Film Pipeline Overview, pt. 1: Preproduction
For my day job, I’ve done a lot of pipeline design and development for animated films (I’ve co-designed the entire production pipeline for two features, and contributed pieces to several others). So I figured I’d apply the diagramming and summarization techniques I use to create a general film production pipeline overview for you.
Film production, like screenplays andanything else that is initiated, proceeds, and then completes, can be (and is) broken down into a three act structure: preproduction, production, and postproduction. Simply stated, preproduction is everything that happens before you start shooting, production is all the stuff that happens while you’re on-set and shooting, and postproduction is everything that happens afterwards.
The diagrams and summaries I’ll present are influenced by my big budget feature work, but the way to apply them to smaller budget films is to simply scale them down. In doing so, some pieces may fall off if you don’t have a friend who can do them for low enough cost (storyboarding and previsualization being the main pieces of preproduction that are most easily cut).
Preproduction
Preproduction starts when a project is greenlit. In some studios, a greenlight is first given to go into first phase prepro / advanced development in which only script revisions, storyboarding, early production design, and preliminary budgeting are happening. But once the film is put into real preproduction, a number of other things quickly follow in order to prepare to go into full-blown production. Here is a visual guide to preproduction, followed by a summary (various aspects of which will become more detailed posts in the future):
Preproduction Pipeline (click to see larger)
Casting Crew Leads and Actors
Depending on the approach at the particular studio or production company, the very first person cast may be a Writer, a Director, or a Producer. In order to proceed from development into preproduction and have it be maximally successful, all three of those positions need to be cast before moving on. And in order to proceed with certain tasks in preproduction, you then need to cast your Cinematographer, Production Designer, Production Accountant, Location Scout, Casting Director, and First A.D. You will need these people to do the first script breakdown (Producer, Director, and First A.D.), and then begin technical / craft preproduction as well as scheduling, budgeting and financing.
Casting your on-screen leads will have a very direct impact on both script and story development and budgeting and financing. If you cast someone with enough stature relative to your film’s budget, you will be required to give them some say in the development of the story in return for the fact that their signing-on will be a major step towards securing financing (and may increase your budget, too, depending on how big a name they are relative to your project’s size, balanced against how friendly they are towards you and your vision). And, the earlier you cast, the earlier this input can be gathered, which means better preproduction results, as well as an earlier opportunity to start rehearsals.
Script Breakdown
The usual meaning of a script breakdown is taking the pre-shooting style script and breaking it into shots in the style of a shooting script. People generally think of the first shooting scrip breakdown as happening right before going on-set, but it really needs to happen before you can start budgeting and scheduling, which you’ll need a first pass on before you can start to go out for financing.
The first script breakdown also helps the Cinematographer design appropriate camera tests, and the Production Designer, Location Scout and Casting Director to start finding the look, key places and key on-screen talent for your film. A different kind of breakdown is needed to go into the Story department (if you’ll have one), but the first pass at a shooting breakdown is essential for Previsualization (if you’ll do it). All these people will be working off the script breakdown, so it’s crucial to do a complete pass on this before moving forward with the rest of preproduction.
Budgeting and Scheduling, Financing and Legal
Money, time and contracts all must be managed in order to actually produce a film. Budgets and schedules are simple to conceptualize, and difficult to get right. A schedule is just a detailed list of things you want to do, with how long each will take and who (cast and crew) and what (locations, equipment, sets and props) needs to be there. The budget is derived from the schedule by figuring out how much each of those things costs per day, and adding it all up (remembering to include preproduction and postproduction as fully scheduled and budgeted aspects of making the iflm, as well as overhead, with potentially substantial fixed costs like permits, fees, film duplication, etc. called-out as line items).
You then use the budget and schedule to help determine financing needs, and plan the actual production. The early budgets and schedules will be used as part of the financing process, so the producing staff knows how much to be asking for. As cast member salaries (and, sometimes, story demands) boost the budget, this must all get revised. Early design, scouting, previs, and camera tests will also influence the budget and schedule. As you refine what it is you’re trying to do, you will almost certainly be forced to repeatedly decided between something you really want — a cool shot, a great location, an expensive cast member, etc. — and the realities of your budget. Sometimes, if you’re early enough in the financing process and sufficiently skilled at getting people excited about your project, you might be able to boost the budget once — but usually not.
