Friday, 4 October 2013

The Pre Production Process

By Alex Jones


I'm utterly without any organisational skill. I don't have a place for anything, whether it's my keys, phone or one of the hundreds of odd socks I own. Upon discovering that my flatmates actually hang up my keys for me if they find them in a place they know I'll never see them, I decided it was time to sort this out.

In my defence, I know the general whereabouts of my stuff...sometimes. I just don't have the magic third eye to see where it is exactly.

When I'm editing I often find I have the same problem. In one project I'll have an extensive list of of unnamed sequences, audio tracks and lots of footage to cope with. Finding one quick clip will become a ten minute long activity that only adds to the tensions of video production. What is sometimes forgotten is that there are very standard techniques that can be used to enhance the production process hugely. This process begins before you've even begun filming, I mean if you begin editing a film that had no proper or sure terms of preparing, then you're going to get nowhere when it comes to compiling the footage. Last week I came across this video blog, titled Pre Production Checklist. The video details some simple ways of generating an idea of what you want your video to look like before you've even started filming it.

Once you have a basic way of coordinating what you're going to film, it makes the tremendous task of searching through the footage and putting everything together a lot easier. Then when it comes to editing you just need to take some time and sort the clips into suitable bins or folders. Unfortunately this is something I'm yet to learn, only when I'm ripping my hair out through editing related stress do I think "why didn't I just rename that clip?". I can only encourage you to learn from my production problems and take some time to arrange, beginning with pre-production which will indeed assist you later on. That way you won't have your friends tidying up after you.

Use the comments below to let me know how you ensure a smooth and efficient shoot process.




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