My Pre-Production

My short story that I am wanting to produce will have only 2 locations.

1 scene shot will be high up on top of a mountain, the location I chose will be on top of Observation point.

2 scene will take place at an old house.

The basis of the story is a love story that a man writes a letter to his wife. The man is writing the letter at the top of the mountain. The letter travels to the home where his wife is and she reads the letter from her husband which is a love letter.

The script is still in progress.

Vistiors

Joe Girard


Joe is an audio expert. He went to school at BYU. He taught me the importance of audio. A film is nothing if it doesn't have good audio. I also learned that its important to experiment with all areas of film to see what fits best for us.



Katherine Szewczk


Katherine came to class and talked a lot about location scouting. she really opened up my eyes to the importance of location scouting. There is a lot of planning that goes into location scouting. Little tips for location scouting

#1 take a camera

#2 know the script

# 3 listen while you are at the location

Varlo Davenport


He talked alot about casting. I learned from him that it is very important to have good actors. If you don't have good actors your film won't turn out the best. If you want to be an actor don't give up and keep auditioning.


Brian Strassman

Brian came in and talked about screen writing. Screen writing is the start of your film. If your script isn't presentable you have a hard time trying to plan your film. I learned the basic steps to writing a script.

Marshall Moore


Marshall taught a lot how film scouting has changed over the years. I learned if I where to location scout for a film. He taught us how we would present it to the director. He talked about how it is important to do panaramic pictures.

Brittany Poulton

Brit came in and talked a lot about different schooling options for film. She also taught me alot about the importance of networking and being passionate about what you do. If you are passionate about what you do you will find the people to help you become more successful.

Sam Perez


Sam said that it is important to keep a production journal and plan out all of your shots.



Dan Levine

Dan taught me that it is so important to keep fighting. Dan had a lot of different situations in his filming life, and he never quit. Don't quit and keep fighting.

Business and marketing plan

Movie Marketing Plan Overview


Define your Audience

There is a movie for everyone you just need to define who they are. 

• Age category
• how old are they
• sex
• male 
• female
• both
• Interest
• what do they like to do
• video games
• sports
• shopping

Create a buzz

• website
• social media
• clothes
• tv
• interact with your audience

Create content

• short clips
• plans tweets
• make appearances
• TV shows
• YouTube
• News

Possible Schools

Britt Poulson came in and opened my eyes, about the future of possibly continuing my education in film.

• Afi
• USC

She also talked a lot about the importance of networking, and through our networks creating the possibility of future film jobs.

NAB

Overall from the things that I have seen I'm disappointed with Nab. I think a lot of the new cameras that have been released are cool, but they're aren't super user friendly.

The black magic Ursa

• the specs are awesome 4k, its only 6,000
• the down fall it weighs 15 pounds
• Another down fall is it hasn't been out that long so we really don't know how well it performs

The Aja

• It's shoots in 4k its 80000
• but to shoot 4k you have to process it to a computer

Overall Nab was disappointing because everything that has been released shoots in 4k and it's not user friendly. Right now shooting in 4k is benifical because you have more freedom in the process of post. If you just shoot it right the first time around you don't really need 4k just yet.

Location Scouting

 Know your script.

•  You need to know your script, so you that know what types of locations you are looking for.

Know the area

• Weather- you need to know what the weather is like at certain times of the year
• Examples
• southern Utah you need to know when our flash floods occur
• Hawaii you need to know when it is monsoon season
• Sun
• you need to know where the sun comes up, and goes down.
• you need to know what time it comes up and goes down

• Where is this location located
• is this place in the middle nowhere
• is it by an air base
• is it windy

Get permission

• what type of land is it
• blm
• nation forest
• someones farm

 And finally, take notes!

• after you have observed wright down what you:
• hear
• sea
• smell
• take pictures of what you see
• where would you set up

Steps in Pre Production

Who’s Working on Your Film?

It is super important in the process of pre-production to find people that are reliable. What do I mean by saying reliable? Are they going to be with you until the end of the film. There have been many times that I have started a film, and people just quit out at the end. So find people in passion and drive to be in your film.

Locations

Location is key! People want to see cool places when they are watching a film. Also locations go along with the story and give the story some volume. For example: I can't shoot a baseball scene in a sewer, I need to film at a baseball field.

Getting permission to shoot where your locations are. Sometimes you can get away with dodging permits but you can also get in a lot of trouble if you don't.

Don’t Assume You Can Fix it in Post

If you think you can fix it in post, don't assume that! Most of the time you can spend 10 seconds to fix a small thing vs. spending 40 hours on that 10 second error. If you see something wrong fix it right away!

It Will Be More Expensive Than You Thought

Really take the time to do some pre-production work. It will save you time and make you more money.

Work Out Videos

I had the opportunity to work on a project with some friends. A company wanted some work out videos done for their company. The only thing that didn't occur in this pre-production process wasn't our fault. The biggest thing that we ran into, was the women didn't know how to time out their work outs. There work outs were either to long, or they were to hard. They couldn't even finish their work outs. We spent a couple of days waiting on them. They had to figure out the best way to distribute the video to their audience.

