Cinematic Commercials & Small Budgets: Camera Tests

Part 07: Conducting A Camera Test

Part 07: Conducting A Camera Test Now that we have all of our planning, and scheduling done, we can just go out and shoot our project, right? Not quite. Before we head to set and press record, we do our due diligence to conduct a camera test so that we can illuminate any potential unforeseen […]

Save The Cat: Chapter 3 Summary

“Save The Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter Three Summary

“Save the Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter Three Summary [This is a continuation of my series of “Cliffs Notes” of the Blake Snyder book “Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” to help you write better movie scripts. ~ Tim ] Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3 |  Chapter 4 Chapter 3: It’s About […]

Call Sheet for Film Production

Part 06: Scheduling And Creating A Call Sheet

Part 06: Scheduling And Creating A Call Sheet One of the most challenging aspects of preparing for a shoot when you are beginning is developing a realistic schedule for the days work. This is where the information we gathered from the location scout is paired with our storyboards and our lighting diagrams to guide us in a reasonable direction.  If you […]

Save The Cat: Chapter 2 Summary

“Save The Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter Two Summary

“Save The Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter Two Summary [This is a continuation of “Cliffs Notes” of the Blake Snyder book “Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” ~ Tim ] Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3 |  Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Give Me The Same Thing…Only Different The script, the […]

Lighting Diagram for Film

Part 05: Creating A Lighting Diagram

Part 05: Creating A Lighting Diagram With our storyboards in hand, it is time to figure out how to light our locations. Although this may seem like a daunting task, it is not as complicated as you may think. This is where the leg work we have done so far starts to pay off. We […]

Save The Cat: Chapter 1 Summary

“Save The Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter One Summary

“Save The Cat!” Screenwriting Book: Chapter One Summary Instead of writing a review of “Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” by Blake Snyder –something that many, MANY other readers have done– I instead decided it would be much more beneficial to create “Cliffs Notes” of the book. This will accomplish […]

Is Film School The Answer?

Is Film School The Answer?

Cinematic Commercials & Small Budgets: Storyboarding

Part 04: Storyboarding On A Small Budget

Part 04: Storyboarding On A Small Budget After completing the leg work of location scouting, the next step we take in our preproduction process is to Storyboard. It is unfortunate that storyboarding can often times get overlooked as an laborious step that costs too much for a small budget production. But we think it is […]

Ryan's Story -- Indie Cinema Academy

Ryan Shares His Story

Cinematic Commercials & Small Budgets: Scouting

Part 03: How To Location Scout

Part 03: How To Location Scout We have landed the client, submitted the budget, and our proposal has been approved. Now it is time to start the leg work of preproduction. But where do you start? Our process begins by location scouting. Finding the right location, and maximizing it on screen is 70% of creating […]