Production phases

So perhaps you already know this, and you can skip this post, or maybe it's something new for you. But I thought it would be a good idea to talk about something basic, namely the three basic stages of filmmaking.
Because like with every project, also movies have different stages. And basically you can devide them into three stages: pre-production, production and post-production. In this post I'll explain what each of the production stages are, and why they're so important to making a movie.

Pre-production
The first stage of filmmaking is pre-production. This is the stage in where you are beginning to plan, build, cast, design and write the movie. Because of course before you start shooting you need a script. And a script is nice, but without any actors it's kinda difficult to shoot anyone at all. And how about the design of the movie? How do you want your movie to look like? Does it need to be a scary thriller, or a light comedy? It all affects how the design of the movie will be like. And of course you need to plan things, when are you going to shoot what, what do you need, and who needs to be there. All these things happen in this first stage of filmmaking, and it's really the most important stage of filmmaking. Because this is the moment you can still decide how your movie is going to look like. Once you start shooting, there's no turning back anymore. So spend as much time as you can on pre-production, because once production begins you'll have to continue, and there's no looking back anymore. Most movies already strand here, because people simply cannot realise the vision they have. So it's important to keep your visions realistic and to keep your passion for filmmaking going in this stage of filmmaking.

Storyboarding is an important process in the pre-production

Production
So after a long while of pre-production, we get to the most fun part of filmmaking, the filming itself. Because the production stage is the part where you can finally get out that camera, and start shooting things. The whole period in where you're actually shooting things is called the production stage. Of course it doesn't mean pre-production has to stop, as you could still continue doing things in pre-production while you're also in production. But, in order to make it easier for yourself, it's probably better to finish pre-production first completely , before moving into production.

Production is the phase of finally rolling the camera's

Post-production
This is the stage after shooting. You've shoot your footage, and now it's time to turn those hours of footage into your final product. At this stage everything you do, the editting, adding music, vissual effects, adding sounds effect, sound mixing, it's part of the post-production stage.
Most people think that in this part of filmmaking it's just putting thigs together, and that's it. But that's actually not true. Post-production can be very creative, if you know how to do it. You can still change your story, adjust a scene, or change the mood of your film with some creative editting.

Editting is one of the key things during post-production

Now of course all these different stages will happen in one way or another. It's not that you have to really think about it like: 'Oh, I'm now in post-production, now I only have to do these kind of things'. It sort of goes organic as you move your way through your film. But it is sort of usefull to know and understand in what part of the production you are.

Good luck to you all,

Basilios Mulder

Introduction

So welcome all to my Filmmaking For Noobs blog. Let me first introduce myself. My name's Basilios Mulder, I've graduated as a computer graphics artist in Amsterdam, and have worked on severel low-budget film productions. I'm also currently working on my own filmproduction, which I hope to finish in the next couple of years. Besided that I'm an avid filmcritic, I also consume every little bit of info, behind the scenes documentaries, audio commentaries and technological updates in the film and vissual effects industry.

In this blog I'll regularly do posts about filmmaking. From concept to final product, from the technical side to the creative side. I'll try to cover as much about every subject as possible, but would also like to envite people to send in their own questions. So if you have any questions regarding filmmaking, please feel free to send them to me, and I'll try to answer them as well as I can.

The reason why I started this blog, is because I felt there are so many people out there trying to make their own film, and so many people giving tips and suggestions, that's it's hard for a beginning or amateur filmmaker to find the right information. That's either because sometimes the information is incorrect, sometimes it's incomplete or sometimes it's just too technical to understand for people who are just starting.
Now I'm not someone who's claiming he knows everything about filmmaking, but I think I'm pretty safe to say that I know most things, both on the creative side of filmmaking and on the technical side of filmmaking. And even I'm still learning. Because that's the great thing about filmmaking, you'll never stop learning, and you'll never stop evolving.

So stay tuned for the next post!

Greetings,

Basilios Mulder