Assignment 1 — The pre-production package

Everything a director needs before spending a single generation on the real thing — locked screenplay, world bible, shot list and storyboard

Due: 12 April 2027 · Weight: 40%

The brief#

Direct the film on paper before you direct it in generation.

Submit the complete pre-production package for the 2–4 minute dramatic short you will make in the second half of the course. Integrate the story, screenplay, continuity design and shot planning developed in Weeks 2–6. Your package should let another filmmaker understand what happens, what each shot contributes, and what must remain consistent between generations.

You are being assessed on directing decisions made before production. Generated footage is not required. Rough hand-drawn or digital storyboard thumbnails are sufficient; their staging must be readable.

What you submit#

Submit one PDF with your name, film title, package version/date and these four labelled sections. Embed any references you rely on in the PDF, with captions and version labels, so the reader does not need access to your private folders or accounts. There is no fixed page count or shot count: include what your whole film needs.

1. Logline and premise — the locked story and its scope.
2. Screenplay and director’s intent notes — the complete film in screenplay form.
3. Character and world bible — repeatable identity, design and continuity decisions.
4. Shot list, storyboard and production order — every shot, its purpose and dependencies.

“Locked” means the submitted sections agree with one another, and every decision is either resolved or explicitly marked pending with what’s needed to close it. A deliberate later revision is possible; update the affected documents together rather than allowing them to drift.

Work through the package: “Before It Stops”#

The course example follows Nadia on the final night before her late mother’s apartment is cleared. Her estranged brother Theo calls. She hesitates, then answers on the final ring and says “Hey.” She chooses contact; the film does not claim their relationship is repaired.

Use the examples below to understand the decisions, then make them for your own film. These are authored teaching drafts, not a complete submission or evidence of a tested production. The current five-shot screenplay plan estimates 24–38 seconds, short of this assignment’s full runtime requirement. Nadia’s vocal design is left pending as a worked example of that taught state, not a defect — but a short runtime is not: a full submission needs a developed screenplay reaching 2–4 minutes, not padded holds or additional angles added only to reach that length.

1. Lock the logline and premise#

Your task: Write a one-sentence logline naming the protagonist, want, obstacle and stakes. Then write a one-paragraph premise explaining the starting situation, how the conflict becomes visible and the ending. These are working production descriptions: include the ending rather than writing a teaser. Check that the story can unfold in 2–4 minutes.

Example logline:

On the final night before her late mother’s apartment is cleared, Nadia wants to answer her estranged brother’s call but must overcome her own restraint after years of silence, or let this chance for contact pass when the ringing stops.

Example premise:

On the final night before her late mother’s apartment is cleared, Nadia finishes packing the kitchen and sits alone at its table when her estranged brother Theo calls. She wants to answer, but holds herself back from speaking to someone she has avoided for years. As the phone continues to ring, reaching for it and withdrawing make the conflict visible: she can keep their silence intact, or risk making contact while the call is still there to answer. On the last ring before the call would go to voicemail, she finally accepts and says “Hey”, then listens. The moment ends with her choosing contact, before either sibling has to resolve their years of estrangement.

Check your work: Underline the want, obstacle and stakes. Identify what we will see or hear that makes the conflict readable. “A woman remembers her family” leaves those decisions to the reader; Nadia’s interrupted reach gives them an action to stage.

2. Write the whole screenplay and explain your intent#

Your task: Cover the film’s beginning to its ending — whether that’s one continuous scene or several. Use scene headings naming interior/exterior, location and time of day; observable action; and character cues and dialogue where needed. A silent film does not need dialogue added to satisfy the format. Add intent notes that name the relevant beat, the intended audience reading and the action or staging that supports it. Keep explanations in the notes and filmable action in the screenplay.

In the example screenplay, the kitchen is established through bare shelves, packed boxes and Nadia sealing the last box. The decisive sequence then consists of:

1. The phone lights up with THEO CALLING.
2. Nadia sees the name and remains still.
3. Her hand reaches toward the phone and stops.
4. On the final ring, she accepts and says “Hey.”
5. She listens with the phone at her ear; fade out.

Example screenplay excerpt:

INT. MOTHER'S APARTMENT - KITCHEN - NIGHT

Her phone lights up beside it: THEO CALLING.

She looks at the screen. She does not move.

The phone keeps ringing.

Her hand drifts toward it. Stops.

One ring left before it would go to voicemail.

Her hand closes over the phone. She answers.

                              NADIA
                    Hey.

