Shooting your movie
It’s time to make a film! Assemble your team together at your production base, and go over the plan together.
Help your camera team and the lighting & sound team move the gear to your first location.
At the location, remind everyone that when the director calls “Quiet on Set” that everyone should be quiet (except for the actors) until the Director calls “Cut”.
Multiple Takes
Let your team know (especially your actors) that each scene will likely be shot at least three times for ‘coverage’. This means that when it comes time to edit, if something went wrong in any of the shots and no-one noticed, there are still options to make the scene work in edit.
How to Shoot a Scene Using Basic Coverage: https://youtu.be/oNePOOLv-ew
Remind the actors to run the lines close to the camera, so you have consistent takes of clean audio of them acting, so if there have been sound problems during the shoot, there is a safety copy.
Continuity
Remind your team that scene will be shot at least three times, anything that changes between takes like hair, makeup, position of a prop or costume etc, will have to be reset to the exact same way as it was in the beginning of the shot.
For instance, in your wide shot you can’t have a character take off their raincoat at the beginning of the scene, but then in the mid shot have them still wearing it because the actor forgot to take it off.
Let the Assistant Director, Production Assistant and Producer know that they should be keeping an eye on details like this during shooting.
Filmmaking 101 - Continuity: https://youtu.be/U6B4COAnizc
Action
Here’s what needs to happen in this order to commence shooting:
Any set dressing required is done first.
Actors get dressed in their costumes for the scene being shot while this is happening.
The Props Team line up props for the scene that is about to be shot while this is happening.
The Camera team set up the camera on the tripod, switch the camera on and read through the Shot List for the scene while this is happening. Test that the camera is recording.
The Lighting Team read through their notes for the scene, and prepare equipment appropriately while this is happening.
Sound Check for levels testing with actors once the camera is set up.
Once the set dressing is complete, and The Director has checked that everyone is good to start recording, the filming begins
Assistant Director calls “quiet on set” to record 15 seconds of atmosphere sound.
The Director gets a good clean take of a Master Shot
The Director gets a good clean take of Character 1 doing the whole scene
The Director gets a good clean take of Character 2 doing the whole scene
The Director gets shots as listed on the Shot List
The Director gets cutaway and reaction shots
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, when you’ve done as much shooting as you can, call everyone together for a wrap up, and to let the team know where we are up to on the shooting script. Ask everyone to help pack up the props, costumes and equipment. Talk about what you managed to shoot today, and what is left for shooting. Wish everyone a good night!
Copy all the footage you shot today to a Hard Drive for safe keeping.