1) Mood Boards - Physical - Scrapbook / Sketchbook  |  Digital - Pinterest / Pixabay / Canva

Creating mood board helps you to begin to get a feel for the mood, tone, location, concept, colour palette, costume, etc in advance to planning your shoot in detail. Whilst this is a visual way of planning, try to include notes about any sounds or music which come to mind. 

2) Storyboards - Storyboards are visual representations, most often drawn, but sometimes computer generated or comprised of test photographs. They outline the shots and cuts as you would like them to appear in the final film, in the order you would like them to appear. Clarifying your vision as much as possible in advance will ensure that you get everything you need from your shoot, particularly if you're on a tight filming schedule. Not all creative processes work this way, but if you can cultivate a clear vision, it will help optimise your shoot.

Free Storyboard Templates

3) Shot Lists - Shot lists are the list of shots you need to get and the order in which they need to be filmed. Film does not work with time the same way that live performance does. Depending on changes in location, costume considerations, time of day, weather, etc and how you would like to move between these in the edit, it would rarely make sense to shoot the scenes in the order in which they appear in the final film. Shot lists are created to ensure you get all the shots you need from a particular location, part of the dance, camera angle, etc before moving to another. 

Be sure to add select key audio moments to your shot list such as environmental sounds and key movements.