Film Production Workflow
You’ve spent a bunch of time planning out your film and you’re now ready to jump into production. But before you do, here’s some important steps to know that make up the indie film production workflow.
The first step of the production workflow for films is an initial safety meeting with all the cast and crew present. This is typically where the first assistant director or director gives any important safety information that might pertain to the days shooting, and any other important information the cast and crew might need.
Next in the diy film production process is setup, makeup, and wardrobe. This is where the camera and lighting departments setup equipment, set designers dress sets, and the cast gets into makeup and wardrobe. Also pro tip, leave yourself at least an hour or two for this step, as it usually will take more time than you anticipate.
After that, comes a blocking rehearsal in the filmmaking production process steps. This is where the director and cast do rehearsals in the shooting space and adjust blocking if need be. This is commonly done for the whole scene, but could also be done for just a specific shot. However, I highly recommend you block out the entire scene first so that your cast knows exactly where they need to physically be at various different moments in the scene.
Once the blocking rehearsal is complete, it’s on to shooting takes. And another pro tip here, it’s actually perfectly normal to be running slightly behind at this point in the shoot.
Sometimes you can hit a snag with your setup, or your rehearsals might take slightly longer than you anticipated. I find that even though I’m running behind schedule to get the first shot, I’ve usually made up the time by the end of the day.
After each take the director will give performance direction to actors or request technical adjustments from the lighting, camera, and or audio crew. These two steps repeat until the director is satisfied with the shot.
Once all of the shots for the specific location have been completed, it’s on to wrapping. This is where the crew tears down any equipment, cast returns wardrobe, and sets are generally cleaned and put back to the way they were before filming.
However, if you have multiple locations in one day, then this is where you’d do a location move. This is the process of moving the entire production to a new location and starting this process all over again. Pro tip here by the way, never plan more than two location moves in one day, because they will most likely take more time than you think. If a location move requires the entire production to drive to a new location, then I recommend allowing for at least one to two hours for each move, depending on how far away the location is.
So now that you know these vital steps to the production workflow for film, you’ll be sure to have a successful shoot. And speaking of, don't forget you can sign up for my newsletter above to get my film production workflow checklist so your indie filmmaking production workflow goes smoothly!
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