Plan the Shoot: Part 1 of Production Planning

Jim Stinson
April 2005

The worst cause of video disasters is bad planning -- not just during the Pre-production phase, but right through to the end of Post-production. Professionals don't just make plans; they implement them and then they follow through on them. When you plan like a pro, you:

• Plan the shoot in pre-production.
• Shoot the plan in production.
• Edit the planned shoot in post-production.

This sustained planning and follow-through is essential to delivering a quality video on time and on budget.

The planning aspect of video creation is so often overlooked that we're devoting three articles to it -- one for each phase of production. This month, it's plan the shoot in pre-production. Of course, pre-production is nothing but planning, from first concept to final schedule. Here, though, we are focusing specifically on developing plans that you can, indeed, shoot and then edit. We'll look at scripting, casting, staffing, scouting, and budgeting.

We'll also look at a new planning area: special effects. In other words, pre-production planning relates to editing as well as shooting.

Though writing itself isn't planning, the resulting script is the basis for every single decision you'll make in prepping production. Without a complete script, you can't cast the program, design its look, determine the crew and equipment needed, list the locations or sets, budget the production, or set a schedule.

No, an outline isn't good enough, even if it's 50 pages long. Only a true script is specific enough for planning. How about a storyboard? Storyboard sequences with complex action and/or special effects work to visualize the layout of the video, but use a written script for production planning.

For nonfiction programs, a two-column "A/V" (Audio and Video) formatted script will include complete narration and essential audio in the left column and visuals in the right one. Fiction films use the classic screenplay format. There are samples of several script formats on the Web; and for advice on how much detail to include, see the adjacent sidebar. The bottom line is this: when you get to production, you can't shoot the plan unless you've planned the shoot in detail.

People think that special effects are compositing and computer graphics that belong in post-production. However, the most convincing effects are fully planned in pre-production so that location, composite, and CG work can be seamlessly integrated by implementing the detailed plan. That's why you have to develop your special effects fully even before you scout locations and budget props.

For example, take a spectacular head-on car crash. To achieve the actual impact, you'll have the cars drive toward and past each other, maybe two feet apart for safety, shooting the master with a long telephoto to conceal the gap between them. In post, you plan to speed up the collision shot and then conceal the fact that they miss each other by filling the screen with a well-timed CG fireball over the live action.

So far so good, but the secret of any effect lies in selling it with supporting shots. To make sure you get them, you need to plan high-speed shots of the individual cars, closeups of the drivers, and maybe a shot across the hood of one car after the crash, as one victim struggles out the door. You plan to put one side of the car up on blocks to tilt it and to increase the tilt by canting the camera off-level the opposite direction. (Note to DP: choose a vague background that won't reveal the Dutch Angle shot, and throw a flickering "fire light" on the windshield, door, and struggling victim.) In post, composite a raging fire effect in the foreground to complete the gag. Every part of this must be planned, right down to the cinder blocks and the fire effect.

The moral is, you can't just say, "oh we'll do the car crash in post." Only through detailed planning both before and during the shoot can you deliver the raw materials needed to create a classy effect.

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