Scheduling the production of your indie film can be a bit tricky because you have a number of things working both for you and against you. Unfortunately, you have more things working against you, but there are ways for you to overcome those things. You just have to be patient and be prepared. By this point you should have your pre-production tasks finished. That includes allotting your funds for certain aspects of the process, hiring on your actors, and hiring your crew. You also have to take care of as many of those predictable elements as possible such as props before filming begins. This saves on time during the actual filming process, although it is impossible for you to have everything on hand. You will have to make the occasional run to the store when you need something.

It is the scheduling that takes place during the production that is going to be tricky. You’re going to have to film certain scenes during the day, certain scenes at night, scenes in certain weather conditions, and film within certain establishments such as a mall or a doctor’s office. You have to schedule accordingly to keep your production moving smoothly.

Day and night filming

Because you’re operating on a budget, you can’t exactly make day and night yourself and it be convincing, so it is good to try to film your daylight scenes over the course of a few days or weeks and then film your nighttime scenes the same way. That is especially helpful if you have several scenes in the same setting instead of jumping back and forth between multiple scene locations. This is going to save you time, effort, and money. You can do something such as:

• Daylight scenes: Film between the dates of 09/01 and 09/10
• Nighttime scenes: Film between the dates of 09/11 and 09/20

The same goes for any scenes that must be filmed in the morning or the early evening. You simply record the times in which those scenes will be filmed. So simply add this to your schedule:

• Morning scene: Film on 09/21 at 8:00 a.m.
• Early evening scene: Film on 09/22 at 5:00 p.m.

Since you are not using too much artificial lighting so that you can stay within your budget, it is important to film during the right time of day. Eventually, you will record the scene numbers and then place a time, date, and location next to them. That way your cast and crew know where to be and when to be there for what scene. An example is:

• Scene 6: 8:00 a.m. on 09/09 at the mall

When everyone has this schedule in their hand, you won’t have a hundred questions coming your way about what scene is being filmed, what time, and where it is being filmed at. They will already know and will be ready to go.

The weather is your friend

When filming outside scenes, you are going to become a weather freak and wonder why you chose filmmaking over meteorology. Okay, maybe not, but you’re going to be checking the weather quite often. The ten day forecast is going to prove to be quite helpful because you can make your schedule right before production based on that. If you notice the next four or five days are going to be sunny, that is the perfect opportunity to film that scene that consists of a sunny day. If you need to film a scene in the rain, then you can look to see when it is to rain again. However, you may have to wait for the rain to come that day. It is good to know that there are times in which you may have to wait for the right weather conditions. That means you should make room in your production schedule for delays.

Another thing that you have to take into consideration is that sometimes weather conditions come about unexpectedly. You may not have notice. That is when you may have to delay filming and reschedule. From the beginning, make sure you add days to the end of your expected completion date in case you have to reschedule the filming of certain scenes. You may have to reschedule due to the weather or other reasons such as ill actors or scenes in which the camera were not focused. If you don’t have any of these issues, then you’re going to finish earlier than planned.

Locations

There may be times in which you can only film at certain locations at certain times. Let’s say you are able to secure a local shopping mall for a scene. The shopping mall may tell you that you can only film after closing or during business hours on a certain day. You have to secure these locations during the pre-production phase so that you can fit them into your schedule. When using locations that belong to others, you are literally at the mercy of those individuals. Once they give you permission to use their establishment, be sure to follow up a few days ahead of time to make sure they are still game to allow your filming. If they are not, then you have a few days to come up with a backup plan. If you can’t come up with a backup plan after a few days, you can always save that scene until the end or improvise.

Revising the schedule

Just make sure that you don’t throw too many things onto the end of the schedule. That way you’re not going way over the allotted time to take care of missed scenes or scenes that need to be redone. When you’re nearing the filming of the last couple of scenes, it is time to give everyone a new schedule that consists of those things that need to be done. Before you know it you’ll have a quality film in your hands and it was made possible by being professional and well organized.

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