Tech Recce

What this is about

It happens once the location is locked, and it is the last cheap chance to find out that the lift does not take a flight case. Gaffer and best boy look for power and check what has to come from a generator. Grip measures the doorways and the load-in route. Sound listens for the road, the fridge and the flight path. The AD counts how long a move between floors takes and where unit base goes. Everyone leaves with notes, and the schedule usually changes the same evening.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Scouting looks for a location, the tech recce prepares the one already chosen — different questions, different people in the car.
• The creative recce with director and DoP is a separate visit about frames and light, usually earlier and with fewer attendees.
• Go at the same time of day you will shoot, or the sun and the traffic noise in your notes belong to a different day.

With TillyGen

Notes from the tech recce land directly on the affected shooting day in TillyGen, instead of in a photo folder nobody opens.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.