Lights, camera…ACTION !!
This is one of the most famous formulas in the world and every time we hear this, it makes us think of one thing only: CINEMA!
Can you see it? The stage, the cameras, the crew running up and down the set, the director screaming, the actors laughing, the cinematographer complaining…the magic of Cinema in front of us. So, come with me to have a closer look of what is happening on set!

Where can we start? Subject, please!
As a matter of fact, every movie needs a subject to exist. The subject is the very first shape of the movie. It is the idea of it, its germ. If this idea is approved and bought by a producer, there it starts the Pre-production stage. As we mentioned in the previous article, this stage consists of:

1. Screenplay: the writers hired by the production company are in charge of developing the first idea (the subject), by writing the whole screenplay. That is to say, thinking about all the scenes that will be in the movie and writing them down with all the dialogues and the description of actions and characters that the actors will stage. This means that the writers have to imagine and picture the whole movie in their heads in order to make it happen.
2. Casting and Location scouting : once the screenplay is ready, it is necessary to find the places where to shoot the different scenes of the movie and also to decide which actors are going to star in the movie.
3. Director, Cinematographer and crew : this is a very delicate step in the Pre-production stage, because the producer has to choose the figures who will be responsible for the most part of the creating process: the Production stage. The director is the coordinator and head quarter of the whole shooting system (crew, actors, cinematographer) and he/she has to work on the movie also during the Post-production; the cinematographer is responsible for everything that is related to the images, such as their brightness and quality; the crew consists of all the staff that makes the realisation of a movie possible: costume and scenic designers, cameramen, lighting technicians, sound technicians, etc…
4. Storyboard and setting: The location scouting is not enough to define the movie setting, but the director and the cinematographer have to agree on a specific imprinting that will be given to the movie through light effects, framing and shots, angles, camera movements. For example, if the aim is to make an action movie, the lights will be bright and intense to highlight the colors of shiny race cars or the shades of fantastic flowers in the Amazon rainforest, whereas the camera movements will be fast, just like the framing changing, in order to keep up with the speed of the car chases and the fights. All the ideas are noted in the storyboard, which is a graphic planning of the shooting. In the storyboard, the director draws all the shots that he wants to film, in a chronological order. The storyboard looks like the comic version of the movie!
5. Scenography and Costume design: The setting is created also through scenic design, which prepares and customise the locations chosen. The costume designers, instead, have to think about and create all the costumes and outfits that the actors will wear in the movie.

And now it’s time for the Production stage to start! But before we venture into this, we have to clear a few very important concepts.

A CUT IS: the transition from one shot to another. The actual cuts come up during the editing process, when all the recorded pieces of the movie are assembled and the transitions between them must be defined.
A SHOT IS: a continuous sequence of frames (recorded by the camera without any cuts), that is planned in the storyboard. Many shots will form the entire scene.
A TAKE IS: a possible version of a shot. Usually many takes of the same shot are filmed. This means that the director makes different attempts to film the same thing but with little variation. As a result, in the post-production stage he/she will have the possibility to choose the best try of each shot.

Now that you are aware of these important words, we can move closer to the director and listen carefully to his instructions…the shooting is about to start!

DIRECTOR: “Lights?”
LIGHTS TECHNICIANS: “On!” the lights, arranged by the cinematographer and the technicians, are switched on
DIRECTOR: “Framing?”
CAMERAMAN: “Got it!” the cameraman is in position pointing the camera with the proper angle.
DIRECTOR: “Quiet on set!…where were we? Oh yea, CAMERA?”
CAMERAMAN: “Started!” the cameraman starts the recording
DIRECTOR: “Sound?”
SOUND TECHNICIANS: “Started!” the microphone is moved closer to the actors and the sound recording is started
DIRECTOR: “Shot 1, first take”. Screaming: “ACTION!”
The actors count 2 seconds before starting performing.

Have you taken any notes? That’s how it usually works on set. Ready to do it again?

SOURCES: https://promova.com/english-vocabulary/film-vocabulary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_crew