HAVE THE PRODUCERS DONE THIS BEFORE?
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Yes!
Plus, we’ve won numerous awards & accolades and received great press!
WHAT SIZE CREW DO YOU USE?
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It depends on what scene we are shooting, but anywhere from as little as 7 to as many as 25 crew members gets the job done right! We properly pre-plan exactly who and what we need for each scene so there are never any paid stragglers hanging around.
WHAT IS PRE-PRODUCTION?
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This is the key to our high quality/low cost abilities. Not only do we do conventional storyboards and shot lists on paper, we actually go out and do visual storyboards, and test shots as well.
Doing this helps us see in advance what challenges might arise so that we may answer those challenges before actual production begins. Such planning includes what camera angles and how many cameras are possible for a given situation, and how we can most efficiently block our actors (their actions).
HOW DO YOU KEEP ALL OF YOUR FOOTAGE SAFE?
(PROTECTING WORKFLOW)
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We take no chances with our footage, our workflow on set is a download of shots simultaneously on to 2 usb powered hard drives from a laptop both plugged into power as well as with a fully charged battery.
These are the minor details that keep footage safe, since the hard drives get power from the laptop, that’s 2 less power cords that could be accidentally pulled. Therefore, if the laptop’s cord is pulled, it still has power. This specific setup makes it nearly impossible to lose footage during aquisition.
Then once we get the footage back to the edit bay, we load it into a RAID 10 system, which keeps a duplicate of all of the footage while also acting as a fast edit source. On top of that, we keep and extra drive of the footage on the shelf as an extra “just in case”
HOW MANY CAMERAS WILL YOU BE USING?
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Again, depending on the scene, we will use anywhere from 1 to 4 cameras. This takes proper planning, one cannot just throw cameras at a scene to capture “whatever”, this comes back to the pre-production where we determine how many cameras will give us the best outcome while also keeping us efficient.
An important reason to use more than one camera is that when you are able to keep all of your actor’s in frame for each take, they remain focuses and at the top of their game instead of relaxing or losing focus when the camera is not on them.