Film Gear for Shooting a Short Film

Published on February 5, 2019

Cinematography & Filmmaking

In July 2018 we decided to make a short film. The idea was to run a competition and ask our viewers to submit a story concept. Eric Toms came out with the greatest idea, who we’ve been working with together for the past months. That scenario is now done and so the pre-production can start.

What is Pre-Production?

Imagine you stand on the set of your future short film. Look around you and write down every possible logistic choice you had to make along the way. Yup, that’s probably a lot. And when you stand on your set, you’ll feel more comfortable with a good preparation.

Lets start off with the three biggest; cast, locations and crew. To find our cast, we’re simply using Facebook for that. See if you can find dedicated groups where filmmakers can find talents. I posted a message with a clear description of what we needed, plus several pictures of people I found on Google as a reference. It’s also good to define your day-price upfront. If you don’t have enough budget for cast, you also don’t want to attract the higher tier and waste both of your time.

Next is locations; I broke down the scenario and we came out at 7 locations. 4 of them could be filmed within our studio, which gives us some great advantages! That also means we need to start booking the other locations. One of which will be on a public street. For this we’re gonna need to call the local police for more information about the law. We could just go ahead and film what we need, but if you like to take time to setup lights, rehearse your scenes and camera actions then it’s better to play safe and avoid getting kicked out.

Finally is crew.  We’re dividing this is ‘experienced crew’ and ‘helpers’. Director, DOP, Camera and sound are four essential crew members that need experience in their field. If you’re out of budget after these four crew members, you can start asking friends for a free hand of help. However, never forget to show appreciation to everyone! If there’s one thing worth more than money, then it’s a good vibe, lots of love and free food ?