Pre-production, pre-production and more pre-production! Squadron has been working hard on a number of documents to ensure maximise productivity come shooting day.

First of all, is of course our script for scenes one and two, which I must give credit to Jackson for writing and Alex for editing. This was written a few weeks ago (yet haven’t got around to posting it on here) and we have devised most of our pre-production planning on its basis. It was really fascinating to see exactly what Jackson did with my original concept and how he brought the characters to life. I feel like this could’ve gone either very wrong or very well– fortunately I felt he did my concept justice by staying true to the prose but developing and adjusting it the necessary amount.

See full version of the script for scenes one and two click here.

I took it upon myself to make the call sheet as I wanted to be able to give our cast and crew as much notice as possible in regards to our game plan on the day. It was important that we dedicate enough time to each location to ensure we would be able to attain what we needed within each. Conveniently, our scenes were about the same in terms of length and shot numbers, which made it easier to allocate time. With scene one, we have a bit of flexibility in that we can eat into lunch time if need be, but with scene two however we must wrap by 3pm at the absolute latest to ensure we can get the equipment back to uni in time. It will be interesting to see on the day how much we follow the call sheet. In the process, we will find out what stages are the most time consuming, where we need to focus more time and less time, etc, and keep this in mind when approaching our next shoot. A call sheet is also essential whilst on set for its inclusion of details such as nearest police and hospital. If anything was to go wrong, we have that information on hand so that we can deal with the situation appropriately.

Sarah completed a storyboard for our shoot, as pictured below. I think it really helps to visualise the shots we intend to capture before the shoot as it enables us to know exactly what we’re doing going into the shoot. It also allows the opportunity to put our creativity on paper prior to the shoot, as sometimes in the rush of it all we might not think as clearly or creatively as we usually would.

See full story board images in our shared google folder by clicking here.

To complement the storyboard, I devised a comprehensive shot list in line with the shots Sarah had planned, as well as with some additional shots that I envisioned. I think the shot list will be particularly useful as it collates all our shot ideas into one concise document. The inclusion of the ‘Done’ column will make it much easier to assess the footage, as we will know exactly what we are dealing with by looking at the shot list alone. To make this process work, we must ensure that the shot numbers on the list line up with what we write on the slate. I think it will also be worthwhile to note on this document which take was perhaps the best so it can be easily retrieved in post-production.

See full shot list by clicking here.

Finally, Bonnie compiled a number of images for the different props and costumes required for the shoot. I sent this forward to our Chris and Scott so they could use it as a reference point.

Come the shoot, it will be interesting to see which documents we rely upon the most. This will in turn guide our practice for the subsequent shoot as it will inform what pre-production documents we should prioritise.