Remember to ask the cinematographer his preference for shooting order, (either at the recce or the previous day if needed) but do so only after u have a plan already ready so u can discuss it
out, don’t forget to include the director in the plan if not at the discussion the stage at least before you lock on your final shoot order. Remember to keep all
other factors in mind in this discussion like time of actors arrival or time
required for special equipment or prop
to arrive so that u don’t plan something and have to change it last min.
Shoot order and Back up Plan.
Planning your shoot order usually happens the day before the
shoot, this could be because you could have had balance shots from the previous
day, or the director or DOP might have a preference to being with. That does
not mean that you should not have a basic plan ready in advance. Irrespective
of where you are shooting, in scheduling you would give a large amount of time
to the first shot of the day as getting everything right for the first usually
takes time, you generally pick up speed after you have taken your first shot.
Most of the time you would plan your shots one axis at a time and scene wise,
you would complete one scene and then move to the next unless the other scenes
are similar in continuity and you can afford to shoot 2 scenes simultaneously.
You finish all shots from one axis before moving to the other, rarely does one
jump axis from shot to shot in a scene. This usually happens when the scene is
acting dependent (some director's like to do it this way) or if there is permanent damage by the end of the scene like
breaking of a key prop.
Basic plans per axis are the wide master shot is covered
first then you would get closer into the scene ending up with close-ups. You
would make a basic plan in this manner in advance and then discuss it with the
director and DOP before you finalise the plan. When you have your plan in mind
you should also have justifications to the order that you have planned and be
open to suggestions before fixing the final plan. Light plays a huge factor in
a shoot especially outdoors and the director and the DOP might want to shoot a
particular scene at a particular hour of the day, like sunset or backlit
scene’s. You have to have alternate plans here as on the day of the shoot your
plan might change completely, like late arrival or a key prop or an actor. Here
is where knowing everything that is happening in all departments help as that
decision to change shoot order affects all and could make or break the entire
shoot.
 |
| Axis Plan |
If you have the time, and you have all the shots that you have to shoot numbered you can make an Axis Plan (like the one above) this is something that I would do especially on shoots that have a large number of the axis to be kept in mind and shoot in the same location for the same scene (or a commercial) it helps a lot in sequences that have stunts or visual effects to go with it. It's easy to see from this if you have covered all your shots for that sequence. The above Axis plan was done for a Limca Commercial which had a lot of VFX involved and since it was an outdoor shoot the plans had to be bang on.
Lastly, after you have done your schedule for the day, you can do a
time division to each shot and see if all your shots fit within your planned
shift. Don’t forget to include your break time and keep buffer for each scene,
for e.g:- in a 9-9 shift if you roll call is 10:30 am (assuming that major
part of lighting would have already been done or only an hour and a half is
required to light up) your first master shot you would assign 2.5 hours, this
is from 9 am - 11:30 am assuming that
after the first roll (which usually gets delayed) you would take reset time and
do 3 – 4 takes of the same, so this time
has a buffer of 15- 20 mins, your next timing would be 11:30 – 12 for shot 2 of
the day, 12- 12:30 for shot 3, 12:30 – 1:30 for shot 4, lunch from 1:30 – 2:30
and so on. You would keep a buffer time of 10 – 20 mins for small shifts in axis
and 30 – 1hr or more for complete shifts in axis (like a cross over’s where a lot of
things have to shift and be reset.) It’s not always possible to plan in such a
manner as shots could be added or changed at the last moment, sometimes the director
does not even plan the number of shots per scene till they are on the set, in
such cases you could keep your division to scene timings, like scene 1 to be
shot could take 2 hr’s scene 2 could take 1.5 hr’s etc so that you know that you have to
complete those many scene’s by a certain amount of time so that you could push
for work to move faster if you are falling behind the schedule.
You could print your timings for each scene on
the call sheet to let all know if they are behind or ahead of the schedule.
This is not a known practice at all, but I did it sometimes as it helped to keep everyone on
their toes right from the beginning instead of trying to push too much at the
last minute.
More of these Tip's coming up in Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -3
Auggieism:- What do you call a blogging Auggie...
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Ans:- Bloggie..
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