Pre-Production

Pre-production is all about planning. This is where your team decides how you’re going to make your film and what you’ll need. Doing a good job at this stage, can save a lot of time later on.

Once your class is familiar with the script you have chosen to make your movie, you’re ready for pre-production. This is where you will assign production roles. You’ll then ask your students to review the script to make notes and lists specific to their areas, and make sure that everything will be ready to go on the shoot days.

Assigning Filmmaking Roles

A full list of film production roles can be found in this Glossary document. For the purposes of making a student production work in a short period of time, we recommend you divide the class into groups using the roles below as a guide. Talk to your students about who feels most comfortable in what role, and then assign them appropriately, working in groups to help each other.

• Director / Producer: This is usually the teacher.

• Assistant director: A senior responsible student who understands the script, the scenes, the shot-lists and camera movements

• Production assistant: A helpful reliable student who will always be on hand to help the Director / Producer at any time. They will also be responsible for making a note of credits.

• Actors: 3-4 main characters

• Camera team: Rotating group of three students who want to learn how to operate a camera. These students should volunteer (they can’t be any of the actors), and the camera team can take turns at operating the camera, and practicing blocking / camera movements in rehearsals.

• Lighting & sound team: Rotating group of three students to hold reflector boards, battery powered lights, and find / make sound effects). A teacher should work with the lighting students, to work out how best to light each scene, encouraging them to note any sound effects and music that would be good for creating the mood of the scene in the script. This team can also practice recording atmospheric sound and dialogue properly.

• Props, costumes & makeup team: Three students with a good understanding of props, costumes and makeup, who can access dress ups / toys / props / costumes etc. easily.

• Set dressing team: 3 students with a good understanding of making a space look good as detailed in the script.

Exercise: Script readthrough with each department making lists and notes

To make sure your shoot goes well, everyone will need to know what their job is . All departments must be prepared and ready to go with every item that will appear on camera, and those behind the camera knowing exactly how to shoot a scene. Making lists is vital.

As a class, have another read through the script together, pointing out the kind of notes that each team should be making on their scripts. Guide the students in making notes in their notebooks and highlighting on their own scripts, the items relevant to their own department, page by page, scene by scene and (if necessary) shot by shot.

Actors

Note and highlight their character names in the script, and write down notes next to their lines about regarding emotion, inflection, timing and delivery.

Actors should think about:

• What is motivating their character? What does your character want?

• What is their back story?

• How does the character move?

• How do they speak?

• What is their general demeanour?

• What is their attitude towards life and other people?

Write down how the character might be feeling next to each of their lines.

Camera team

This team will need to think about what types of shots would be right for each part of every scene. They should note down their ideas to discuss with the Director later (e.g. wide shot, close up, pan, zoom in). They will need to practice shooting different types of shots and camera movements in the lead-up to the shoot, so they can execute the plan.

Lighting & sound team

This team notes what kind of lighting equipment might create the best atmosphere scene by scene EG Lamps vs Reflector Boards. They’ll note if shadows might work in helping tell the story. They can also note what kind of additional sound effects / music might be called for at certain parts in the script.

Props, costumes & makeup team

This team lists any props / costumes that are in the script, and notes down what props may already be available, what props the students can bring in, and what props may need to be purchased.

Make a note of anything that may add a lot of time to the shoot such as special effects makeup, prosthetics, complicated costumes or specialty items that will be difficult to find or need to be made. Also, if there are scenes where characters get wet or bloody, this means that their costumes will need time to become clean and dry or replaced before the next take. 

Try to visualise how each scene will play out on screen and think of any props or costumes that may not be mentioned in the script. For instance, even though the school bag wasn’t mentioned in the Lunchbox script, that is the kind of thing that would be realistic for students to have at school during lunch time.

If any of your chosen props are to be eaten (as in the case of Lunchbox by Justene Musin), damaged or broken on camera, you will need multiple copies of this same prop to maintain continuity.

Be aware of health and safety risks. Do not use any real guns or blades or dangerous props – especially props with fire risk.

Set dressing team   

This team lists what items it will take to make each location in each scene look real according to the script when shooting

For every scene that requires the audience to believe that the actors are in a place that isn’t the actual shooting location, (for example, making a classroom look like a bedroom) the students will have to find creative ways to achieve that specific look.

This team will be in charge of thinking creatively, visualising how the scene will be shot, and finding the background items to make each location look like the scene described in the script.

Assistant Director

Work with each team to enter all of this information from the compiled lists (probably written into exercise books at this point) into a PRODUCTION MASTER DOCUMENT.

You can find a template to use here:

Show Me Shorts Production Master Document

Example

Here is an example of what the list making process looks like, from Lunchbox by Justene Musin.