Pre-Production

Once in Green Light status, we go into pre-production to determine the logistics, costs, schedule, book travel, acquire equipment, visas, permits etc... It all depends on the scope of your mission, location, and trip schedules. We generally book projects a year in advance, however we have scheduled shoots within months of acceptance.
We also conduct more in-depth research on the mission, and country of operation so that our team has a complete understanding of the culture we will be operating in.
What affects your organization:
- Determine a preliminary shoot schedule based on parameters of your mission.
- If necessary, a CFTWF team member will conduct an exploratory visit to determine the potential needs of the shoot, location scouting and to establish in-country contact relationships to assist with the production.
- Request, obtain and analyze mission country government reports and statistics on the historical humanitarian issues, solutions and continuing challenges.
- Request, obtain and analyze your organization's historical mission data.
- Obtain full list of mission team members and their contact information.
- Obtain travel itinerary and specifics.
Important things to keep in mind:
- Your organization is not responsible for booking our travel arrangements. We will work within your parameters. We insist to embed directly with the mission volunteers. (not at a separate hotel or location) You will be expected to provide all of your team's travel information during this time. Our crew prefers to arrive in country with enough lead time to deal with travel delays or equipment issues. The window is from several days to several weeks depending on the mission country.
- We insist on keeping the specifics of project confidential, even to the volunteers of your mission. This is non-negotiable. We will make an announcement of the selection of your organization, however, we will not make public the team (s) we select to profile, the dates or the locations in order to prevent "reality show" wanna-be types from undermining the project. We have never had issues with volunteers objecting to this policy once they were made aware of the reason behind it. A press release announcing the upcoming trip will be distributed once the mission trip is "full" and a volunteer wait list established. From this time forward, regular updates on social media will be made for the duration of the project. We encourage your organization to take advantage of social media to create "buzz" for the project once an announcement has been made.
- We prefer to sign with a "full" team, however we do not want our crew to displace a valuable team volunteer.
- If possible, the CFTWF crew will set up a meet and greet with the mission team prior to departure. If this is not possible, we will meet in country once the organization's team has arrived.
- It will take time for the organization team to "trust" our crew. We know this. We are use to it and are willing to take the time to let it happen. Over time, our crews have developed very strong bonds and friendships with the volunteers and continue to stay in touch after the project is over. Read our testimonials on Guidestar when you get a chance.
Please make sure to read our full disclosure document which can be downloaded here
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