This could be applied in any given situation with filming. Know your lines! Know what you are going to ask people! These little things will make your production that much better. Take the time sit down plan and things, your shoots will go that much smoother.

Music Video shoot

I shot a video with some friends and I actually wasn't involved to much in the pre-production phase. I actually learned a lot of pre-production techniques, during the shoot even though I wasn't involved in that phase. Trust me you can tell that there wasn't a lot of pre-production worked done. You can tell because of the quality of the video. Things that I would have if I would have been involved the phase of pre-production.

• Permits
• We didn't get permits where we were shooting. I am glad that we didn't get caught, but where we were we would have gotten in trouble.
• Planned the shoot out better
• story boards
• We didn't have any story boards. This would have helped all of us during the shoot, so that we would have all been on the same page. There was a lot of confusion on the shoot
• Timing
• We were rushed to make the video. We had rain delays that slowed down our process. We need to pan better and give ourselves more time to shoot.
• Crew Meeting
• We didn't sit down before the shoot and plan out the video. We literally shot the video by the sit of our pants. 

In Conclusion the video was okay. I feel like if we would have a better pre-production phase then our video would have turned out a lot better.

My first Pre-Production write up.

KNOW YOUR ENDING- The boy sees the reasons why he should attend a liberal arts school

KNOW YOUR MIDDLE- The boy is seeing reason to attend a liberal arts school

KNOW YOUR OPENING- The boy walks into the holland building searching for a reason to attend the school

½ PAGE DEFINES THE OPENING SCENE OF YOUR MOVIE. SPECIFIC AND FOCUSED

A young boy that is about to graduate high school walks into the bottom part of the Holland Building. As he is walking through the building he is looking around inside wondering if this is the type of school he wants to do. He looks at the cash register area and back at the students studying at the computers.

½ PAGE NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS OF THE ACTION SUMMARIZING WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE REST OF ACT

He goes up the stairs, and sees more students studying. He enters into the main area that students are studying at the Holland. And looks at a stack of books a young girl has. The books are English, History, Science, Math, and Accounting. He continues on to the third floor stops at the 3rd floor. He looks around and thinks man this place is quite. He starts walking down through the aisles of books. He starts reading an astronomy book. At that moment the boy starts realizing there is a lot of cool things to learn.

1 – LOOSE AND FREE FLOW, NON-SPECIFIC

A boy walks in and starts looking around on the first floor and questions whether or not college is for him. He enters the second floor and sees a stack of books and thinks wow I really don’t want to learn a bunch of useless information. He enters the 3rd floor sees all the aisles of books and thinks wow thats a lot of information. He walks through all the aisles and starts reading a random book about astronomy, and think why this is useless information but its cool. He keeps reading more books and start learning more and more information. He goes on to the 4th floor and walks out onto the balcony are and leans on the edge of the balcony and sees the sun setting. He realizes that there really is a lot of useless information but it is really cool to learn about different things in this world.

½ PAGE WRITE A DRAMATIC RECREATION OF THE PLOT POINT AT THE END OF ACT 1 SPECIFIC AND FOCUSED

The boy enters the building walking, lookin from left to right. First he looks at the cash register area and thinks, “wow college is probably really expensive”. He then looks back to the right and sees a students studying and thinks, “ is this really for me it looks boring”? as he is climbing the stairs he climbs the starts with his hand on the railing.

1 PAGE NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS SUMMARIZING THE ACTION IN ACT TWO LOOSE AND FREE FLOW, USE

The boy realizes he wants to go to school but has know idea how he is going to pay for school. He sees that it is super expensive

THE FOUR OBSTACLES YOU’VE LISTED.

He realizes that he wants to go to school but it is super expensive.

He lives far away from home

He doesn’t know what he wants to major in

He has no friends in college

½ PAGE WRITE A DRAMATIC RECREATION OF THE PLOT POINT AT END OF ACT TWO SPECIFIC AND FOCUSED

The boy realizes that he wants to go to school but he has no way to pay for it. He is upset because he really wants to go to school in a liberal arts school he feels that it is right but has no money.

½ PAGE WRITE A NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS OF ACTION OF ACT THREE LOOSE AND FREE FLOW

The boy finds out that there is a way to pay for school. He might have to get loans and go into debt. He found out that there is a way that he can apply for scholarships, and apply for a grant. The boy calls his mom and tells her about all the things that he found out, and she is pleased with his decision, and surprises him telling him that his grandma left a huge college fund behind for him that will pay for his school.

½ PAGE DRAMATIC RECREATION OF THE ENDING SCENE OR SEQUENCE OF THE SCREENPLAY SPECIFIC  AND FOCUSED

He goes to the registrar's office finds out the specifics on how much school was going to cost. The lady goes on describing that there are different ways to apply for scholarships, and different ways that can help pay for school. the boy leaves the counter goes and sits down on the couch, and pulls out his phone. He calls his mom and tells her about the things that he learned. And he is frustrated because he wants to go to school but he doesn’t know how he will pay for it. His mom listens and reveals to him some wonderful information, her and husband have been saving up over the years and they are going to pay for his college education.