Kris D'Amico Photography

March 22nd, 2010 by Kris

Once a week I get questions about workflow, process, check lists, how we manage the projects over here. More and more of my clients want to know “how the plane flies.” Well, I will attempt to give you a glimpse into how we run the shop over here. Workflow for us has really become a set of checklists, timelines, and creative meetings. Project management is still just good old fashioned customer service.

Anyway, here’s a short pre-production checklist that I use for both photo and video, followed by a short paragraph that I’ve recently emailed to a client about our “process and workflow.” Enjoy!

Pre-Production Checklist:

1. Client Meeting
2. Loose Script and Storyboards to begin to define the look and get a feel for the motion of the script or the narrative of the shoot
3. Meeting to discuss technical changes that may need to happen to meet budget
4. Establish a specific budget timeline and specific external expenses
5. (Video) Refine Script and Modify Storyboards
6. (Video) Lock Script
7. (Video) Have the writer to sign an “Assignment of Rights” contract
8. Develop Shot List
9. Create a shooting schedule
10. Find Crew
11. Get any specialized equipment rentals lined up and make order for purchaces (tape stock, gels, etc.)
12. Scout Locations
13. Setup Casting Call/ Cast Talent
14. (Video) Start rehearsals
15. File shooting permits and insurance certificates
16. Review other necessary paperwork (model releases, location contracts, etc.)
17. Lock down Locations and Cast
18. (Video) Line up sound engineering
19. Meet up of all cast and crew for a directional meeting, review shot list and shooting schedule.
20. Final production meeting with crew to discuss technical challenges

“Our process here is a straight forward and streamlined all digital workflow to yield high quality images with a fast turn around time. First we examine the previous images if we need to copy an angle or look. Then we reverse engineer the original lighting technique, often times trying to improve on the quality of the overall image.

“Once time comes for shooting, we setup our custom designed lighting schematic and product setup. We shoot with a Canon 5d tethered to a MacBook Pro directly into Adobe Lightroom. We shoot into the editing program, simply to be able to instantly see imperfections in the image and immediately adjust to them. The additional benefit of shooting directly into the computer is the ability to send image “comps” as we are actively engaged in the shoot. We style and dress the products one at a time directly before shooting.

“Once all products have been photographed, we pick out the select images to be retouched and clipped. If it is a situation where we require feedback from a third party, we often provide a web gallery to assist in image selection. We do use an out of house clipping service and we do offer this service free of charge. Once any photoshop work is completed the images are exported as high resolution JPGs or Tiffs. We then offer digital delivery via FTP and DVD or equivalent digital media.”