Pre-production for short films

when you make a short film, the pre-production stage is often the most important as if you plan the key stages step by step then when it comes to filming it will be quicker and easier. The first thing to creating a film is too plan your ideas, the more time you have too plan your ideas means that you can plan things in advanced and get your head round situations that might come up. The fact that this is a short film means that i will want to make it look as cinematic as possible rather than something that looks like it is just some clips put together. Also to make it a film, it needs some sort of narrative so that when people watch it they can be interested, making them enjoy the film more. For example a youtube video doesn't need a narrative as there soul purpose is too entertain the audience watching but on the other hand, a film like pulp fiction needs people to pay attention to whats happening as if they don't then most likely they will miss what the narrative is.


Managing time is important as you want to be as organised as possible. The best way to manage time is to make a time log, this is good as you can put everything you are planning to do in the table and sort out information like what time you are going to start and how long you are willing to spend on this. The longer you have for each thing, the more prepared you will be for the production stage. For example i could say that i wanted to film on the first day for 4 hours, so i would write it in the time log so i can organize things around that. This will make things a lot easier.

If you want to make a film then you are going to want some actors and resources, to plan this you need to make another table and fill in all the things you want to be featured in your film. Once you have everything you will need to think how you are going to get these and how much its going to cost you. This is a great way to work out everything you need for the film as you can make sure that you get every piece o of equipment on there so you don't forget anything. Also, if you add the total of how much its going to cost and realize you don't have enough money, you can remove items that you don't need as much. The items that will be listed on the table will be things like actors, props, cameras and sound equipment, but for location its best to include it in the script as when you are reading the script the location will be told. You could even do it in the storyboard and write the location in each scene.

Example of a equipment list:  

Certain films have different budgets. The more popular films normally have higher budgets but you can still make a perfectly good short film for nothing at all. This film, as its professional, is going to have quite a high budget, but even though there is lots of money that doesn't mean you should over spend. You will want to spread out your budget so that you spend more money on things that are a necessity and spend less on things that you might not need. Things that you will need to spend a fair bit of money on is a camera, choosing the right camera decides whether or not the film quality is good or bad, and if you get a bad camera then that could ruin your chances of making a good short film. Although, the sound equipment is just as important as the camera as if you have clear audio then the film is going to be much better even if you have a bad quality picture, but if you have a good picture with bad sound then it distracts you from actually watching the film. This is why you will want to spend a lot on the camera and sound equipment.

When you are planning the film you are going to want to explain to the actors and crew what they need to be doing, the easiest way of doing this is to create a storyboard and a script. A storyboard consists of drawings/sketches, camera angles and timings. This will give people the idea of what the scene will look like, this will be handy for the camera man as he can see where the camera needs to be and how long the shot goes on for. Also it will be handy for the actor as they can look at the storyboard and see where they need to stand. The script will mainly help the actors with there lines as the script has all of the speech the different characters will say but will also include the location, whether its inside or outside and if its day or night. The actors can can read the script and see when the first character is introduced (This is shown by making the first characters name by making in in all caps).

You have to make sure that you have the right permission to broadcast your film before you do anything with it. To do this you must make sure that you have made the film copy written, this ensures that no one can take your ideas, this should be stated in a document once you copy write it. With your script you need to make sure that the characters you have made don't resemble characters from other films as that is copy written material. Music needs to be cleared by the owner of the track as if you don't ask for permission then you could be charged with a fine. The actors that took part in your film need to sign a consent form saying that they were in the film and that there name can be used in any content about the film e.g blogs and websites representation the film.