tep 3: Pre-Production Proper
Pre-production is the phase during which the film is planned. It is not a step that can be skipped, and its careful execution is the first step to ensuring that the film will turn out well. In a word it is planning. The previous discussion was that of the script. Once the script is submitted it is, in almost all cases, out of the writer’s hands. What happens next is different for each script. It may be bought by a studio, be picked up by an agent to be distributed to possible buyers, ect. Enter the producer. The producer will become attached to the film either during the buying stage, where he or she will be the sole investor or will pressure their studio into buying the script, or he or she may be assigned by their studio once the script comes into the general production pool. The producer will then look over the script and make the changes he or she believes to be necessary to strengthen the story. Often times this comes in the form of having a second writer re-write dialogue, ect. The original writer, unless he is still doing the re-writes due to contractual agreements or is extremely skilled and capable of polishing his or her own script, will have no part in this and will be either surprised or outraged or both at the changes being made to the script. Once the producer gets the script to where he or she feels comfortable with it, a director is chosen. The producers will seek out directors whose talents match the subject matter of the story, an example of this would be picking John Woo to direct an action thriller, rather than a romantic comedy, not that he couldn’t do it, but his forte’ is action.

Once the director is selected and placed on the team the bulk of planning begins. The director is the second screen for the script. He or she is given the opportunity to read the script and suggest further changes, however, they are usually only accepted if both the writer(s) and producer agree that it is a definite improvement, the idea being that incredible amounts of time have already been put into it and thus the material in it should be very well crafted, and thus most improvements have already been made. Once the script’s form is agreed on by all members, the director begins to choose his cast and crew. The producer will already have a list of possible stars to put in the lead and will most likely have approached them. The director and producer will then court a major star to join the film, or agree on another performer who will fill the role. (Note: a major star is not cast in a film so much as he or she decides to join the film, and may wield power to inflict changes both on the script but also the production) The director will also appoint a casting director to handle the casting of the other smaller roles. Simultaneously the director will appoint his production manager, who will begin to pay out the shooting schedule, his cinematographer, the person responsible for actually filming the movie, and his location manager, who will pick out possible locations for review. All the while the director will be working out his vision of the film. He does this using two methods, listed below.

Shooting Script: Once the story script reaches its most finished form and is distributed to the actors, the director creates what is known as a shooting script. While the script proper contains all the details of what the characters look and act like, and all of what the audience will eventually see, the shooting script details the other behind the camera aspects. Components of the shooting script include among other things camera shots/angles, lighting notes, character/prop placement, audio notes, and special effects notes. In addition to this the director creates the prop and location lists. Which detail the accessories needed for each scene, from as large as "hotel room" to as small as "cigarettes for Main Character’s pocket".

Storyboards: Once the director has created a visual image of how the movie will look, he applies it to every shot in the movie process known as storyboarding. Storyboardingis, in essence, drawing a comic book of the movie. Each shot in the movie is drawn and then labeled with movement notes, dialogue and sound effects, and any other pertinent information. It also provides with the opportunity to test the visual effectiveness of the story before physically filming, where he will have to waste time and money experimenting. In recent years, storyboarding has become even more advanced as storytellers look for even better ways to plan their stories. Two examples of this are The Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park. For both movies, difficult sequences were pre-filmed using models and representative figures. In Jedi, the planning team used action figurines and dioramas to plan complex sequences such as the speeder bike sequence. The team of Park took it further, filming the entire film before hand using claymation to render every shot in the movie to test its effectiveness. No matter the technique for storyboarding, it is extremely valuable to the director when transferring the vision of the film from the mind to the big screen.


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