Pre-production in practice
It covers the script breakdown, the budget, the schedule, casting, hiring the crew, scouting and securing locations, building or renting sets, wardrobe, equipment bookings, permits and insurance. On a commercial it may last two weeks; on a feature film, several months.
The rule every producer learns is that a day of preparation is far cheaper than an hour of a full crew waiting on set.
Where it lives in CrewDesk
Pre-production is a stage in CrewDesk. Projects in this stage show the tasks still open before the shoot, and task templates let a team start every new production from the same checklist.