It’s best to keep the very first iterations of all this stuff to yourself for as long as you can financially afford to do so with whatever seed money you bring to the project (and whatever free time your crew might give you). If you’re lucky enough to be doing a big studio project, all of this happens on their dime, though how it then may get deducted against gross and therefore any back end you may be lucky enough to have negotiated (though probably not) is something for the lawyers to work out.
And, indeed, there are a lot of things for lawyers to work out in terms of financing agreements, cast and crew contracts, rights agreements, and so on. It’s crucial to have a professional, full-time entertainment lawyer with extensive film experience available to you throughout the process, especially if it’s your first feature film.
Script Revisions, Storyboarding, Production Design and Previsualization
Script revisions come from notes received from big name cast members, the Director, the Producer, and if it’s a studio film, the studio executives (either they read it alone, or from table reads and rehearsals — though rehearsals often don’t start until the moment after preproduction because on-screen talent often won’t commit the time until on-set production is greenlit, so there’s often at least one prepro iteration after prepro has officially ended).
They also come from other phases of the preproduction process, because the major reason for the preproduction process other than the budgeting and planning of the shoot is to do things that reveal problems in the film before you start incurring the high costs of being on-set. Storyboarding and Previsualization processes are in fact specifically designed to do this very thing (and because of this, they are often omitted, particularly by Directors who — right or wrong — believe they don’t need to incur the expense as they’ve already “got it all in my head”).
Production design is the development of the visual look of the film. The Director and Cinematographer are generally the only ones participating in this other than the Production Designer (and sometimes, not even the Cinematographer, who may come in after design is basically finished). Production design establishes the basic look of the film, drawing, painting, and finding reference for major sets, costumes, buildings, vehicles, and even characters. All this feeds into the production art department, as well as location scouting, camera, and casting departments as the production design packets are the physical embodiments of the Director’s visual goals.
Storyboards (and animatics cut together from boards) are a way of working out structural, character, and visual storytelling elements before more expensive stages of production begin (camera tests, previs, and real production). Story iterates with the writer(s) on the script side, and production design and the camera department on the visual elements. Boards are like a first pass at both rehearsals and camera tests, without having to hire any actors or camera crew. Camera tests may then be done on specific shots that have been boarded (and/or previsualized) in order to find the best looking, most efficient and effective way to achieve them, whereas finding the shot during a test can incur higher costs due to space and equipment rentals (and finding a shot on-set can be project killing if you haven’t done enough prepro work to make the changes happen within a solid framework of production, and know enough about your own goals to get the changes done quickly).
Previsualization is a 3D computer graphics approach to exploring shot composition. Some people use this instead of storyboards, but generally boards have better “acting” in them (skilled board artists draw more relevant and convincing character emotions than you’re going to get out of previs-grade 3D chracters). This makes them superior to previs for acting-driven sequences. 3D previs is particularly useful for shots with complex camera movements, staging, and choreography. In those cases a board artist may make shots look feasible that aren’t (or, at least, aren’t on your budget). A cost effective, simple 3D previs with a system that models real cameras and real grip gear (such as Frame Forge) is a good way to test for this. Very complex, expensive films also use (high end) previs extensively just because there’s so much going on it becomes an effective way to establish and communicate all the on-set needs for very complicated shots.
Camera Tests, Location Scouting and related work
Technical and craft scouting and tests are essential parts of preproduction that are fed by and feed back into both story development (can’t get a crucial location on time and budget? need to change it) and production design. Camera tests in particular develop and refine the look, both in terms of the production design aspects of color and value in frame, as well as the compositional and pacing goals established in storyboarding and previs. The purpose of camera tests is to establish what camera, lenses, stock, and light kit will be the foundational basis of the shoot by proving that the combination can actually achieve the desired look by doing it. Going ahead with a shoot without doing any camera tests is foolish, and any Cinematographer who suggests this isn’t worthy of the title. Every film has differences, and they need to be analyzed and understood before huge costs are being incurred on-set.
