Process

The People

Preparations

Shooting

Polishing

Hope and Glory

On Location
Once the cast is hired, the script polished, and the sets and costumes created, filming will begin. Depending on the script and budget, a movie will either be filmed on location or on a sound stage.
Location shooting means that the entire production will move to a specific location to film certain scenes. This is almost always more expensive than working on a sound stage. For the film "Jaws," director Steven Spielberg moved the crew to a small town in Massachusetts. They stayed there for several months until filming was completed.

Sound Stage
movies can take months to film. Often, producers and directors find it easier and cheaper to build sets rather than haul a crew on location for weeks or months at a time. MOdern directors are able to "fake" the real world so well that audiences never know the difference anyway. Originally, almost all movies were shot outside. That worked fine if the location was isolated from outside noises like airplanes and cars. But the expanding world made finding a truly quiet setting almost impossible. Sound stages are huge buildings taht are build specifically for making motion pictures in a quiet, controlled setting.
The sound stage is generally divided into many smaller stages, or sets. THe film crew can film more than one scene at a time on the sound stage. Because of this, a sound stage can look like a spaghetti maze of wires and cables. Microphones and lights are hung from the ceiling. Cameras move around the stage on carts or are suspended on giant mechanical arms. During filming, the pace in the studio can be frantic.