There are many ways to shoot a narrative film. The complexity of the project, the size of the crew, the nature of the location, and the style of the director all have an impact on what actually occurs on the film set. Director Kelly Reichardt shot her third feature film, Old Joy (2006), with a crew of six, a principal cast of two, predominantly exterior locations and available light, and with everyone bunking together on location for the duration of the shoot (see pages 19-20). Filmmaker Alexander Engel\u2019s award-winning short, This is It (2013), was shot in three 12-hour days, mostly in one interior location (with a few exterior shots) and a crew of nine; and Didier Rouget shot his second short film, Vive le 14 Juillet (1995), in one day, on the streets of Paris, with three crewmembers, two actors, no lights, and no sound (see these two short films on the Voice & Vision companion website). The shooting processes for these small-scale productions are bound to be different than those for your standard industry blockbuster film, with crewmembers numbering into the dozens and a veritable convoy of equipment trucks and trailers. There are many books on the market that explain in complex detail all of the tasks and procedures on a standard commercial feature film, but be careful: a production must adjust its personnel size and on-set procedures to the scale of the project, especially on short films, in order to keep the creative process from being weighed down by excessively elaborate logistics. On the other hand, you must make sure that you have adequate personnel, time, and equipment to pull off the movie you have in mind. This chapter looks at the basic on-set process for an average short narrative film with sync sound. While certain tasks and procedures can be scaled to fit larger or smaller projects and crews, there\u2019s nothing in the following discussion that you can cut entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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