Get visual references from the producer of films or online pieces that they like and have a conversation about similarities they’d like to see in your piece. If this isn’t a part of a series it’s especially important to craft an idea with the producer ahead of time about how the piece will look.
Producers, feel free to bring editors, EP’s and DP’s in on this conversation too. At this point, don’t get bogged down in equipment - keep it higher level and rely on your DP to recommend equipment needs. Different ideas may call for more than the usual slate of gear but your DP won’t know unless they know what they’re going to be shooting, for how long and how many crew members they are going to have.
This is also the time to determine any additional or specialty ideas - short form, socials, livestreams and/or 360/VR ideas.
THE CORRECT TIME TO COME UP WITH THE DELIVERY PLAN IS IN PREP!
Both Producers and Shooters should be familiar with the projected deliverables during prep. This includes the main assets as well as cutdowns, social media content, and additional media like stills, 360, etc.
Anticipating your shooting ratio is not an exact science but it can help anticipate data problems before they happen. Here’s an example of calculating the shooting ratio for a standard follow-doc with two camera operators and a production schedule of four days:
2-Camera Follow Doc:
Approx. footage per camera per day: 4 hours = 240 minutes per camera x 2 cameras = 480 minutes per day.
Number of shooting days: 4
Total raw footage: 1,920 minutes or 32 hours.
TRT of final piece: 12 minutes
Ratio = 160:1
These numbers can now be used to calculate all sorts of helpful stuff like hard disk space needed, time per nightly download, etc. Also - if you determine that the shooting ratio can be very low - as with a scripted short form piece - it’ll open up the world of 4k capture to you which allows for a whole slew of possibilities during the edit and delivery.
Once the prior things are in place, hold a face-to-face meeting with the Producer, DP, AP, and Post.
During this meeting, everyone should talk through each step of the production process. If you’re doing a multi-day shoot, talk through each day including how/when footage will be ingested to field drives. A huge part of this can be a conversation between the DP and Post. Make a plan.
After the meeting, the AP should generate a 1-pager with all the necessary technical info so any shooter can step in and be ready for success instantly.