Pre-Production: But what to prepare first?

H

Hitch22

This might be a weird question, but what do you best prepare first when you're doing the pre-production of your film? ...The location? The cast? The crew? Or is it different with each project?

I always find this phase really difficult because every single aspect needs to come together. Everything needs to be 'booked' on the same dates. But how do you decide what dates you're going to film? Is it dependent from the date availability of your crew, your location or your cast?

Is there a certain order of preparing that is recommended?

Thanks in advance!
 
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Everyone has a different focus. You can say the money, the marketing, the schedule, the locations, the cast, crew, the workflow etc. My advice, start with the hardest piece of the puzzle to move and work everything else around that. When you're dealing with big names and a large budget, it's usually the names you need to work around. For no budget stuff the locations is usually where I start.

It's part of the reason First AD's get paid the big bucks.
 
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I think at the independent film level, every project is a little different.

But locations are a prime concern for the low budget film.

For instance, Ed Burns has many times said that he starts with locations, actually before he even writes the script. He goes through a list of locations he knows he can use or secure, and then asks himself what story he can tell using those locations.

My personal experience for our feature film we are shooting this March lines up a little with this. We knew we had a access to a large oceanfront home on a hill, and we wrote a script using that location.

We also knew actors that we wanted to have in the film. We approached them and got their agreement. Then we did a complete script breakdown, creating a schedule and starting to organize the production days.

We then sent out to the actors we knew we wanted an email that told them the window of dates we were thinking of shooting the film (based on the availability of the location,) and then asked for any hard conflicts they might already have during that window.

We then took those conflicts and nailed down dates, based on our breakdown, and had specifiic actors hold specific dates in which, for instance, we might have to have 4-5 actors there at the same time.

Then we started to cast other roles, based off the dates that we already had on the calendar.

Now, we are in the process of gathering our crew and technical people. At the same time, my DP and I are going through storyboarding.

As I said, this is our order of things. Everybody else might differ.

I will say this though. Try to cast the film as early as you can. Don't wait. Good actors get very busy. Even if they want to be in your film, they may have other conflicts if you wait too long.
 
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My advice is to always have back-up plans for everything from your location to your actors and crew. There's nothing worse than needing to make changes at the very last minute. Anyone who is involved in the project must, in pre-production, be locked in but still I'd advise you to have back-ups just in case.

Also don't rush pre-production because there's always something that if not planned in this phase it will become an issue somewhere down the line. Rushing straight into production with some elements still unaccounted for will cause problems at some point.

Filmmaking is not only about what you do but what you prepare for as well as versatility to make important changes at the last minute if an issue arises.
 
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The way I did it for my no budget indie feature:

-wrote the script with available locations and actors in mind
-let some people read it for feedback
-started making tons of detailed lists about everything I needed to keep track of
-got the rest of the funding i needed
-started buying/making props (this was ongoing during the entire process)
-contacted actors to make sure they were on board
-met with my dp to go over shotlists
-scouted my locations for specific blocking/shots
-made a shooting schedule
-held casting sessions for remaining roles
-selected wardrobe
-had to cancel most of the schedule
-shot 2 big scenes that could not be rescheduled
-took some time to mentally prepare
-came back 3 months later and shot the rest back-to-back

If I could do it over I would have hired/enlisted someone to help me. It was a ton of work and my sanity was put to the test. The worst part was the constant rescheduling and having to change which scenes we were shooting in a moments notice based on the actor's schedules changing.
 
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2 weeks ago I decided to make a short christmas video.
I wanted a certain location and actor. I mailed both: is it possible on monday, tuesday or wednesday?
The location was free on wednesday and the actor had time as well :)

It's indeed a game of what comes first?
In the end the order isn't important as long as everything is there on the right moment :)
 
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