Pre-Production

Pre-production ("prep") is the window between green light and the first day of shooting, when the film is planned into existence: final casting, crewing up, locking locations, building the schedule, designing sets and wardrobe, storyboarding key sequences, and turning the screenplay into a shooting script.

Prep length scales with scope — a micro-budget feature might take four weeks; a tentpole takes many months. But the rule is constant at every scale: problems solved in prep cost one; the same problems on set cost ten. A location that falls through in prep is a scouting trip; on the shoot day it's a company of eighty standing idle at full rate.

Prep is also where the script takes its last major changes for practical reasons — a location merge here, a cast consolidation there — which is why writers who deliver producible pages get fewer painful surprises in this phase. The final locked script becomes the production's contract with itself: schedule, budget, and every department's plan hang off it.

Writers preparing for a first production — or producers scoping one — can use our concierge desk to plan what prep actually requires at their budget tier.