I'm utterly without any organisational skill. I don't have a place for anything, whether it's my keys, phone or one of the hundreds of odd socks I own. Upon discovering that my flatmates actually hang up my keys for me if they find them in a place they know I'll never see them, I decided it was time to sort this out.

The thing is, I know the general location of what I'm looking for, I know my keys are in the house, or in the Norwich area somewhere. I just don't have the systematic skill or the super powers to know where exactly.

Working on films however requires me to be a lot more disciplined, so I've been forced to up my game in the organisation department. Such large collaborative projects require a high degree of communication and mutual understanding. The materials of the pre production phase are totally integral to an efficient and seamless production process and helps facilitates the aforementioned communication and understanding.

three fundamental ways to ease a process that can otherwise be fairly stressful. These include scripting, storyboarding, and a treatment making the final intentions of the project clear to everyone involved.When I'm editing I frequently discover I have the same problem. In one project I'll have an extensive list of unnamed sequences, audio tracks and a bucket-load of footage to cope with. Finding one quick clip will become a ten minute long treasure hunt that only adds to the stresses of video production. What is easily forgotten is that there are very standard techniques that can be used to accelerate the production process monumentally. This process begins before you've even started filming, I mean if you begin editing a film that had no strategic or clear terms of arranging, then you're going to get nowhere when it comes to putting together the footage. I last week came across this video blog, titled Pre Production Checklist from Lambda Films, a web video company in Norwich. The video details some simple ways of generating an idea of what you want your video to look like before you've even started shooting it. It basically talks about scripting, storyboarding and keeping your intentions clear through a brief or treatment.

As soon as you've developed a clear way of organising your work, it makes the mammoth task of going through the footage and beginning to put everything together a lot easier. Then when it comes to editing you just need to take a little time and sort the clips into appropriate bins or folders. Regrettably this is something I'm still learning, only when I'm ripping my hair out through editing related stress do I think "why didn't I just rename that clip?". I can only suggest that you learn from my production hardships and take some time to prepare, beginning with pre-production which will indeed assist you later on. That way you won't have your flatmates tidying up after you.

Let me know what methods you use to streamline your pre production process in the comments below!