How Filmmakers On matts can Avoid Common Problems.

[AgentDick]

This thread is or anyone, and everyone to comein and offer creative criticism, and ways to get around some of the common mistakes that are almost universally made amongst amateur filmmakers.


I don't have a lot of experience in some of the areas that are talked about in "Why filmmakers on matts suck" so I'll start this off with one I know. Writing.

The hardest part, for me at least, in writing for films is making dialogue sound human, and having it fit the character. It's important to consider things like your characters' home country/state/province (Someone from georgia speaks diffferntly than someone from new york), social/economic class, background, and then do research. try approaching the next script you write like this, I guarantee it will have much more fitting dialogue. But this is only half the battle. You also have to let the characters mesh as they would in reallife. people in real life rub eachother the wrong way, make people nervous, empower each other, make awkward silences, say things that have no relevance to anything going on, and interrupt eachother. Consider how people talk as your writing. Ask your self, each line you write, Would I say this?
Remember, cliches are the basic blocks of communication. EVERYONE uses them.

[Zacatac927]

here's a tip, smack anyone that wants a zoom

[AgentDick]

Not necessarily, it can work quite well. Look at Joss Whedon's Firefly, they do a lot of zooming. And Perspective stretching requires both zooming and dollying at the same time. But zooming in on someone screaming, yeah, smack the biatch.

[AgentDick]

Sorry for the double post, but I decided to harvest the only worthwhile things of mine I could harvest from the other thread, so here it is.

Technically, as long as the cam isn't completely out of focus the whole time, or held by someone with parkinsons, there aren't many faux pauxs I see being commted. Just avoid putting poeple in the center of the shot all the time. It makes things less interesting. And a good pan can add a lot of action to a scene. Don't be afraid of off the shoulder work, it can be quite rewarding.

Casting wise, don't be afraid to say, "I don't need you in this one" to your buddies. cast people you honestly think will be good for the role. If they storm off cuz they didn't get to be who they wanted, they're probably not mature enough to be acting in the first place. Anyone who is interested in acting should try to play any role that someone sees fit for them (Unless you have personal or spiritual reasons not to) it's good experience.

Acting-
Be the character. Remember that when the guy in the funny hat and wierd pants says action, You aren't you anymore. You are your role. Don't be afraid to expand upon your character. Just tell the director what you come up with, and see if it fits or doesn't with his (I hate saying this, it makes me feel like a tool) vision.
It helps somepople to writet a biography for their character. Others will do a Q& A with the character, asking quesions as themselves and answering them as the character. There are many techniques. Basically, remember that you are lying through your teeth to everyone. If you can tell a lie with a straight face, your half-way there.

Take whatever role you are offered, it's good experience. If the role is something you've had no experience with (Playing someone gay when you are straight, vice versa, someone who is abused, talk to someone who has been there and is comfortable with talking about it.

That's a big hunk of my experience right there. I don't have much more.

[Zacatac927]

Not necessarily, it can work quite well. Look at Joss Whedon's Firefly, they do a lot of zooming. And Perspective stretching requires both zooming and dollying at the same time. But zooming in on someone screaming, yeah, smack the biatch.

firefly, serenity (yeah i'm actually a friend of whedon...) 24 and those shows...

they have proven their cinemeatography so they are allowed to use zoom as they like... but many of us have not proven ourselves worthy of it... i mean also, the zooms fit to bring the audience into the show...

but yes the zoom on a scream... which is what i had in mind when people zoomed r one of those long shot zooming in on a guy running.... NEVER!

[Kentertainment]

The one thing that is bugging me greatly is the lot of you who have a tendancy to make fist-fighting sequences to heavy metal music. It always appears that the only people you have to make the movie is you (an actor) and your friend, so you aren't left with anyone to operate the camera. Thus, all I am seeing is a motionless shot of you and your buddy fighting to the wailing noises of Evenesence.

[angusware]

I agree, The use of music is very important. This sounds dorky, but I choose the soundtrack before the film to get ideas for the film and the scenes with that particular music (once I have some idea what I am doing).
The problem for Amateur Filmmakers is that we have it much tougher than real directors because we're not in control. If you can't pay someone to be in a film and the people you do have can't act and are disruptive, there is nothing you can do but write that character out.

Without a proper shooting schedule you can end up with no cast on one day, or some vital cast on another with no supporting cast or vice-versa.
That's why animation is good, but time consuming and boring/limiting.

[AgentDick]

Yeah, music is very important. I operate in a similar way, angus. I work on my script while listening to various music, and see what pops into my head in the way of choreography.

Speaking of which, Choreography and the choreography of fighting in particular are subjects that interest me. I had a drama teacher who told us something I have found to be true. For every minute of fighting, at least one, or two hours of practice. on both participants part is necessary. evcery jump, kick, or other acrobatic move requires at least 30 minutes mor per said item. I find that doubling this insures a good quality of execution. Also, if you add weapons, especially real ones, double it automatically.

[Kentertainment]

Some commons mistakes seem to be the lack of technical aspects as well...you have to be creative and technical in order to make a great film (movie, whichever you prefer).

