Chapter X. Through Pre-Production
Pre-production is the half nobody photographs.Locations, casting, permits, kit and schedule, settled a fortnight out,so the shoot day is spent making the filminstead of solving what should have been solved already.An hour spent here costs nothing.Skipped, it is billed back on the day with a crew standing in it.
One producer holds the schedule, the budget and the risk.Locations, permits, casting, kit and crew are booked against the brief,not against whatever happened to be free that week.What turns up on the day is a plan, and a crew who have read it.Weather and traffic are the variables.Everything else has already been taken out.
Nothing improvised.
Everything already decided.