Shoot planning
The document a crew holds on the day, in the order the day actually happens.
The short version
Is this for you? For call sheets nobody can follow and continuity that breaks by lunchtime. It is built for the day the person who understood the plan has already left, which on a rotating crew is most days. Not if the shoot is one person in one room for an hour; a plan this thorough earns its place on a day with a crew, a schedule and things that go wrong in sequence.
What leaves your plate. Each instruction written with its reason attached, so the next crew can adapt it rather than follow it off a cliff, the day ordered the way it actually happens, and spoken markers on set that buy hours back in the edit.
What starts working. A shoot that produces the material the edit was expecting, in the order it can find it, from a document that still works after everyone who agreed it has moved on.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Where a plan stops being a call nobody wrote down
The notes are written for somebody who was not on the call
A studio moves. An instructor leaves. A local crew changes over between quarters, and the person who understood the reasoning is suddenly not in the building. Everything here is written so it still works in that situation: each instruction carries its reason, so the next person can adapt it rather than follow it into a room where it no longer applies.
Continuity is the thing that breaks first
What to verify before rolling again after a break, so an afternoon does not quietly stop matching a morning. Wardrobe guidance, so a series looks like a series and not like eleven separate days. Hair against a lavalier, which ruins more takes than any other single thing. The missing b-roll, and the angle that turns out to be needed every time.
Spoken markers on set buy back hours in the edit
At one partner the crew was asked simply to say aloud what was starting before each stage began. Hours of raw footage became searchable overnight. Finding the moment a recipe moves from preparation to cooking stopped being a scrub through a timeline and became a scan of a waveform, which is a real saving created by a free instruction.
Every item earns its place by having gone wrong
Lists get shorter as they get better. Items are added when something specific costs an edit real time, and retired when a habit has taken hold on set and the reminder is no longer doing anything. A checklist that never changes is a document somebody wrote once and nobody has read since.
The checklist, and who holds it on the day
What is actually on a checklist
Technical and artistic notes to follow during the shoot: what to check before resuming, the angles the edit will ask for, the b-roll list, wardrobe and continuity, the microphone and its usual enemies, and where the light has to be. Ordered by when they happen on the day, because that is how a shoot day runs.
How the plan is built
Shoot dates and subjects come to us before the day, so the content plan knows what is arriving and can prioritise properly. Existing footage is reviewed first: what already works is protected, and nothing that is currently succeeding gets thrown away for the sake of a tidier system.
Who holds it on the day
The partner's own crew, or the creator with the camera. Delivered as a document instead of as a conversation, because the value of all this is that it is available at seven in the morning when nobody wants to phone anybody, and it is the same document next quarter.
A note that only works while the person who wrote it is standing in the room is not a note, it is a favour.
A real note still works on the morning its author is asleep in another timezone.
What changes for you
A shoot that produces material the edit was expecting, in the order the edit can find it, with the continuity intact. And a document that keeps working after the people who agreed to it have moved on.
Related: Camera and lighting setup · Microphone setup · Shot and b-roll lists · Remote direction
Most fixes here cost nothing on the day of the shoot and everything after it. The audit reads recent videos for what should have been decided before recording, and puts the list in writing.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →