STICKING TO SCHEDULE

All your expenses are tied up to your schedule. Time is always of the essence in film making. Even if you're making a shoestring movie and you're not paying your actors or crew, you have food, shelter and transportation expenses. Time doesn't stand still because you're making a movie! Although at one time I thought it did!
If your production schedule is realistic, you'll accomplish your shots every day. If you're falling behind a little every day, and you're shooting five days, you might consider shooting half days on Saturday.

If you're falling behind badly, you're going to have to figure out why and speed up your shooting. Which means, you're fussing too much with certain things. It might be make-up. Maybe you need to have more people on that crew. It may be getting the first shot of day or just getting going in the morning, especially if you're traveling to new locations two or three times a day. You need to use special techniques, like the ones I talked about during the chapter on getting your first shot of the day in.

It's important when you get ahead of schedule because of a lucky break that you don't relax and let everyone take a breather. At such times confer immediately with your production manager. "What can we shoot now?" Move up certain scenes you'd planned to shoot in coming days, modify or change your "location" in the script. "Can this scene take place at daytime, it's an interior, we can cover the windows!" You have to think fast on your feet. Scramble and get your actors prepared and rescheduled, whatever you have to do, just don't sit around and take it easy. You're ahead today, tomorrow you're going to fall behind. This way you'll be able to spend more time on certain sequences that normally your budget wouldn't allow you to! So utilize your time wisely when you get ahead of schedule.

Learn how to use the "Strip Board," it's a valuable tool. Shoot all your scenes at the best time, on the right locations without having to go back to the same place twice. Learn how to schedule cleverly. Gauge your energy and those of your actors carefully. You work one way in the morning, one way at night. Of course, with experience, you'll work more and more efficiently, but you need to develop good habits and discipline in scheduling night scenes, special effects scenes, aerial scenes, scenes at resorts (where people forget themselves and start lounging!) Always be thinking about, "What else can I be shooting at this location?"

When you're starting out, you're budget's limited, so take advantage of special locations. If you've stumbled into a good location, where you can save a lot of time and get great production value, think creatively, "Can we do some re-writing here, can we shoot more of our scenes here?" There's a limit and exceptions of course. You have to be careful, but stay open-minded and remember your time is very valuable the less money you have to work with.

Part V.
Distribution. 
Finding a Distributor. 
Majors' Distribution. 
Mini-Majors. 
Independent Distributors. 
Distributing Your Own Film. 
The Foreign Market. 
Domestic Distribution. 
Festivals. 
Four-Walling. 
Video, TV & Ancillary Markets. 
Building Your Library of Films. 
Business Options. 
Corporations. 
Limited Partnerships. 
Public Offerings. 
Conclusions.