Using widescreen is one way to distinguish your film from YouTube videos. You may think that adding a letterbox to your camera when filming is just the camera putting two black bars on the LCD or viewfinder but, it does in fact stretch out the footage when you are capturing. You can also film in 4:3 and render your film in widescreen.

A film's mood isn't just shown through the actors emotion, but also lighting. If all you have is a floodlight, use that, go to a store and buy one of those colored sheets that your teachers at school put on projectors as a gel and so on. It takes time but it's worth it...I strongly recommend you light your films, it's better to start now and learn along the way then to wait until you're in some sort of film school, etc.

Next is sound. Sound is actually more important than lighting because if your actors are not heard, people are likely to stop watching your film as opposed to some harsh lighting. If you don't have a boom mic, you can find some as cheap as 60 dollars. I suggest the next thing you save for is that, not some cheap 20 dollar airsoft gun that'll break in your next movie. After you have set up your angle, work on finding the spot that you can get great sound from and then light the scene.

Editing is a big part, but you should also take time on that. Five Cents is 6 minutes and 37 seconds in length and I took about two and a half weeks of basic editing and then another month adding all the sound effects I went around and recorded as well as the music we recorded. Back on the topic of sound, start learning how to use keyframes now so you can balance the audio levels to a reasonable volume. A lot of films on Matt Hawkins have high music volume and low dialogue volume.

Filming isn't something that should take you ten minutes. I know people who will make a 15 minute movie in three days. My buds and I are currently working on a 30 minute film, we started in December and to date have a total of five scenes complete, giving about six minutes of film time. We are lighting the scenes and spending time on them. Yesterday we filmed in 2 degree Fahrenheit weather in a back ally for 3 hours on a scene that is about a minute and a half long. We went over every angle we wanted and made sure we were all happy with the footage we got.

I know this was long but I hope in a sense it helps. It doesn't matter if you are 8 or 25. The process of filmmaking takes time, use it.

[angusware]

The other mistake people make heaps is where to cut in and out, in heaps of amateur stuff on youtube and google video you see shots that begin with people standing still beofre beginning to run, which doesn't work if the shot previos cut away while they were running...it's little things that make films look dodgy.

[SgtPadrino]

Now THIS is a helpful/informative/useful topic.

Kudos, guys.

[AgentDick]

Awesome Kenentertainment and angusware! I completely spaced mentioning that about editing.

Personally, editing comes really easy to me and I work very quickly. I can do a good job editing an entire half-hour movie in about 24 hours total. I got good at this from watching A TON of films. Thats a great secret of life- want to be good at writing? Read a lot of varied materials. Want to be good at editing, watch action and drama films.

I completely agree on the subject of lighting. You can get a large rechargeable flood/search light for around $20-30. I personally like to use one of the 16 different colors of posterboard, or cardboard with construction paper pasted on, whatever, as a reflector. It works great.

Time is the secret to good filmmaking. Don't rush, ever. If you get something right when you are rushing, chalk it up to luck. Time, patience, and coffee are really essential to making a good film.

As far as sound goes, look online on fileplanet and see which videogames allow third party editing. There is a loophole in the law of the US govt that allows you to use these files in your films. If you dont live here, I'm not sure, but you can probably get away with it.

[MasterMike]

The other mistake people make heaps is where to cut in and out, in heaps of amateur stuff on youtube and google video you see shots that begin with people standing still beofre beginning to run, which doesn't work if the shot previos cut away while they were running...it's little things that make films look dodgy.

I wouldn't call that a little thing, really: that's a serious editing error.

As far as lighting goes, make sure you look up three-point systems when filming in controlled environments. If you're shooting outdoors, try to use a reflector board to reflect some sunlight back onto your actors and hopefully soften some of the sharpness you get with raw sunlight.

[Ornsack]

here's a tip, smack anyone that wants a zoom

Going back to this, I agree that it's more about learning how to zoom properly than using it in general.

Zooming in and out is a no-no obviously, but I do like zooms when used properly!

I think a big issue on here is learning how to make DV look good. People should play with colour correction, but not too much 'cus too much makes things look bad and all!

It's not a major thing, but adding a slight hint of yellow to Chemical Ali made our film stand out above others back in the early days. Untreated DV just looks like a holiday video or something.

[Epsilon]

How to avoid common problems? Simply disappear from time to time, like myself.

The good way to learn is by watching other movies. If you can't do that, you can't make them.

[AgentDick]

Treating video does give it the right feel, I agree. The trick is in not doing it too much. A good program for this that is absolutely free is V-dub. You can do things like color correction in it almost as well as in final cut pro.

I completely agree, Epsilon. Watch the masters. Look for things you would have done differently in other peoples films can help too.

[Kentertainment]

Here is another tip, planning. If you don't plan then what is the point in making the film. I'm referring to finding locations, planning shots, giving scripts in advance, creating a list of days filming and what's being filmed on them. I am really contradicting myself because as of now, for "Precinct 71" we've been doing the exact opposite.

