Life Lessons From Pre-Production

“I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of ‘emergency’ is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.”
-President Eisenhower

One of the things that almost everyone in film/video production dislikes is pre-production. For most, it’s not why they began their career. If you want an exercise in frustration, try to get 5-8 freelancers together for a pre-production meeting!

For some reason, the deeper I went into video production the more I enjoyed pre-production. Yes, I’m that guy. When you’re on set and something goes wrong it’s hard to keep level-headed and calm if there’s no contingency in place. I hate being in that position. Sending someone to the closest big box to buy batteries or learning that you have to leave a location three hours before you had planned can send you to an early grave.

That’s where pre-production becomes so important. Every minute spent in pre-production may not save you five minutes in production. It will, however, simply save your skin if you’ve given enough forethought to your production.

I enjoy pre-production because it allows me to check down on everything, get everyone on the same page and uncover potentially lethal problems that can be solved quickly and efficiently… in pre-production. For example, I was producing a video that would be shot in a warehouse. My Director of Photography said he had done work in the building before – because he knew the layout, so he didn’t want to go.

I dragged him there anyways. Lo and behold, this was not the same warehouse… he had shot at a similar building across the street. Inside, however, completely different. I saved a day of production in 5 minutes. If we had not gone, not only would we had been at a full stop until we got our bearings, but the whole crew and client would have lost a lot of respect for us.

Over my time here at uStudio, I’ve been working more and more on the product itself. I love it, it’s a fascinating industry and product. The challenges are innumerable which is a great motivator every day.

Working with the development team, I noticed something. When we did the work up-front – asking the right questions, pulling details apart until there’s nothing left to look at, timing, logistics, etc. the product always benefited more than when we needed to stop and do something quickly without planning.

You can call it planning, pre-production, scrumming, what have you, but planning is always the most critical, and usually the most difficult, step in any endeavor worth undertaking.

Realizing this and applying the same principles to life gives me the same benefits. I’m aware, I’m prepared, and I’m not scared.