Pre Production Advice

By Katy Watts


In all walks of life, I'm terribly unorganised. I don't have a fixed location for anything, be it keys, mobile phone or even the bacon sandwich I'd misplaced two days ago, (turns out I'd left it in the shed while looking for the dustpan). In fact I recently found out my housemates have made a habit of hanging up my keys whenever they see them somewhere they know I'll never find - and I'm sure they're sick and tired of the phrase "can you ring my phone?".

Scripting and storyboarding are important in the pre-production of a project, they make sure that there is a vision and plan for when it comes to the filming. They both take on crucial features of the filming process. Scripting is crucial to ensure that all the needed material is included, whether this is a well developed script leaving no room of improvisation or bullet pointed topics of conversation. Scripting is not just used for speech but can also be used for movement, to express a specific message through the gestures of the actor or actress. Scripting and storyboarding are quite similar, one dealing with the people/person being shot and the other dealing with those behind the camera, filming the action. Storyboarding provides for a visual for the various shots that could be used during filming, so that everyone included has a definite understanding of exactly what the final outcome will look like shot by shot, and also to ensure filming on the day runs effortlessly. The storyboards do not have to be drawn amazingly, yet they are important to structure how the filming will take place with the various camera angles and shots.

You should be asking questions such as: What am I trying to achieve with my video? What am I going to shoot? What locations/people/resources do I need to accomplish my goals? What can I remove to simplify the process? Where is my video going to be shown and what do I need to do during production to make sure it displays correctly?

Scripting and storyboarding and writing a treatment are all crucial in the pre-production of a project, they ensure that there is a vision and plan for when it comes to the filming. They both undertake fundamental features of the filming process. Scripting and storyboarding are relatively similar, one dealing with the people/person being shot and the other dealing with those behind the camera, filming the action. Storyboarding is the practice of pre-visualizing a production through drawn, painted or rendered pictures called storyboards. In the past, storyboarding costs restricted the practice to productions with modest budgets. But recent software releases allow anyone to build storyboards using pre-created people, props and scenery. Most programs have multiple aspect ratios and import scripts, photos and scanned images for use as well.

Once you have a basic way of coordinating what you're going to film, it makes the mammoth task of going through the footage and beginning to put everything together a lot easier. Then when it comes to editing you just need to take some initiative and sort the clips into relevant bins or folders. Unfortunately this is something I'm yet to learn, only when I'm tearing my hair out through editing related stress do I think "why didn't I just rename that clip?". I can only urge that you learn from my production woes and take some time to prepare, beginning with pre-production which will undoubtedly benefit you later on. That way you won't have your housemates tidying up after you.

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