I have recently written a nice short film that i plan to film soon. I am pretty new to this whole film thing. I want to try to do it the right way this time. What are the steps in getting ready to film? Ex. shooting schedule, shot lists. I want it to be as organized as possible. It would great if someone could give me a list of steps to do before you shoot to make everything run as smoothly as possible. Examples would be greatly helpful if possible.
Thanks

always, and I mean ALWAYS, check out what the weather will/might be for the day you're shooting. -that's my tip. Oh yeah, and have 2 backup schedules.

Since you are new to filmmaking I would reccommend making complete storyboards of every shot you plan to take. Take a sheet of paper ad draw two vertical lines down it, making three columns. Label one "people" the other "objects" the other "equipment". List out everything that you will be needing under its appropriate category.

if you want to do it the "real" way, here's what you do:

you draw out every shot in the movie, and then check your editing BEFORE you shoot.

you write down every scene, and for each scene you write down what actors, locations, props, costumes, sound effects, special items you will need for that scene. each scene should have it's own sheet of paper. you get a copy of your script broken up into all the scenes seperately in a nice stack, and staple the one sheet of paper to each scene that it belongs to.

from that you figure out what scenes you can shoot on the same day, and you use those packets as your guide so you know what you need each day.

The best advice I can give is not to plan too much for a given time period. Confirm with your actors approximately how long you will be shooting, and plan accordingly. It should take at least 3-4 hours of shooting to produce 4 minutes of a finished film.

On an early project, I had a 15 page script. I (somehow) expected to shoot this in 2, possibly 3 shooting days. When I say days, I don't mean a full 12-hour SAG day, I mean a 12 PM - 5 PM schedule.

Obviously, it didn't work out that way. By the time the actors were all where they needed to be, it was almost 2 PM, and then a few revealed they had to leave at 3:30. Needless to say, there wasn't much accomplished.

Double-check that you have everything and that all key members of your cast and crew are available for the entire planned shoot. Don't plan too much for one session.

On my most recent project, 'War Crimes," I planned 2 shooting days. Each day lasted approximately 4 hours, and the finished film clocks in at 8:30. This was a fairly easy film to make in that coordinating the cast and crew didn't give me as much of a headache as on previous projects. By planning carefully what scenes would be shot and overestimating the amount of time, it was completed right on schedule.