Digital SLR Video and Filmmaking For Dummies

17

Doing the Preshoot Work

In This Chapter

Understanding the screenplay

Finding the perfect location

Casting your movie

In some respects, making a movie doesn’t differ much from building a house. Both require adequate planning, and neither stands for long without it. When it comes to your future humble abode, that means budgeting the necessary funds, having an architect draw the blueprints, and hiring the proper contractors to act on those plans. No one in their right mind believes a home comes together on a plot of land with the same ease as the one you build from Legos on your dining room table. That same logic applies to making your movie. (But you probably know that already.)

That’s why it’s important to adequately plan your movie, much like you find the right place for a house. But instead of wood, bricks, and mortar, movies begin with writing the screenplays, finding actors, figuring out the locations, and deciding what they’ll wear.

Figuring What You Need

Like a good game of “Clue,” the trick to making a successful movie lies in what you don’t know. But soon the unknowns ...