Where there’s a film crew, there’s a craft services table a few feet away. Having well stocked food on set can directly affect your crew’s happiness and your film’s overall quality.Continue reading 8 Essential Tips for Prepping an Awesome Craft Services Table
Is the hero going to clear the chasm? Will evil triumph over good? Do I have enough popcorn? Great action sequences glue us to our seats. Containing many memorable action scenes, Kingsman: The Secret Service functions as a James Bond parody, putting spin on classic action sequences that easily could have been trite.Continue reading How to Write and Shoot Action Scenes Like Kingsman
When you hear Pixar, you probably think about 3D Animation. Well, honestly, I bet you think about a little bouncing lamp squishing a letter, but hey, same thing really. While Pixar has been setting the standards of 3D Animation, it’s nothing compared to the deep, meaningful story in each and every Pixar film. The Pixar storytelling formula is real and we're going to tell you all about it. Continue reading The Pixar Storytelling Formula: An Inside Look
Film production insurance is a staple in filmmaking. A good film insurance policy protects the producers, filmmakers, film crew, production gear and all the filming locations from liability claims.Continue reading The Producer’s Guide to Film Production Insurance
Casting actors. Hiring crew. Scouting locations. If not done correctly, pre-production is where some projects can collapse in on themselves, costing investors and distributors precious time and tons of money. To guard against these types of events, producers purchase entertainment insurance and completion bonds to ensure the show goes on.Continue reading 4 Ways to Decrease Entertainment Insurance Liabilities on Set
I love Mission: Impossible. You love Mission: Impossible. But learning how to shot list and film a fight scene like Mission Impossible can be incredibly difficult. But’s not...impossible. Okay, stay with me. Today we’re going to go over how to create a shot list for your action movie and dissect a clip from Mission: Impossible — Fallout as an example. Continue reading How to Shoot Dynamic Fight Scenes
Script breakdown sheets are the bane of a PA’s life.Nearly all screenwriting programs offer script breakdown software--allowing you to generate reports on characters, props, VFX, locations, you name it.Continue reading Breakdown Sheets: How to Mark a Script with Final Draft Tagger
If Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of Production” he’d probably say that every production battle is won before it’s fought. An effective battle plan is the shooting schedule, and it’s the difference between making our days and staying under budget.Even with the abundance of film scheduling software available, there’s no replacing working with department heads to ensure that their needs are met and situated within a reasonable time frame.Working from the script breakdown below, I highlighted some of the most common shooting schedule mistakes.Let’s get started.Download our free shooting schedule template right here.1. Day and Night FlipsA common beginner’s mistake…
Working with talent used to fill me with dread. Celebrity talent was even worse. Dealing with handlers, agents, lawyers and even personal assistants can try any producer’s patience. But it’s part of the business. If you want to make movies you have to learn to work with demanding celebrities.Continue reading Working With Celebrity Talent: How I Learned To Respect the Kardashians
Today, I’m going to show you how to schedule a ten-page shoot if you’re looking to maximize your budget constraints. Shooting ten pages in a day is a worst-case scenario, but sometimes those worst-case scenarios can happen on your production. When they do, your shooting schedule needs to be very precise and prepared.So let's jump in.What are the reasons for shooting a ten-page day?The most common reason I’ve come across for scheduling and shooting ten or more pages in a single day comes down to budget.It could be that your location or talent is only afforded for limited period of…