Location scouting can be as essential as casting, especially in films where locations are basically characters (a chase across Mt. Rushmore is much different than a chase across “a big hill”). Location availability and cost also has a potentially big impact on budgeting and scheduling, and the physical aspects of the location impact production design and the work of the camera, electrical, and sound departments.
Related tests and scouting may be done on some films where there are particular needs in terms of on-set sound (sound tests), music (bringing on a music director early to start establishing rights), or particular costumes, set pieces, vehicles, or other props that are key to the film and need to be established during preproduction in a manner other than merely being designed by the Production Designer. But generally most or all of this sort of thing happens during early production — the part that secretly isn’t actually on-set despite going on-set appearing in the most common definition of production — because that’s when you’ve actually received all the money and go-ahead needed to go on set (which is really when production starts).
Iterate
If you look at the diagram, you’ll notice lots of arrows that show one phase feeding into another, and that phase then feeding back into the prior phase. That’s because preproduction (and really all filmmaking) is an iterative process. The results of taking the results of one part of the process and refining it in another may cause something in that prior part of the process to change. Filmmaking isn’t an “all at once” process. Think of iterating in preproduction a bit like doing takes on-set: with all the “moving parts” involved in making a movie you’re terribly unlikely to get anything right the first time, so you need to actively plan to fail to do so. Iterating during preproduction is the least expensive opportunity to iterate and get more things right, and it is by doing so that you’re able to effectively plan to fail to get things right on set and still manage to make the film you actually want to (or something close to it, anyway).
Preproduction is the most overlooked, downplayed, and underappreciated part of filmmaking. That’s because it is actually the most essential step in making a film, yet people generally want to skip most or all of it. Without sufficient preproduction, you’re going into production and postproduction with no real idea of what you’re doing. Even if you’ve made films before, at the beginning of every new project you should just assume you have no idea what’s going to happen and why, and set about developing an good idea about that before you go on-set. You really, really don’t want to be figuring all these things out for the first time when five, fifteen, fifty, or five hundred people are all staring at you, wondering and asking: “what’s this scene about and how should it look?” (And all the hundreds of details that implies.)
Storyboarding Books
I decided it’d be nice to follow-up the previous storyboard handoffs post with one about resources for people interested in learning to board.
There are far, far fewer books about storyboarding than there are about screenwriting, and there is no real classic in the field that you must read because everyone else has. For animators, one of the books cited below is essential — The Animator’s Survival Kit — but board artists don’t yet have their own crucial pedagogical text. The upside is that for aspiring board artists there are fewer repetitive books to buy, and there are few if any “structure your boards exactly how I tell you to or you will fail” types of books out there.
I’d say the one true essential reference for boarding is Derek Thompson’s DVD. But there is no substitute for drawing boards every day, and if you really want to pursue boarding as a career, trying to get into a top story school like CalArts (or a mentorship with someone respected in the field, if school isn’t your bag). The advice I gave about using screenwriting books can be easily modified for storyboarding books:
- Don’t read more than a couple of the “how to” books. They’re all saying basically the same things, so just try to actually understand the one or two that seemed most appealing to you from the get-go before trying another one.
- Anyone who says that following their pet technique is a necessary condition for success is lying.
- When you read (or, for that matter, are taught by a mentor) that you’re always supposed to do (or not do) something, come to deeply understand the reason for it rather than taking it as axiomatic. Once you have that understanding, then you’ll be able to figure out when you can actually get away with not doing it (or doing it).
- Some advice and technique that other people swear by, you’ll absolutely hate. And vice-versa. It’s all a matter of what works for you, and what doesn’t.
- There’s no substitute for actually drawing. You’re not really going to learn all that much about storyboarding by reading about it. Frankly, you won’t even know what mistakes you need to get advice about how to avoid until you make them.
