Critical agile path

An agile approach to filmmaking is in theory rather simple. In sprint 1, all scenes for chapter 1. In sprint 2, all scenes for chapter 2 etc.

In reality, we have a lot of constraints as availability of locations, cast and crew. Not to forget, it's not possible to edit a shot that haven’t been filmed yet.

What you have to do is think of your priorities. Release time or cost for the production. The more agile approach you have, the higher cost for the production. But if you make to many films without customer reactions, you may end up with a lot of turkeys.

With a very low budget, and resource constrained from a cast perspective, the plan was done from a character perspective, i.e. lead characters and experts instead of from chapters.

Our plan was to schedule all shots with CFO on location in Solna, and during a weekend so we could utilize the crew in an optimal way. 

Six episodes starts with an elevator pitch. Therefore, all scenes need to be filmed with same cast at the same location during one day.

Three experts were living abroad and we did Skype interviews so they were not critical from a scheduling perspective. But the had to be filmed and edited before the scenes with the lead characters interacting with them. E.g. we got a critical path.

One expert participated in two chapters, so we scheduled his scenes together at the same shot.

We didn't know who the final expert would be, but her role were in the second last episode and not that critical in an early stage.

You should be able to shoot 3-8 scenes per day, depending on a lot of variables. This were also input to the high level scheduling, before the detailed manuscript was written.

I made a schedule to ten days of shooting during two months, based on characters, their physical location, location of shots and made a high level plan of who should be where and when. 

Then we could adapt the detailed manuscript to the schedule and cast actors for all minor roles.

The final schedule to the right. 

Are we working according to an agile or waterfall method, what’s your opinion?