The shot list have been my tried and true friend on countless productions over the years. It’s a simple, accessible tool for communicating how I plan to shoot a scene. It often lacks visual appeal (I have a solution for that, read until the end and find out), but has been invaluable for me getting the shots I need..

This week I want to talk about how I shot listed my first feature Wild Boys:

• The Challenge: how do I shoot a feature film in 10 days without sacrificing my vision?
• The Prep: everything I did to get ready to shot list.
• The Method: the shooting process I developed to work with the limitations we had, and still achieve a look and feel that suits the film.

Let’s roll.

Each film requires a unique visual approach, we need a system that lets us do that over and over

To shoot a feature film in 10 days, I needed to make sure I didn't make some of the common mistakes unseasoned directors make when planning their shots:

• Showing up unprepared: An unprepared director is death to any film production. If you don’t put in the work up front and know what you want when you step on set, you’ll spend valuable production time hemming and hawing. Nothing kills a crew’s morale like a director who doesn’t know what they want.
• Being too rigid: The flip side of the coin is coming up with a plan, and insisting on sticking to it come hell or high water. Usually your plan changes with your first setup. If you’re not able to adjust on the fly, you’ll end up sacrificing your vision later in the day.
• Being too ambitious or too safe: There’s a fine balance between ambition and safety. If you’re too ambitious with your shot designs you’ll end up spending tons of time on one setup, and having to rush other parts of your coverage. But if you play it too safe, and stick to standard coverage you’ll end up with a stale, boring film.

With this in my mind I knew I had to get clear on exactly what I was up against on our shoot.

The Challenge: how to shoot a feature film in 10 days

The first step is to know what you’re shooting and what limitations you’re working within. It’s all well and good to plan for techno cranes, and 4 page shoot days, but that doesn’t add up if you only have 10 days to shoot your film.

Firstly, our challenge was to shoot a hundred page script in 10 days. Which, you guessed it, makes 10 pages per day.

As a side note, most features shoot 3-6 pages per day, and TV usually ranges from 4-9 pages on average.

Needless to say 10 pages a day is ambitious.

Secondly, we’d also landed on shooting with one camera instead of our original plan of two cameras (more on that in a few weeks.) Which cut the potential coverage we could get in half.

Thirdly, we were sinking our entire budget into this production. We knew there’d be very little left over to go back and do things over again.

It was make or break.

I needed to come up with a way of shooting that let us:

• spend as much time shooting as possible
• capture every part of every scene
• leverage the main cast’s incredible improv skills

To maximize shooting time we needed to make the rest of our operation as efficient as possible. I talked to my DP (Director of Photography) Vincent Valentin about how we could make our lighting as simple as possible. We decided to work with the sun outside, planning our days in detail to make the natural light work in our favor. For our indoor days we kept the lighting simple and easy to change between setups.

I also worked with all the other department heads to make sure our setup time each day was as short as possible.

In fact we’d already considered our schedule when writing the script. About 70-80% of the movie takes place outside.

Lastly, I wanted to shoot in a way that allowed the actors to move freely in the scene space. I wanted to give them opportunities to use their improv skills in every scene.

My challenge was clear: we needed great planning, and a way of shooting that was flexible enough to get the best out of our cast and adapt to whatever circumstances we’d face on set.

The Prep

Last week you and I talked about the importance of being a collector and a curator. How collecting inspiration from everything you watch, read and experience helps you when you’re putting the vision for your film on paper.

That’s my first step when prepping to shot list my films.

I gather all the relevant inspiration. Sometimes it’s general, sometimes it’s a specific shot for a specific scene.

I also like having location photos and videos handy. Sometimes I’ll even shoot test versions of a scene with stand-ins while location scouting to see how a shot will look.

Don’t sleep on using your phone camera for what it’s worth on location scouts!

If I’ve been able to rehearse with the cast and do test shoots then, I’ll have those handy as well.

Lastly, I have my script with all my notes, and my breakdown. (You and I should go over how a director breaks down a script, let me know if you want that newsletter sooner rather than later.)

The super short version, is I’m looking for:

• who’s in the scene, and who our POV character is
• where’s they’re coming from
• what they want
• where they’re going next

With all this at hand I’m ready to make my shot list.

The Solution

The plan I ended up with was more of a methodical approach, rather than a list of shot-by-shot what we needed to capture.

We approached each scene in a similar way to make it easy for everyone to know how we were going to shoot. It became like a shorthand between me and the rest of the crew which made it easier for everyone to keep up with our schedule.

The plan was to start with the widest angle, and let our DP flow with the action and find interesting shots. When we moved in for closer coverage we would shoot one side of the room first, let actors come and go in frame as dictated by the blocking. Then we'd flip around once we had that side of the space covered and do it all over again.

In my shot list I would highlight important moments where I wanted something special; like a push in for an important character beat, or a particular angle, or an insert of a prop or other important element that would help the story.

This general approach combined with my “specials” helped us move fast, while still keeping the characters and the story top of mind.

I don’t think this is the ideal way to shoot a movie, but it’s a method that let us capture lots of performance in a short time.

This strategy is one of the main reasons we were able to get everything we needed in the 10 days we had to shoot Wild Boys.

And cut!

That does it for this week. Here are the key takeaways I want you to bring with you into your directing career from today:

• Work with your limitations, not against them
• Prepare, prepare, prepare
• Make your shot list work for you, so you can capture the vision you set out with.

As always, thanks for reading.

PS: I promised I have a solution to boring shot lists. Here’s a link to download my FREE shot list template.

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