Why aren films shot in chronological order?
Primarily due to logistics and expense. We tend to do what we call “block shooting.” This means if we have eight scenes at one location – say a law office – we film them all in one block of time, even if the scenes are scattered throughout the script. It would waste too much time and money to move from an apartment to a bakery to a street and them back to the apartment again. We also shoot all of our exterior day and night work in blocks whenever we can. The goal is to finish all the exteriors early in the schedule so that bad weather won’t affect the final days and weeks of filming. Actor availability can also have an impact if a certain cast member is only available contractually for a certain period of time. So unless you’re filming a play or a piece that has few locations, financial and time factors almost always dictate the smartest and most efficient shooting schedule.
