A Production Overview!

Long before any filming is planned and at the pitching stage its crucial to write a good treatment for your idea This is what will sell your film - don’t underestimate its importance It really acts as a focusing tool for your idea so that you, and anyone reading it are in no doubt of what it's about.

Before and once into production researching your story, be it for drama, documentary or entertainment, is obviously a necessary process in order to write the script It’s vitally important you are in charge of all the facts and they are accurate You will completely lose the confidence of the audience with mistakes and sloppy research  Writing your script is a time consuming, every changing but utterly crucial stage to making a programme, it is here that the structure and story you are telling comes together In a professional production Directors can write up to and in excess of 10 drafts of their script as a result of constant story development and open discussions with the Producer and Researchers.

👍 Research is best done talking to the experts, pick up the phone first and back up with an email!

In tv/film production it’s generally easier to start planning your production schedule at the end and work back So think about when you need to deliver your film or project, put that date in the production schedule (calendar) first and work back considering adequate time for sound dubbing, editing, edit prep (script, music etc), logging rushes, digitizing rushes, filming, scripting and so on This is your basic production schedule that you can do as many drafts as you like to get it workable within your constraints.   It should then be a flexible document that you tweak and amend as things change on production (as they ALWAYS do) It is also an incredibly good record on how your production ran so that when you come to doing it again you have a reference and template.