Importance of planning in film production
Pre-Production is a crucial phase of the video production process. There are consequences when corners are cut. What happens when you skip pre-production? You end up paying for it later.
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Has your video production partner ever convinced you to skip the pre-production stage of your video project to save time and money?
Hi, I’m Ravneet Oberoi, founder of French Fries Films, and today I’m here to talk about an often overlooked aspect of creating a video: Pre – Production.
Pre-production is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an unglamorous, and at times exhausting, stage of video production where all the step by step creative decisions, collaboration, ideas, objectives, production deployment, and logistics plans are made before the camera actually starts rolling.
This is the stage where you visualize how your video will look like, who will be your audience, who will be the actors or stars, and what will be the ultimate message of the video. It’s where you finalize the talent, the location, and the equipment that will be used in making the said video. And, most importantly, this is the stage where you will determine the timeline and budget for your video project, in addition to making contingency plans in case things don’t go your way.
Sometimes an ideal script and the efforts of a very capable video production team slip down the drain because of poor pre-production systems.Without strong pre-production, you’re faced with more challenges than you were expecting, and more often than not, you end up having to make a ton of revisions in the post-production.
A lot of the lesser experienced video production companies have a tendency to skip the pre-production stage in order to save time and money, the irony in it being that they, and consequently their customers, end up spending a lot more of both! But, what makes them do so, you ask? Assumptions.
a. They assume that the desired location or site for the shoot will be available to them without an issue. Whereas the truth is that location shoots contain a number of variables and something could very well go wrong at any moment. You could reach the location and realize that you require permission to enter the space or that the building might have been closed for renovation that very day.
b. The next thing is that they assume that, just this once, the talent they have cast will cooperate with them, without any hurdles in the process. That they will stick to the shooting schedule diligently and perform brilliantly on the first take. even the most experienced professional actors stumble a time or two before delivering perfection.
c. Then there’s the “Oh, I’ll fix it in the post-production” assumption. If you’re really really talented, many-a-times you will be able to fix the noise issue you ignored during the shoot. But, what if you can’t? Will you re-shoot the entire video? and all the planning process has to start from scratch. Who will bear the cost? What will be the consequences of the delay? technical requirements of the shoot are a must and it is the one thing that a production team never skips.
d. One of the most vital steps of pre-production is the shot breakdown it took hours to make it and essentially it covers the script of the video project. it is the starting of pre-production after the script. Assuming that this shot breakdown is not required or necessary can be a fatal mistake that a video production company can make. Trust me when I say this, the fewer details you have to be thinking about on the day of the shoot, the more you’ll be able to actually be in the moment and capture every scene, shot, and take seamlessly.
In the wise words of Benjamin Franklin “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” The best way to ensure smooth production of your video project is with proper preparation and thorough pre-production. Poor pre-production practices often result in sub-standard finished products, a bunch of errors, a confused crew, and perhaps worst of all, a wrecked budget. Always remember that it’s a lot less expensive to work out the kinks on paper than in front of the lens.
If you have any other suggestions or if you’d like further advice, leave us a message in the comments section below. We’ll be happy to hear from you.
This is Ravneet Oberoi, Signing off, See you in my next blog.
