TIPS

MAKE IT EASY ENOUGH TO DO WHEN YOU'RE STRESSED

I take this tip seriously, because I've been through the "burnout" stuff. Yet, if you make your production methods simple, you always have them to fall back on when you’re too stressed to think.

If you've ever started to feel overwhelmed in the middle of a shoot, you probably know how important this note is. If you haven't felt that, it never hurts to work on streamlining your production methods before this happens (most people wait until after something happens TO THEM before they start taking it seriously). To do this, I start by evaluating the efficiency of the 3 main areas of production (lights, cameras & audio) then I come up with a game plan for my standard shots. For me, this means having a simple lighting diagram for my LIGHTS, knowing the lens focal length for the CAMERAS (and the sensor size) and then having an idea of how I'm going to set up AUDIO (using my "Proximity" method and custom settings). This is kind of like storyboarding, but it's more of a general preparation I do (I call it my Filmmaker's Playbook).