Pre-production without software assistance – good practices

Planning is crucial in 3D, even more than in 2D. Very cautious scouting will help you to prevent a lot of potential problems: check and note all distances, check where the farthest object will be, take into account the encumbrance of the 3D-rig, look for textured surfaces rather than plain surfaces without any 3D clues.

Storyboarding is essential. Without a specialized software like FrameForge Previz Studio (it's a cheap way to overcome most problems and make everything faster), a 3D storyboard must show, for each shot, 2 different views, or even three different views for very complexs shots:

- The shot itself, like in a 2D film. Ideally, the storyboard artist will draw an optically accurate storyboard. Optically accurate storyboarding techniques are explained for example in the book by Steven Katz Film Directing Shot-by-Shot.

- A view from the side where the screen plane will be indicated, so one can easily see the objects that will appear in front of the screen plane (in “out-of-screen effect”) and the objects taht will appear behind the screen plane.

- In the most complex cases, a birdview with the screen plane indicated can also be useful.