On another filmmaking forum I watched a short film shot in 16mm where the person making the film had only 2000 feet of film stock which, if you don't know, is really not that much. This has motivated me to try something new for the film I plan to work on after "Precinct 71" and I recommend everyone else try it. Depending on the length of the film, which is likely 15 minutes, I am going to try and film it all on one DV tape (62 minutes). If you make a target of how much you want to use, say 10 minutes of tape for a five minute film, you're motivated to actually plan each shot and test it first to see how it looks.

Just a suggestion, I personally think it's a good way to learn from experience.

Bytheway, Precinct 71 has taken 4 tapes and it's not even half way done.

[angusware]

yeah, but the joy of digital video is that you have the flexibility to deviate from the script and the shooting schedule, if we all shot to our scripts they wouldn't be as good.

[Kentertainment]

Yeah, every film is going to have script changes but if you are well planned, such as knowing the location, then a new piece of dialogue or a set action shouldn't be too hard to plan out right on the spot because, well, you're all ready to go in the first place.

Angus, I'm sure you know this but with some it is apparent they don't. When writing a script you don't want to film it the next day, you'll want to let it sit for a while, like a week and a half. Go back and read it and you'll find out how awful it is. A lot of filmmakers on matthawkins are rushing through or not even writing the script. A script is a films backbone and without it you've got nothing.

I sure hope there are people here who are actually reading this board...it's been getting a lot of good info in it.

[Ornsack]

I think the joy of digital is being able to shoot so much and choose all the best bits. If you've seen our outtakes, you'll know we do a lot of takes! It's where all the best stuff comes from. I think we probably plan a lot more than a lot of people on here (I mean plan, not come up with an idea and spend ages thinking about it/knocking up trailers and/or trailers with no content etc) but I still find in our case that the best stuff comes about whilst filming

Then again, it's rare we do anything with no planning. I think LOL House ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-xy4Lu8us ) was the only thing we've done recently with zero planning and it suffered a bit (think we saved it with over-the top post production)

And yes I agree again. Write something and go back to it later, not only would you have had lots of inspiration by then but you realise how easy it is to get wrapped up with things and write a lot of cr**.

My dads advice is always "Don't write in a pub". When he was making his first show ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe2vpM_eJRw ) they always used to write in the pub, get drunk, look at their pages and pages of work the next morning and realise they'd written a load of cr**!

[AgentDick]

My advice is write in a coffee shop. And don't write in camera angles until you know where you're going to shoot, and have explored it for several hours.

Oh, and for the love of f*** god, don't dance in your movies unless a) you want it to look like absolute cr**, or b) you are really good at dancing. I can dance okay, and in my new film, Hobos vs. Republicans (An allegory, wink wink) I have to be a crazy dance-fighting homeless dude named Handsome Islington. I have been working on the same twelve second bit of choreography for 2 weeks. I still suck.

Good special effects are hard, and don't do anything with latex unless you have a lot of it, or are very good. I did a burn wound that was convincing to an ER doctor until he touched it (and threatened to have us prosecuted, ). It takes a lot of practice to be good at this kind of thing.

Also, if you want the look that someone was just shot in front of someone else and want the blood spatter just right, use a 1-foot piece of 1/4 inch PVC, with an elbow piece at one end, fill up the elbow, and blow semi gelatinous blood through it using the elbow end as hard as you can, while aiming the tube at the person's face, or whatever. It's the easiest and best way I've found, and is very convincing. If wanted, I'll do a demonstration and host it on youtube.

As far as make up goes, nothin works better for skin tone as three slightly different shades of the same general color sprayed through an airbrush. I swear, it is the best method of doing it I've tried.

I certainly hope people are reading this! This thread rocks the casbah!

[UFProductions]

I completely agree, Epsilon. Watch the masters.

While this is completely true it also remided me of something I saw on TV a while ago; one of those annoying little commercial interviews with people in the film industry they show on AMC. The guy (some low level scriptwriter) is asked "how many DVD's are in his collection" and he replys something to the effect of "over 4000, all the classics, and a lot of terrible movies too. You can learn a lot by looking at a bad movie and asking youself 'what would I have done differently?'" I think a big step in making better movies is watching everything on a meta-level. Always think about how something was done, how you would do it and why it works on screen or why it doesn't. Then get you a*** off the couch and try it, because just thinking about it won't make it happen. This thread does indeed rawk tha' cawk.

[Epsilon]

Yup. How will you know if you can do it, if you never try? If you have an idea, try it. Experiment. Spend some time using your brain inquisitively. If all fails, try something different.

[AgentDick]

What was the thomas Edison quote about the lightbulb? Something like
"I have not failed; I have merely found 9000 ways that don't work."

Don't be afraid of just trying stuff on the fly, just don't let it be your only plan. I just watched a video about tom Savini, who did a lot of horror special effects in his career. He said that the best shots they ever did were ones that the actors and crew just let flow. If you see something good, don't hesitate to film it.

[Grant]

and just remember that there are no rules for filming. You make your own up as you go and develop a style. This style may one day be seen as genius