Producer’s perspective
It goes without saying, but it has been said many many times. You CANNOT put a price on good preparation.
Film shoots are no exception.
It may not seem like it at the time, but seemingly minor details at the inception of a project can and will have a major impact on what the end-user sees, how they react to it and the overall feeling a piece will have.
Ashton Kutcher aside, it’s like the Butterfly effect.
A small gesture from a forward thinking Producer…
“I can squeeze an extra 30 minutes set-up time for the film crew here…”
… Means (DOP)
“I can get that shot, the one that will blow the client away.”
Good preparation not only means a happy crew and a slick operation, it also opens avenues to shock the client (in a good way)… giving them more bang for their buck and something they can shout about.
That’s what it’s all about really isn’t it?
For someone to watch something and to just say “wow”.
The client doesn’t see the phone calls to insurance companies, the shot-listing, the crew briefs, the internal debates, the “what sarnies do people want?”…
They just see the video that is there in front of them now, the one that (before this moment) they had only seen in a storyboard and script.
To surprise them, to draw a tear, to see them laugh …. that is the pay off.
In a nutshell, you have to prepare a shoot as well as you film it and as well as you edit it.
All aspects are intricately linked, you cannot do one brilliantly without the other.