Freedom Comes With Preparation: Shot Lists, Floor Plans, & Storyboards

One of the things I hate to hear whenever I’m working with a Director or DP is let’s “free-flow it.” Sometimes this is a necessity if you’re going into a location where you’ve had no chance to scout or see pictures. 

In most instances, it’s the case of the Director and/or DP being lazy. The freedom to try different ideas, shots, and camerawork should stem from a complete understanding of what you need. 

It is assured you’ll hit a point on set where you don’t know the next shot without preparation. Your crew begins to question your vision of the film, scene, short film, etc…

When you prepare beforehand, you give yourself freedom to play on set. When you know the shots you absolutely need it allows you to add, cut, or combine shots after each performance. 

An understanding of your scene gives you the opportunity to play with your actors. You can focus on performance rather than worrying about if the scene will play out correct in the editing room. 

It also gives your crew the reassurance you understand your role as the Director or DP. A crew or cast that doesn’t respect you will not yield positive results. 

In this post I’m sharing a few pages from the shot list, shooting script, and floor plans I put together for a comedy sketch. The entire sketch had an ensemble cast (six actors) plus three separate scenes. It was one location, but we also had the use the same location to “create” a TV commercial to transition into the scenes afterward. 

By the end of the day, after reviewing my entire Director's Book, I had cut four shots, combined two, and added three. I wouldn't have been able to do so without prior preparation. Once I marked all each cut, integration, and addition I handed an extra copy to the producer. 

The final Director's Notebook included character analysis, character and scene beats, shot list, shooting script, and floor plans for the editor. If I'd been more diligent I would've included storyboards and possibly my version of how I'd cut the scene based on the day's work.

More importantly, my previous preparation allowed me to put down my notebook and focus on the actors since I had everything planned out in my head, but I could always reference myself when I was unsure. 

A good director and/or DP realizes freedom comes with preparation. Remember this on your next shoot. 

I Can't Give You, What I Don't Got!

A while back I got the chance to work with native Birmingham group, Dat2.
Dat2 is a hip-hop collective consisting of Thad Weller, Mario Leonard, Dave Johnson, and Squeeze (you wish you had a nickname that awesome). Their sound is fast-paced blend of hip-hop, rock, and soul. What really made them stand out in my opinion, was there use of live band in their recordings in comparison to most music that works strictly on synthesizers and pre-recorded beats.

Their frontman, Thed, has quite the personality which becomes quite evident as you work with him. I could describe him, but I'd rather let the footage do the job.


I Don't Got from Micah Russell on Vimeo.
Music Video

Artist: Dat2
Song: "I Don't Got"
Album: "Live From Malcolm's Reading Room"

Director: Micah Russell
Director of Photography: Xavier Burgin
Camera Operator/Assistant Director: Alex Newberry

This the first time I've worked on a video project where I wasn't the head of it. This is also the first time I've been with a team that had far more experience than I did. Director,Micah Russell, is a TCF senior whose body of work speaks for itself. You can check out some of his work here. Camera Operator, Alex Newberry, is another TCF senior at the University of Alabama whose work precedes herself. Check it out here.

I  learned a substantial amount about working with individuals who are more experienced than me. You must be willing to realize there will always be individuals who are more knowledgeable in your area of expertise. You must choose whether this is a positive situation or an adversarial one. Are you going to learn from them or resent them. As far I'm concerned college is not the place to have an elitist attitude on any subject.

Micah ended up not only being the director, but the post-production editor for the video. I ended up working on two specific parts of the production. I took the main character out to the majority of the locations before filming and photographed him in action to give Micah a feel of where we could shoot the ongoing action.

The actual story in the video differs, but the feel of the video becomes apparent from the pictures we took before we went into production. Overall, the experience gave me a good lesson on the necessity of pre-planning, story-boarding, and just having a good general (visual) idea of what you want to do.

I'm planning my next short film now so all of this will come into play.

To check out the video plus other work I've done click HERE