers to come up with a budget and filming schedule. The stages that follow can be compared to the main course of a meal. The first is production. Everything needs to fall in according to schedule and all the key players get ready for their responsibilities. Principal photography follows. This is most commonly known as filming. This is the stage that takes up most of the money. Every scene is shot and printed. Once that is done, filming is wrapped and everything that’s borrowed has to be returned and everything that needs to be tidied up is tidied up.

Visual effects, music, sound are edited in at post-production, before the film gets distributed into cinemas or whatever platform they’re headed to. Do you have any experience on film production? I would love to hear them! Message me, Joe Cianciotto, in the comment section below. Joe Cianciotto is a San Francisco Bay Area-based architect. He is a movie buff and enjoys a diverse selection of genres, including superhero films, independent science fiction, mumblecore, and Golden-age dramas and epics. For similar posts, visit this page.