The Realities of Pre-Production
What is Pre-Production?
When bringing a project to the big screen — or small screen in our case — there are three stages of production:
Pre: getting everything together.
Pro: shooting the thing.
Post: editing and marketing (aka getting drunk on the project’s dime at premiere parties).
Pre-production is without a doubt the hardest of the three when you’re an independent filmmaker. Most get into the field because we’re visual creators or writers, but good pre-production requires talents that don’t come naturally to us. It requires producing, which is the film way of saying business management and planning.
Oh dear God, the planning.
Yes, there are storyboards and art design for props and wardrobe, but most of us also have to be our own producers. Being an independent filmmaker requires wearing multiple hats and due to our small budget (hey, it’s not the size but all in how you use it) we have to handle the business side of things.
And we hate it.
But we’ve worked on many indie projects before, and what’s held every one of them back from being what they could be?
Poor planning and management in pre-production.
No-Budget Pre-Production
…or reasons not to become a filmmaker.
Reason #1: Patience
Because we’re self-funding Houmans, our pre-production has been slooooooww. Imagine DJ Screw chopping up one of his classics; that’s how slow we’ve been because that’s what planning takes.
Good, Fast, and Cheap. Since you can only pick two and we’re no-budget you better believe we’re choosing Good. But when things take this long it really exacerbates reasons #2 and #3.
Reason #2: Rolling with the Punches
“Life does not stop and start at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit.”
-Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski
More recently — like last weekend — we got news that a location, the band practice room, is no longer available. Oddly enough, our first blog post features the exterior of the practice room prominently because we had the location on lockdown for a year and a half (yeah, it’s been that long).
But one lost location isn’t stopping this train from rolling on because this isn’t uncommon. Locations, actors, crew, props — they all come and go when you’re no-budget. You just keep working and believe what got you here will keep you going. Just as we’re confident we’ll have a replacement location soon (we already have some ideas in mind).
Reason #3: Self-Motivation
Let’s be honest, sometimes you just want to Netflix and chill. And yes, you can Netflix and chill solo. If we’re really honest, it’s probably almost all the time. Making yourself work is hard. So hard this probably should have been reason #1.
We believe self-motivation is why so many no-budget and indie productions sprint through pre-production. Beyond it simply being hard to stay motivated during a long process, the biggest hurdle here is the type of work being done.
We touched on how most people get into filmmaking because they’re an artist or a creative type, but pre-production is full of work that isn’t particularly creative. Running a production is like running a small business.
And we get it; it’s creatively draining.
Even the more creative work, like storyboarding and production design (determining how the props, clothes, set dressing will look), still isn’t creative work a lot of people enjoy doing (bless you production designers and art directors). They’d rather be on set. So they rush to production, abandoning the benefits of a strong pre-production.
So how do we stay motivated during our lengthy pre-production? In the past we’ve started things that never came to fruition. Much like our characters, we’re at a time in our life where we need to see the project through or move on.
What do you think?
Are you a filmmaker; did we get the right read on the scene? What do you like about pre-production? Let us know in the comments or on social media!