The short answer
Hold the meeting a few days before the shoot with every head of department. Walk through the schedule day by day, let each department raise what it needs, and finish with a list of decisions, each with an owner and a date.
The agenda
- The project in two minutes. Goal, client, tone, deliverables. The producer or director.
- The schedule, day by day. The first assistant director walks through each day: locations, scenes, call and wrap.
- Department by department. Camera, lighting and grip, sound, art, wardrobe and make-up, locations, transport, catering. What each needs and what worries them.
- Special items. Stunts, minors, animals, drones, weather cover, vehicles.
- Safety. Hazards of each location, nearest hospital, who is the safety contact.
- Communication. Who calls whom, radio channels, where documents live.
- Open questions. Each with an owner and a date.
Who attends
The producer, the director, the first assistant director, the production manager or coordinator, and every head of department. For a small shoot, the whole crew. For a client shoot, a short version with the client's contact avoids surprises on the day.
How to keep it short
Send the schedule the day before so people arrive with questions, not discoveries. Detailed technical discussions between two departments are noted and taken out of the room. One person writes the decisions as they are made and reads them back at the end.
From meeting to tasks
A decision without an owner is a wish. In CrewDesk the meeting notes go on the production and each open question becomes a task with a name and a due date before the shoot. The meeting itself is an event on the production's calendar.