How a production runs

How every film moves from brief to delivery: the eight stages and their gates, what the client sees, how notes and approvals work, where the files live, and the quality bar all work must clear before anyone sees it.

The stages and gates

A film moves through eight stages, and each one ends at a gate before the next begins. This section sets the order, what the client sees, how notes and approvals are handled, and where every file lives. How each stage is done is taught in its own chapter.

• The stage chain and its order rules: A film moves through eight stages in a fixed order, Stage 00 to Stage 07, and no stage starts until the one before it is approved.

• What the client sees, and what stays internal: The client sees six documents.

• Writing for the client: Clients are not film specialists.

• Handling notes: A note is acted on exactly as far as it reaches.

• Approvals and the send log: An approval is a written reply from one named person, recorded with what it covers.

• Project files and folders: One folder per project, three files that hold its memory, and nothing ever deleted.

The quality bar

Two kinds of check stand between generated work and anyone who sees it: the hard stops catch what is wrong, and the reference bar catches what is correct but ordinary. This section also sets how a check is reported, how motion is judged honestly, and what each stage's gate asks.

• The hard stops: A frame, sheet or take that fails a hard stop is not approved, however good the rest of it is.

• The reference bar: Defect checks find what is wrong.

• The gate report: Every stage ends with a short gate report.

• Judging motion honestly: A take is judged against what the plan meant it to do, never against a storyboard frame.

• Per-stage gates and the four jury lenses: Each stage's gate asks its own questions.