With all that in mind, here is my storyboarding book round-up (click continue reading below, or the headline above, to get to the full post from the front page):
Storyboard Handoffs
I recently handed off the first sequence in my in-preproduction short animated film Measured Assessment to Emma, who has graciously agreed to board the film.
Storyboarding is the phase of deveopment in which the visual language of the film is explored and conceptually locked down (the visual concept is simultaneously co-developed with the production designer, who will then refine it). Boards are the most economical place to explore camera framing and movement in order to figure out the pacing and style of your film.
In order to prepare for boarding, the Director needs to do a story breakdown of the script. Doing a script breakdown for an animation storyboard artist is quite different than doing a script breakdown for on-set production. What an experienced animation board artist expects from the Director is not necessarily what you might think when you hear the word “breakdown.”
Start With A Sequence
Board artists are generally given full sequences to work on, not just one scene or shot (except, sometimes, for fixes or punch-up), because the idea is for the artist to focus on a thematic unit of the film and help develop it. First off, one must realize that a sequence is not a scene. A sequence is a series of actions, which may or may not be geographically and temporally coherent, but which are thematically coherent. For example, in Pixar’s The Incredibles, the introductory set of scenes where Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone are being interviewed about being superheroes is not geographically or temporally coherent (they’re all being interviewed in different places, at different times), but all the shots in that sequence are about establishing their old perspectives. In the script, each of the interview scenes will be separate scenes, each starting with a new slugline. But they’re still part of the same sequence.
Breakdown for Boarding
While it’s certainly not forbidden for the Director to include camera suggestions in the delivery to the board artist, but what the board artist really needs from the Director is a breakdown of the logical and emotional beats in the sequence. Most story artists want this in the form of a verbal pitch, and they are expected to give the Director a verbal pitch of how they interpreted the sequence when they present the boards. The pitch the board artists need is not your elevator pitch, selling pitch, or even treatment excerpt. It’s specifically a pitch about what the theme and mood of the sequence are, and how each beat (meaning some block of action and dialog that you feel is a continuous conceptual whole within the sequence) contributes to that, and to the rising and falling action in the sequence.
A section of the opening sequence of my in-progress short, Measured Assessment, can serve as an example. Here is one scene and part of the next in the opening sequence:
INT. APT, LIVING ROOM — DAY
One hundred twenty-three year old JOSEF L. sits on his couch, reading a book.
He adjusts his glasses. Runs his fingers through the fur of ANNABEL THE CAT sitting beside him. Books are piled up everywhere.
A small, hospital green ROBOT hovers nearby. It bears the logo of the Department of Homeland and Social Security, and text that reads “Automated Nurse for Geriatric Emergency Lifesaving.”
CLANG. An old cuckoo clock strikes noon. Josef adjusts his glasses. Grabs his cane. Struggles to his feet. Annabel rubs up against him.
INT. APT, KITCHEN — DAY
Josef puts out some cat food for Annabel. Puts on his hat and coat.
Adjusts his glasses. Opens the door onto the hallway. Annabel runs to the window.
ANNABEL POV
Josef exits the building into an empty courtyard.
EXT. STREET — DAY
Futuristic glass towers stab into the sky.
Josef’s building is the only one that isn’t shiny and new. He exits the courtyard and hobbles along the sidewalk.
The A.N.G.E.L. robot follows closely behind him.
Everything is a blur — except Josef and the huge buildings that dwarf him — as the life of the city races past him.
And by way of example, here are notes similar to the ones I gave Emma:
INT. APT, LIVING ROOM — DAY
One hundred twenty-three year old JOSEF L. sits on his couch, reading a book.
He adjusts his wire rim glasses. Runs his fingers through the fur of ANNABEL THE CAT sitting beside him. Books are piled up everywhere.
Establish Josef: he is old, but not pathetic. Still alert and engaged, he reads copiously and loves his loyal pet cat. The books, his age, and the room generally should establish a contrast that we’ll build during the sequence, between Josef and his world, and the world he now lives in. We need a close on the eyeglass adjust as it’s a runner that needs to get established. A wide to establish his room, and how homey it is, would be good to heighten the contrast to what we’ll see later.
