I know that the answer to this will be “it varies.” But to make things simple, imagine that I’m not asking about direct-to-DVD stuff, or arthouse stuff, or major summer blockbusters. Just run-of-the-mill movies, like Mama or Identity Thief. About how long does it take from the first day the cameras start rolling until they stop?
It varies.
Mama filmed for two months and two weeks.
I couldn’t find the dates for Identity Thief, but I found a few other 2013 releases.
Gangster Squad filmed for three months and one week.
The Last Stand filmed for three months
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It varies. For a studio production 3 months is a common figure. You need to get your director, crew, and major actors dedicated to working for some time period, you need to reserve equipment and sets and arrange locations shots, you have problems along the way, and 3 months ends up being a tight schedule. But the rest of the work can expand out into years. Scenes may be reshot later, you may have seperate location crews working at the same time, adjacent time periods, or a long time apart. Redubbing, scoring, re-cutting, and all the post-production work can go on and on. And all of that doesn’t start until the auditions and casting has been done, numerous reworks of the script, and all of the pre-production work to gather a crew, and do all the planning work so the resources are available when filming starts. Some producers would tell you that principle photography is the easiest part of the job, it happens after all the planning has been done.
I looked up Saw for a different discussion a little while ago.
That one filmed in 8 days.
Perfect example of how to do it quick and easy. It’s primarily one set, two experienced actors, almost no action just talking, and the other actors have quick simple scenes with little interaction. I’m surprised they needed 8 whole days.
For something as harrowing and epic as it gets, principal photography on the Lord of the Rings trilogy took 274 days.
But that was for three simultaneous movies, so dividing that out yields… 3 months of principal photography per movie, much like other movies.
I’ll agree this was indeed a harrowing production to pull off.
Even a big production can get it done in that time frame. For example, The Phantom Menace finished its principal photography in 3 months (6/27/97 - 9/30/97). However, it’d been in serious pre-production for three years before filming started, and editing and effects work took nearly two more years after the end of filming.
[ul]
[li]Six weeks or less for a low budget, Indie, or otherwise simpler movie (e.g. the aforementioned Saw or a motion capture film like Tintin).[/li][li]Two to three months is typical for a drama or romantic comedy.[/li][li]Six months for a big blockbuster action movie with loads of complicated stunt or VFX sequences.[/li][/ul]
True. But, like the books, the production was pretty much handled as one long, singular movie shoot.
A 9+ month long shoot makes my stomach turn. I don’t know how Jackson made it out alive!
Oh, heck yeah. No argument.
Wouldn’t that actually be 439 days?
Hunh.
Perhaps with holidays, breaks, production delays due to injuries of key cast members among myriad other things that can crop up, it was 274 days spread out over 439?
I dunno.
Huh. Yeah, it would. I got no principal dog in this fight, but the cite for 274 is here. Talk to the wiki. I guess?
Kubrick took more than a year to shoot “The Shining”.
As noted above, shooting time can vary. On the low end, it takes about 3 weeks to get a feature film in the can.
An hour drama - the term for any hour long fictional show, even a comedy like Ugly Betty - takes 8 days to shoot. That’s 8 days to get footage for 45 minutes of screen time. Double that, and you’ve got enough for a 90 minute, low budget feature.
Hour dramas shoot about as fast as it’s possible to shoot and still produce a watchable product. These shows do have the advantage of using standing sets that they are already set up perfectly to light and shoot.
Features can shoot on a 6 day week shooting schedule, TV shows typically use a 5 day week, so that can make a difference too. Three 6 day weeks will give you 16 shooting days plus a couple of days to make up for whatever goes wrong. (Something always goes wrong.)
Define “Principal Photography”. All films undergo pick up shots most have some reshoots, other major reshoots. In many cases the cinematic release has more shot from outside the principal photography than in it. The Star Wars prequels each had major reshoots (Natalie Portman ages and deages in each films noticeably) which took place months or years after principal photography wrapped and Revenge of the Sith was essentially reshot after it’s original shooting.
A very loose rule of thumb:
One page of a script is about one minute on screen - thus a 120 page script will be about a two hour movie.
There are lots of variables, but it takes about one full day to shoot 5 to 7 pages.
Using the above info, you can get a rough calculation of the length of time it will take to make a film. But as mentioned, lots of variables: how many different locations; availability of actors and crew; weather; make up and special effects; unexpected events/problems; etc. etc. etc.
A good friend of mine makes a nice chunk of change putting together film budgets for major studios. He can take a script and tear it down to time and cost. He is quite good at, for instance, giving comparisons to filming in Paris, Rome and London versus filming in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw (for the same visual effects and style of background for 1/3 the price). He also knows the laws in each country regarding hiring locals, taxes and fees, and any government incentives that will cut costs. Trust me, there were very good reasons the recent series Hatfields & McCoys was shot in Romania instead of the US!
So yeah, it varies. But a good budget accountant can do wonders with predicting the eventual cost and time it will take to film a big budget film. Often he will get some great script (huge cast or huge star or big budget series), only to have the entire project shelved when they realize it is going to cost double or triple what they originally had thought it would cost.