Worked intent note: At the reach-and-stop beat, the audience should see that Nadia wants contact but is holding herself back. Let the hand stop short of touching the phone while the ringtone continues. In the final beat, answering is a risk she takes; hold her listening rather than adding a smile or Theo’s reply that would imply reconciliation.

This note connects intent to a visible decision. “Make it emotional” does not tell another filmmaker what to direct.

Check your work: Can every story change in the premise be found in an observable screenplay beat? Does the ending remain the same? Have you written the complete film rather than only the scene practised in Week 3?

3. Make the bible repeatable#

Your task: Give each character, location and story-relevant prop an entry labelled for use in the shot list. Record the concrete details needed to reproduce it, any selected reference and its version, and what must stay fixed. Record changing state separately. Costume belongs with the character or in a clearly linked costume entry. For voices actually heard in the film, record a voice entry — a reference and repeatable vocal qualities — or mark it pending with the decision needed to close it, the same way Week 5 modelled; do not invent an appearance for someone never shown.

Nadia’s voice is left pending here, exactly as Week 5 modelled — name the decision still needed rather than leaving the field blank. Theo’s on-screen appearance is different: it is not applicable, because he is never shown.

Check your work: Could a reader reproduce the same person, costume, space and prop? “Keep the phone in the same place” fails because the ending requires it to move. “Keep the same phone; table before acceptance, ear after the lift” preserves identity while allowing the action.

4. Plan every shot and storyboard its staging#

Your task: List shots in screen order, using unique IDs shared with the storyboard. For each shot, record its scene/beat, distinct purpose, framing, angle, fixed camera or movement, subject action and dependencies. Your drawings should show subject placement, important props, eyelines and movement where relevant. Stick figures and arrows are enough if another reader can stage the shot.

The current single-scene teaching draft uses five shots:

This table summarises the example. In your own package, expand each row with the full required shot fields and a matching storyboard thumbnail.

Example staging: In shot 04, frame Nadia’s right hand, the tabletop and the phone on screen-right. Draw an arrow toward the phone and mark the gap where her fingers stop. In shot 05, begin at that same stopped position; show the acceptance and lift, then the phone at her right ear. Indicate the camera’s upward tilt separately from the hand’s movement.

Shot 05 needs multiple storyboard stages: tabletop acceptance, lift, and face/phone at the ear. Label them 05A, 05B, 05C — stages of shot 05, no cuts. A continuous camera tilt must not become three different shots by accident. Keep the hand, phone position and eyeline consistent across shots 03–05. The ringtone continues until acceptance, then stops.

Check your work: Match every screenplay beat to a shot ID. Match every shot ID to its storyboard. Taken together, does your shot list plausibly cover a 120–240 second film? There is no minimum number of shots. The example’s short screenplay is a scope gap, not a reason to stretch the ringtone.

5. Check dependencies and assemble the final package#

Within section 4, add a production order referencing the existing shot IDs. Screen order tells us how the film will be watched; production order tells us which resolved designs and references must be available before each shot can be attempted. Name those dependencies and mark each shot ready only when the required decisions are locked.

For “Before It Stops,” shot 02 needs the phone/display design; shot 03 needs Nadia’s face/costume and eyeline; shot 05 needs Nadia, the phone, her “Hey” vocal design and the planned continuous lift/tilt. Its start must match shot 04’s stopped hand. Where a design decision like this is still pending, mark shot 05 blocked on it rather than scheduling it as ready — the same dependency discipline Week 6 taught. No actual generation is required to write this plan.

Finally, give the package to an unfamiliar reader and ask them to describe the story, character/prop identities and staging using only the documents. Use the Week 5 read-back and Week 6 presentation methods to find gaps. Resolve every decision you can, and make sure any field still pending names the specific decision needed to close it; fix any contradictory instructions before submission. This is a practical completion check; a separate peer-review report is not an additional submission component.

How the marking criteria apply#

The three criteria retain their published weights. The spec establishes what must be present; these criteria judge how well the decisions work.

A complete package lets the reader stage your choices without filling in missing decisions. Strong work also makes clear why those choices serve the film: why this action, this frame and this ending.

Detailed marking rubric#

Each criterion above splits into three dimensions. Each dimension is scored out of 10; a criterion’s mark is its weight scaled by the average of its three dimension scores (for example, three dimension scores of 8, 7 and 9 — average 8 — earn 40 × 8/10 = 32 of the 40 marks available for Shot planning and storyboard). The bands below describe what earns each range; a score can fall between bands where a piece of work only partly matches a description.

Story and screenplay craft (30%)#

World and continuity design (30%)#

Shot planning and storyboard (40%)#