Script Breakdown: Making a Frugal Short Film, Part 5

In the fifth part of my series on Making a Frugal Short Film, we take the script we wrote last month and break it down. It ain't rocket science, but this is an important part of chopping your script into digestible nuggets. If you are going to produce your script, you need to understand how all the pieces fit together and plan accordingly.

In the video I cover isolating (with colored pencils!) characters, props, locations and fx shots. Next up is writing camera shots in the margins, which is the inception of your storyboards and an eventual shot list. Finally, dividing your script into 1/8"-based scenes will tell you how each scene is for future planning.

This is basic pre-production and while it may seem trivial, it is very important toward comprehending how you are going to pull everything together. Next month we start thinking about critical crew positions!