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.