By 2002, Tim Moore was a seasoned production manager, line producer, and producer of independent movies and television projects, but still about a year away from joining Clint Eastwood’s team as a regular unit production manager and, later, co-producer. He was co-producing a small independent film called The Climb in Provo, Utah, responsible for setting up the schedule for a particularly grueling day of filming on the side of a snowy mountain in the middle of winter. By then, Moore was well-versed in the need to weave backup plans into his schedule, and it was a good thing.

“The first day, we built a camp on the side of the mountain in the snow, on a glacier,” Moore recalls. He continues:

The night before, it snowed, and when we tried to get up to our set, we couldn’t even reach it, even with help from the ski patrol. So we took the crew and equipment down the mountain and set up to shoot the scene in the parking lot, and we tried to do it, but it started snowing again, and it was way too hard to shoot there. Luckily, we knew about a warehouse about three miles away and we took everything down there—it was a plan we had ready to go, just in case. That day, we went to three different locations, and ended up in the warehouse, putting tents up on a stage [in the warehouse], and shot the scenes inside [the tents]—about eight pages. We made our day, and later went back and got the outdoor coverage that we needed. Did we think we would ever need to use that plan? No, but you always have to have things ready to go.

You have to think things out and not panic. There will always be an incident somewhere on every picture that will cause you to have to change your plans. It might be minor or it might be huge, but you have to be ready for it.

In Moore’s case, he had experience, resources, and a team ready to help him execute his backup plans; the point, however, is that he had those backup plans to begin with. They were part of his schedule and, for that matter, part of his budget. His team had strategically developed a series of options for what they would do in certain situations that would allow them to complete their shooting days on time and on budget, and that made all the difference in the world on that particular project. In other words, they had a plan, and their plan worked. On that project, or on any project—be it professional or student—filmmakers’ chances of success are directly linked to their ability to strategically plan and organize.

But what exactly does “plan and organize” mean when it comes to filmmaking, and what does it particularly mean at the student level, where resources are few and experience is limited?

“The lower the budget, the fewer the resources, the more important planning becomes,” insists independent producer/director/writer Jon Gunn, whose directing credits include My Date with Drew (2004, as codirector) and Like Dandelion Dust (2009). “Lack of planning will limit you, and prevent you from accomplishing the things you need to make your movie everything you want it to be. So it’s important to think ahead about various scenarios and possibilities—for instance, having a backup location in case it rains the day you are scheduled to shoot outside, or having a plan for consolidating 10 shots into three if you run out of time. These things are always smart, especially when you don’t have money. Scheduling and budgeting are their own art forms, and they are particularly important when you are on a limited budget.”¹

Therefore, think of your schedule and budget combination as the Plan. The Plan is an initial realistic road map of how your movie will be brought to life—physically, technically, financially, and sensibly. It is far more than an estimating tool; it becomes the practical definition of how your story will be created. In effect, the Plan becomes your movie: the road, the car, the engine, the steering wheel, and even the finish line far off in the distance.

In this chapter, we will look at how a film’s schedule and budget work in synergy as two sides of the same coin, and how they are created and managed. We’ll examine what it will take to manage your production, including organizing production tasks and finding help and insight for organizing them; understanding the principles and technical aspects of creating, revising, and managing a shooting schedule; mastering the principles of building a movie budget and managing resources; and, perhaps most important of all, learning how to be personally resourceful along the way.