Film Studio

Writing it. What it is, who is in it, and what happens.

• Look book
  How the show is photographed — palette, wardrobe, what must never appear.
• Treatment planned
  The story told in prose, before it is a screenplay.
• Screenplay planned
  One script, in scenes. No seasons, no episodes.

Planning it, and shooting the references everything else is generated against.

• Breakdown planned
  The scripts turned into what has to be there on the day — cast, locations, props, wardrobe, animals and effects — with a preview of whether each one can be kept looking the same.
• Scouting
  Photographs you bring in yourself — the trade's word for going out and photographing what might be in it. Places, objects, people: they shape the writing, and one of a place can become a shot directly. Bringing a photo in does not approve it for anything.
• Shot list
  Every image the show needs before it can be filmed consistently.
• References
  Ask the generator for the reference images the shot list is still missing. They come back as takes and wait on your judgement.
• Voices
  Who each character sounds like — the candidates, the one that was cast, and what it was chosen over.
• Casting planned
  Who appears, and the locked frame that fixes each of them.

Shooting the scenes themselves, against references that are already locked.

• Notes
  Everything checkable before anything is spent.
• Shoot planned
  The scenes themselves, covered setup by setup — how long each shot holds, and where the cut falls.

Cutting it, and then showing it to somebody.

• Cut
  Where episodes become video files.
• Sound planned
  Dialogue, ambience, effects and music, balanced against each other.
• Colour planned
  One look across every shot, whatever they came back like.
• Delivery planned
  The same cut in every size and length somebody asked for.
• Pitch
  What the show is, for somebody who has not seen it. Comes after the pilot, because now you can point at it.