A small, hospital green ROBOT hovers nearby. It bears the logo of the Department of Homeland and Social Security, and text that reads “Automated Nurse for Geriatric Emergency Lifesaving.”
Establish A.N.G.E.L., who is in fact a lot like Annabel The Cat: a loyal pet, who also happens to be a competent and devoted caregiver. This robot is not slick, it’s utilitarian, fairly outdated, and utterly dedicated to its charge. A.N.G.E.L. is a bit worn, which not only helps to highlight the contrast between Josef’s “outdated” world and his unwillingness to constantly upgrade in comparison to the rest of the world he lives in, but also to show that he’s ultimately as loyal to A.N.G.E.L. as the bot is to him. I’d like to be close on A.N.G.E.L. so we can see her details, including the logo.
CLANG. An old cuckoo clock strikes noon. Josef adjusts his glasses. Grabs his cane. Struggles to his feet. Annabel rubs up against him.
INT. APT, KITCHEN — DAY
Josef puts out some cat food for Annabel. Puts on his hat and coat.
Adjusts his glasses. Opens the door onto the hallway. Annabel runs to the window.
The clock not only further reinforces Josef’s anachronistic life, but symbolizes taking the time to live or letting it slip away: a core theme. The moment of his struggle to his feet is the highlight of this moment: his will to live is strong, but even his devoted bot can’t keep him feeling young forever. The other beats keep up the runners: he’s still actively living, he engenders loyalty, and also the mechanical element of the glasses adjust.
ANNABEL POV
Josef exits the building into an empty courtyard.
EXT. STREET — DAY
Futuristic glass towers stab into the sky.
Josef’s building is the only one that isn’t shiny and new. He exits the courtyard and hobbles along the sidewalk.
The A.N.G.E.L. robot follows closely behind him.
Everything is a blur — except Josef and the huge buildings that dwarf him — as the life of the city races past him.
Establish the world around him. Josef emerges into the world outside his cozy home. It is cold and fast, and moving on without him. His robot is his only comfort outside his lair, and even his loyal A.N.G.E.L. isn’t quite capable of being actively warm to him. While the distance his bot keeps is a respectful one, it’s still the case that he’s basically alone. An ortho view of the city showing the vastness and blur of people literally speeding through their days that does a tilt-down and push into Josef revealing him plodding along past the blur could be a really cool shot.
Camera: The pacing in Josef’s home should be a bit slow. It moves along at Josef’s rhythm. Outside, it’s a contrast between the staccato rhythm of the life of the city with his own steady beat. I’m interested in limited camera movement in the beginning, with more towards the end of the sequence — but not shakycam or frenetic MTV cutting. Still a more classically cinematic approach to framing and moving the camera, but increasing in energy (that build will continue for a while, and we never want to get into hyperactive cinematography, so plan accordingly).
As you can see, the idea in pitching to the board artist is to convey the emotional beats, and the purpose of each one. Ideas about camera style are also given, but specific shot breakdowns aren’t a part of the pitch (if you want to do them, write them down and give them to the artist — and also let them know they’re free to change the camera specifics if they come up with better ideas since they’re there for you to collaborate with, after all).
Approaching your handoffs to your storyboard artist in this manner will make the process much more useful for you as the Director, and much more productive and enjoyable for your collaborator.
Measured Assessment, part 1: Concept design
Gnomon Workshop just released an excellent tutorial DVD about Hard Surface Shading and Texturing by a friend of mine, the outstanding CG artist Neil Blevins. If you’re interested in hard surface shading, I highly recommend buying this disc. Neil is a superb artist and you’ll learn a lot about shading theory and technique from his DVD.
Plus, the example used in the DVD isn’t some toy example created for pedagogical reasons. The model is a character Neil designed, modeled, and shaded as part of doing Production Design work on an animated short film project called Measured Assessment, which I wrote and am starting to put into preproduction (and am starting to build a mostly volunteer crew, in case any animators or 3D artists are interested). Here is the image from the DVD cover (and Gnomon Website):
Neil started working on the model by creating this original concept, based on the script, and conversations we had about the design:
Who’s that bot?
