Camera
Pin the camera mark before you leave
A map pin says alley. A camera mark says where the lens stands, where it looks, and how the next person finds your feet.
ScenePrep Desk2 min read
The camera mark is the promise you make to the shot. A pin on a map that says alley can be forty feet long. A mark says the lens stands here, looks this way, and the actor crosses there. If you leave without that promise, the company will rediscover the shot on the day, which is the expensive way to scout.
Heading is a number
Looking toward the river is a start. A compass heading is the note. If you are saving a camera cone, save the frame with the heading you actually stood. Do not estimate it from the sidewalk across the street and call it the same shot. A fifteen-degree miss is a different background, and it is a different reflection in every window.
Stand on the mark and say the lens height out loud. Eye line for a seated actor is not your eye line. Write it as a height from the ground you can reproduce, not as a bit low. Pace the distance to the subject in steps if you do not have a tape, and write the number down before you talk yourself into a rounder one.
“A pin that says alley is a neighborhood. A mark is a shot.”
What the still has to prove
Take two frames. The first is the shot. The second is a wider frame from behind the camera position so the next person can find your feet. Include a fixed object in both: a door frame, a hydrant, a crack in the curb. If the city paints the curb before you return, the door frame is still there.
- Heading in degrees
- Lens height from the ground
- Approximate focal length, or wide, mid, or long
- Distance to the subject
- What the background is doing: traffic, signage, reflections
- Whether sticks, a dolly, or a handheld reset actually fit
Leave the place as you found it
Some locations will not allow tape. Say so in the note. A description that depends on a spike mark you were not allowed to leave is a description the next scout cannot use. Use the architecture. Left foot on the third paver past the lamp, shoulder in line with the hinge, is dull and perfect.
If the next person cannot stand in your shoes, you did not mark the shot.
Save the mark into the project with the stills beside it. The call sheet can then name a place the crew can find, instead of a pin they will argue about in the truck. A mark without a heading is a suggestion. A heading without a still is a number. You want both.