The Efficient Filmmaker: Scan and Plan — New Course on 3D Location Scans, Shot Previsualizations, Visual Experiments, and More

by Mascha DeikovaOctober 31^st, 2025

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What if you could go on a recce and bring a potential filming location back in your pocket? Not only as photos or notes, but as a 3D space you can walk through, move the camera inside, test shots in, and plan set design elements, directly at your desk? Our new MZed course “The Efficient Filmmaker: Scan and Plan” shows exactly how. It’s a hands-on look at modern AI-enhanced tools that help to turn simple smartphone footage into fully explorable 3D environments, opening new ways to plan, experiment, and make creative decisions faster. Who is this course for, and what skills and equipment does it require? Let’s find out!

We’re aware that our industry is changing, and a lot of filmmakers are afraid that technology will replace creativity. With our course series “The Efficient Filmmaker,” we set out the goal to demonstrate the opposite. When used right, AI can help you explore ideas that would otherwise stay in your head — for instance, by visualizing them quickly and communicating your vision to the team. “Scan and Plan” is not about giving up your cinematography passion. It’s about preparing smarter and walking into each shoot knowing your space, your moves, and your shots, which support the story.

The Efficient Filmmaker: Scan and Plan – about the course

Did you know that the creators of “Birdman” built a complete proxy stage at Sony Studios to design the choreography and block the scenes, way before the principal photography started? The director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and DP Emmanuel Lubezki used a rather minimalistic setup: canvas, C-stands, some furniture, and stand-ins reading and walking through the script. Yet it still turned out to be a lot of work. However, as the film is built as one continuous take, it was essential to go through this kind of creating and pre-visualizing process.

What if you also need some visual choreo and an accurate previz, but do not have as much time and budget for your independent production? Nowadays, there is a different solution available to everyone. And that’s what our course “The Efficient Filmmaker: Scan and Plan” is all about.

At its heart, this course is a practical guide for turning real-world locations into creative sandboxes. It consists of six compact modules with an overall runtime of under one hour. You’ll learn how to capture a space simply with your phone, transform it into a digital model, move a virtual camera through it to test shot ideas, export previsualizations, use them for storyboards, and more. Don’t worry: As I said, this course is meant for every filmmaker, so you don’t need any VFX experience, coding skills, or expensive gear to follow along. We’ll be using the apps that’ll do the hard math for you.

A sneak peek inside the „Scan and Plan”

Imagine you discover a location that instantly sparks film ideas – an abandoned greenhouse, an old chapel in the mountains, or a quiet alley glowing in streetlight. You’re not on a scout, don’t have a dedicated project idea or crew, and yet, you feel like it’d be great to store this place in all detail. So, you get out your smartphone, and…

One of the early lessons of our course walks you through the capturing process. Here, we give tips on getting the best out of it for a later 3D recreation. Some of them are:

• Crank up the resolution. More resolution means more visual information, which makes the scan more detailed and the post-processing easier. For the same reason, go for a wide lens: It fits more of the space into each shot.
• Set your frame rate to 30fps or higher. That will make your motion smoother. If you can dial in more precise settings, go for a lower ISO to reduce noise, a fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur, and close down the aperture, so that as much of the environment as possible gets into focus.
• Pick something in the space that can be your center, and orbit around it. Changing angles is much better than standing in one place and panning your cam. This way, your 3D environment will also get the correct geography and measurements.
• Remember: We want slow, constant movements with as little motion blur as possible, so turn on your famous gimbal walk! If you want to save some specific details of the location, come closer to them and film them up close. This way, the post-processing software will have more precise data to work with.

Once finished, load your video into a specific software like Luma AI or Polycam, and let it build you a digital twin of a chosen location. What now? Whatever you want! You can save the 3D scan for later, explore it together with your DP or production designer, use it for creating a floor plan, test camera movements, and visualize complicated shots – all inside your computer. This workflow saves time, but even more importantly, it gives you freedom to play.

What else will you learn in this course?

We discuss and demonstrate all this in the later modules of the course. Also, you will learn:

• The theory and basics of technologies like 3D Gaussian Splatting.
• How to test complicated or impossible movements, like dolly zooms, FPV drone flights, or cranes on a digital location, before you hire the extra team and rent expensive gear.
• Practical demonstration of a precise scan with a stand-in and cinematic lighting.
• Additional workflows on turning your scans into storyboards and stylizing them, using AI, for presenting ideas visually to your team or clients.

Full module descriptions are available on the course page on MZed.

The Efficient Filmmaker series

As already mentioned, “Scan and Plan” continues “The Efficient Filmmaker” series, following “Subtitles Mastery” and “AI Video Masking for the Rest of Us.” Each course explores practical, accessible workflows that help you stay efficient without compromising creativity. These courses are meant for everyone, including beginners, and those who don’t have time to read about each new AI tool, but still want to include them in their work.

The most important part, though: The series is ever-evolving and closely follows the new launches, exciting tools, and creative workflows. Right now, we’re working on several additional lessons, and will freshen up the courses soon.

Scan and Plan: price and availability

“The Efficient Filmmaker: Scan and Plan” is available exclusively as part of the MZed Pro subscription. If you are already an MZed Pro, you can head over to the course page and watch it straightaway!

Apart from that, with MZed Pro, you can stream hundreds of hours of filmmaking education. We continually add new courses (several are currently in production). Starting at just $29/month (billed at $349 in the first year, $199 from the second year, or billed monthly at $49), here’s what you’ll get:

• 60+ courses, over 800+ high-quality lessons.
• Highly produced courses from educators with decades of experience and awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award.
• Unlimited access to stream all content during the 12 months.
• Offline download and viewing with the MZed iOS app.
• Discounts to ARRI Academy online courses, exclusively on MZed.
• Most of our courses provide an industry-recognized certificate upon completion.
• Purchasing the courses outright would cost over $9,500.
• Course topics include cinematography, directing, lighting, cameras and lenses, producing, indie filmmaking, writing, editing, color grading, audio, time-lapse, pitch decks, and more.
• 7-day money-back guarantee if you decide it’s not for you (on annual billing only).

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD.
Join MZed Pro now and start watching today!

Now We’re Curious

Have you ever had a location in mind, but forgot its exact looks and geography, and wished you could see it again exactly as it was during scouting? How could the described 3D scanning workflows change your pre-production or set design process? Share your thoughts in the comments, please – and tell us how you would scan and plan your next film.