We call this robot the “Mortuary Bot.” That is shorthand for the most compelling (to us, as humans) job that this robot performs, which is retrieving dead bodies. But in the script for Measured Assessment, he is operated by the “Department of Sanitation and Human Services” and is actually designed to pick up both garbage and corpses. That is reflected in the bin-like chassis and hinged top (the cylinders on the top front and back contain hinges that allow the top to swing open so garbage can be dumped into the bot).
Neil’s designs reflect the macabre and inappropriate pairing of garbage collection and human remains collection being subsumed into a single entity, which is important to the story in Measured Assessment. This bot’s utilitarian design, combined with the nature of its duties, are visual shorthand that helps quickly convey a litany of things gone wrong with the society depicted in Measured Assessment. Without much verbal explanation or long, expensive expository scenes, when the audience sees a character they’ve hopefully come to care about getting scooped-up by this thing, they’ll understand just how morally corrupt the world of the story really is.
This other robot is also crucial to the story:
She is known as the A.N.G.E.L., and in the Measured Assessment world she’s operated by “The Department of Homeland and Social Security” as a combination personal defense and emergency medical response robot assistant. As you can see, she’s not much of an Angel — at least, not on the surface (but don’t judge a bot by her chassis). Another aggressively utilitarian design, A.N.G.E.L.‘s exposed instrumentation inspires tomophobia (fear of surgery) more than confidence in her lifesaving abilities. Her lack of sophisticated styling (she’s no EVE from WALL-E) is also a story point in the piece. The design reference I suggested to Neil for this robot is the fantastic work of Chris Foss (also Stewart Cowley, and the great John Berkey).
For science fiction and fantasy films, compelling and concise concept design is especially important because the world is unfamiliar to the audience. You don’t have much time to draw them in and make the scenario understandable. But even when creating more familiar worlds, concept design can help you nail-down a lot of ideas visually in sketches. For no-budget shooters, the trick is not to over-design (you can’t afford it) and also avoid becoming too wed to the drawings: you might not find that perfect actor, set or prop on your budget. But with concept drawings as guidelines, you at least know what you’re looking for.
What’s this concept concept?
The concept design process is an important part of the production design process, and not only for animated and VFX heavy films. Any part of your film where the design is important can benefit from concept design. Concept design is the preproduction part of the production design process, a time for reference photography and sketches which will feed into the production design process (and 3D previz modeling, if your project has budget for such a thing — or you have skills to do it yourself).
Concept sketches of characters can help with casting and wardrobe, or character design for animation. Similarly, for sets and props these early designs can help you find the right locations, decide when to build instead of use locations (if you can afford to build — which you may be able to, don’t rule it out until you do the research about spaces in your locale and find out the skills of your collaborators). Since concept design is often done roughly at the same time as storyboarding (often starting a little earlier), the concept artist(s) and board artist(s) can exchange ideas in ways that hopefully lead to a better result.
As concept designs can serve as a visual guide for storyboarding and production design, it ultimately filters down to every aspect of production. If you’re going to do it, getting it right is crucial. Your role as Director in this process is to have firm opinions about what you want, but also be willing to hear ideas from your designers. Indecision is the enemy of production, and you will harm your project through waffling — you can praise all the options and the people who are giving them to you, but you still need to make a decision. Always. And be ready to stand by those decisions, or else hundreds of well-meant opinions can turn your project into chaos. That said, films are made better by your ability to listen to your artists’ ideas first and have the confidence to then possibly make a different decision than you went in thinking you might, based on assessing relevant input from skilled collaborators. If you work with sufficiently talented people they will question what they don’t agree with. You need to be ready to both listen to them when justified, and sensibly defend your decisions when necessary. Concept design is the first phase of this collaboration, and the results of it can serve to visually explain your cinematic goals later on — a useful shorthand, especially in the heat of production.
I am very lucky to have a talented artist like Neil helping me with the concept design for Measured Assessment. Even if your concept designs aren’t quite as refined as Neil’s, so long as you feel they’re in the ballpark of what you’re looking for, they’re still a great tool for your production.
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