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Pre-production is the process of planning some of the elements involved in a film, television show, play, or other performance, as distinct from production and post-production. Pre-production ends when the planning ends and the content starts being produced.
Pre-production formally begins once a project has been greenlit. It involves finalizing the script, hiring the actors and crew, finding locations, determining what equipment is needed, and figuring out the budget. At this stage, finalizing preparations for production go into effect. Financing will generally be confirmed and many of the key elements such as principal cast members, director, and cinematographer are set. By the end of pre-production, the screenplay is usually finalized and satisfactory to all the financiers and other stakeholders.
During pre-production, the script is broken down into individual scenes with storyboards and all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects, and visual effects are identified. [1] An extremely detailed shooting schedule is produced and arrangements are made for the necessary elements to be available to the film-makers at the appropriate times. Sets are constructed, the crew is hired, financial arrangements are put in place and a start date for the beginning of principal photography is set. At some point in pre-production, there will be a read-through of the script which is usually attended by all cast members with speaking parts, the director, all heads of departments, financiers, producers, and publicists.
In the music industry, pre-production is a process whereby a recording artist spends time creating and refining their musical ideas. The artist thus produces a song's demo recording, or rough draft, in order to establish the song's creative premise. This reduces the time and money spent in expensive studios. The goal is to enter into the major recording phase of production with the basic and most promising ideas having been already established.
Notable producers who preferred this process have included Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock. They have both produced successful albums such as Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet , Mötley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood , Metallica's The Black Album , and Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation .
A film crew is a group of people, hired by a production company, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. The crew is distinguished from the cast, as the cast are understood to be the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew is also separate from the producers, as the producers are the ones who own a portion of either the film studio or the film's intellectual property rights. A film crew is divided into different departments, each of which specializes in a specific aspect of the production. Film crew positions have evolved over the years, spurred by technological change, but many traditional jobs date from the early 20th century and are common across jurisdictions and filmmaking cultures.
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic, or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.
A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show, or video game by screenwriters. A screenplay written for television is also known as a teleplay. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. A screenplay is a form of narration in which the movements, actions, expressions and dialogue of the characters are described in a certain format. Visual or cinematographic cues may be given, as well as scene descriptions and scene changes.
A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, directing, editing, and arranging financing.
In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits or opening titles are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. When opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is a title sequence.
A script breakdown is an intermediate step in the production of a play, film, comic book, or any other work that is originally planned using a script.
Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screenwriting, casting, pre-production, shooting, sound recording, post-production, and screening the finished product before an audience, which may result in a film release and exhibition. The process is nonlinear, as the director typically shoots the script out of sequence, repeats shots as needed, and puts them together through editing later. Filmmaking occurs in a variety of economic, social, and political contexts around the world, and uses a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques to make theatrical films, episodic films for television and streaming platforms, music videos, and promotional and educational films.
In the film industry, an option agreement is a contract that "rents" the rights to a source material to a potential film producer. It grants the film producer the exclusive option to purchase rights to the source material if they live up to the terms of the contract and make a film from it. This is known as optioning the source material.
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
In filmmaking, a pitch is a concise verbal presentation of an idea for a film or TV series generally made by a screenwriter or film director to a film producer or studio executive in the hope of attracting development finance to pay for the writing of a screenplay.
The read-through, table-read, or table work is a stage of film, television, radio, and theatre production when an organized reading of the screenplay or script is conducted around a table by the actors with speaking parts.
In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra to land the role of a character in a script, screenplay, or teleplay. This process may be used for a motion picture, television program, documentary film, music video, play, or advertisement, intended for an audience.
In filmmaking, dailies or rushes are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. The term "dailies" comes from when movies were all shot on film because usually at the end of each day, the footage was developed, synced to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director, selected actors, and film crew members. After the advent of digital filmmaking, "dailies" were available instantly after the take and the review process was no longer tied to the overnight processing of film and became more asynchronous. Now some reviewing may be done at the shoot, even on location, and raw footage may be immediately sent electronically to anyone in the world who needs to review the takes. For example, a director can review takes from a second unit while the crew is still on location or producers can get timely updates while travelling. Dailies serve as an indication of how the filming and the actors' performances are progressing. The term was also used to describe film dailies as "the first positive prints made by the laboratory from the negative photographed on the previous day".
A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and video. These groups consist of technical staff and members to produce the media, and are often incorporated as a commercial publisher.
Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew, but with several differences.
Film budgeting refers to the process by which a line producer, unit production manager, or production accountant prepares a budget for a film production. This document, which could be over 130 pages long, is used to secure financing for and lead to pre-production and production of the film. Multiple drafts of the budget may be required to whittle down costs. A budget is typically divided into four sections: above the line, below the line, post-production, and other. For productions distributed by a third party the budget excludes film promotion and marketing, which is the responsibility of the film distributor. Film financing can be acquired from a private investor, sponsor, product placement, film studio, entertainment company, and/or out-of-pocket funds.
A dialect coach is a technical advisor who supports actors as they craft voice and speech patterns for characters in the context of productions be it in an on-camera setting, stage setting, or voiceover setting.
In the cinema of the United States, a unit production manager (UPM) is the Directors Guild of America–approved title for the top below-the-line staff position, responsible for the administration of a feature film or television production. Non-DGA productions might call it the production manager or production supervisor. They work closely with the line producer. Sometimes the line producer is the UPM. A senior producer may assign a UPM more than one production at a time.
A line producer is a type of film or television producer who is the head of the production office management personnel during daily operations of a feature film, advertisement film, television film, or TV program. They are responsible for human resources and handling any problems that come up during production. Line producers also manage scheduling and the budget of a motion picture, as well as day-to-day physical aspects of the film production.
This glossary of motion picture terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to motion pictures, filmmaking, cinematography, and the film industry in general.
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