Planning your video shoot

If you have an important video project coming up, planning is everything. Ben Pitt shares some strategies to prevent your shoot descending into chaos

The thing I love most about video production is how it draws together so many different skills and people. One minute I might be adjusting the white balance on my camera, the next I’m dancing on the edge of a roof wearing size 11 high heels. The medium of moving pictures is a melting pot of written words, acting, photography, costume design, makeup, architecture, interior design, carpentry, painting, computer-generated imagery, music and dance. Anything goes, and often it all has to come together at the same time while the camera is rolling.

Making videos with friends, family or colleagues on a low budget can be a wonderfully chaotic experience, but sometimes it’s worth applying some discipline. If you have a clear idea of what you want to see in your finished video, then you need a clear set of steps to get you there. A wise person learns from their mistakes, but an even wiser one learns from other people’s. This article brings together the things I wish I’d known when I started making videos.

The Digital YES Man

What happens to your PC if you agree to install everything you’re offered?

One word can change everything. That’s the premise of Danny Wallace’s 2006 book, Yes Man, where the protagonist spends a year of his life obeying a very simple dictum: say ‘yes’ to everything. He says ‘yes’ to every offer of a credit card, to meetings with people who believe the pyramids were built by aliens, to ‘random solicitations’ over the internet. And, for the most part, he has a bloody good time. So good, they made the book into a film starring Jim Carrey.

I decided to run a similar experiment of my own: say ‘yes’ to absolutely everything I’m offered on my PC. I would tick every box during software installations, accept every download suggested by website pop-ups, and OK every offer to change a default setting on my PC. I wanted to find out what would happen to my computer if I took every last morsel that was offered to me. How long would my over-positivity take to drag my PC to its knees, and what would it look like by the end of it?