How much planning is too much planning? Is there such a thing? This is a question I’ve been asking myself as we draw closer to the first of our shoot dates. I feel like with an open studio like Box, where there is no one final film we are working towards, but rather a collaboration of many small and contained film projects. Having an open mind and unrigged attitude is necessary. I want to arrive to a shoot day with a shooting schedule, a shot list, a script and a badass producer who is going to keep everyone to it. I really value structure (in all things) but especially in filming, it alleviates stress and helps envision the film. However, I also want to be able to have the maturity to recognise if something is not working on set or if something wild and surprising is working really well, and be able to throw everything planned out. Is this made more difficult by having a watertight production plan in place? I’m leaning towards probably not. I feel like, as long I am conscience of on-the-fly opportunities, and not being ruled by the production plan I’ll be ok.
Here are what I have of my production plan so far, albeit in their draft form: