First Excercise for you all

[aaronv2]

Since everyone is getting cranky at everyone and so forth i thaught i would try and get something constructive going. Im going to post up some excercises for film making for starters then once were past that some cgi techniques and other tips and tricks. Since everyone wants to know what I know Im willing to share it with you as long as you dont abuse it. I guess im getting so upset because this is an amature film making forum and all i see is little kids with their dads cam corder running around totally unplanned so here is the first excercise...

The most important thing in film making is being able to tell a story even without any characters. What you choose to show will affect the tone and feel of your films dramatically.

EXCERCISE ONE: I want you to find and environment where you or someone else spends their time. It could be your fathers tool shed or somebodys car or even your own room. You need to take as many props and material to help you establish a "character" without showing who it is.

So here is an example. Say i wanted to invent a whole new character and i grabbed some comic books an ipod and etc and put them all on a table.

My shots would be showing the important props important information such as newspaper clippings whatever your imagination comes up with to make this character believable.

Now the important thing in this excercise is your camera work. this is a mostly camera work and continuity excercise. Choose your shots wisely, try to experiment this isnt a 30 minute excercise this is alot of work maybe a day shooting.

No story boards No extra effects No sound effects just the ambient noises around where your filming. You must edit it all together to create a nice flowing sequence of shots establishing a character like the start of a movie would do. You can use basic crossfades and etc or you can get creative... just dont distract from the purpose of this film. To tell the story and history of a character. And the character doesnt even have to be a person or a living thing. Do it about your pair of shoes if you like.

What were looking for is the power of the shots the continuity and flow. remember not to do classic filmaking donts. like changing the flow of the shots half way through so your going the wrong way. Remember its a story for the subconcious so keep things moving left to right as a general rule.

post your video on youtube or photobucket video and we can all check them out.

[jackbauer24]

thanks for the excersise. i will try to make a video but i dont know if i can because i have a lot of things that i have to do. i like the idea though. thanks

also. do you think you could post somethings you did

[aaronv2]

Im far too busy right now to do any filming... all my tapes are sitting here on my desk all full and theres like 40 of them once ive got this all under control i can play with you guys but right now i gotta live.

[DarkElastic]

I think you need English lessons Aaronv2. Or you could put all your posts through spell check before you post! I am far too busy to be bothered reading your badly spelt posts.

[rhys]

Sounds like a good test, the whole other arronv2 post thing was supposed to be asking you what u had just said, you have a life and will put the video on the net when you have time, its could have been replied to like that but no, i was brought out as the bad guy.
i will take your advice and try that someday.
i dont exactly think there were that many spelling mistakes, there would be more in this post then that entire one DarkElastic, although i did notice u spelt 1 or 2 words wrong, not that that needs attention, its one or two words. Get some sleep and u will be able to read them as if they dont exist.

[aaronv2]

Just leave DarkElastic alone, he has a vandetta he has to upkeep now, which is going to take alot more effort than us replying to his idiocy. this post was mainly for people like you rhys who have "lost interest" once people start doing this excercise the contrasting and intelligent conversation starts. handling sequence like this teaches you more techniques than any other camera excerise.

[Vamp]

Don't you find it a big arrogant, maybe even obnoxious, treating everyone here subserviantly when you really have nothing to show for it? You say we need to focus on our camerawork yet "no storyboards"...That's pretty silly. You say we need to keep things going from left to right yet fail to mention compositional form and mass which will make or break the frame.

Not trying to start a fight, but you really seem keen on teaching people how to filmmakers when I imagine you need a lot of teaching yourself.

The "I'm too busy" excuse is pretty lame, I've heard it before from people like you...A lot.

[Zac]

aaronv2, this is one of the main things that annoy me about you, LISSEN TO WHAT JACKBAUER24 SAID:"Do you think you could post somethings that you -DID-?" and because you love grammar so much i'll tell you what you miss-heard.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=did
THIS means he was asking for something you have already "DONE"! meaning he was not asking you to make a film NOW, just an old one that you have FINNISHED.
Yes, you are right, grammar IS fun.

P.S By the way, i am not angry here, i am just trying to point out something that you do quite alot.

[aaronv2]

No pleasing some of you people at all... it takes me one day to timecode and organise 9 hours of tape to have something readable for a batch capture. It takes me little over a week to edit and refine my editing and edit some more to a seqment of ugly DV footage. It then takes 6 hours a day using my full computer resources to recolor stabalize and deartiface 5 minutes of a finished edited piece and even then if something is off i have to tweak it some more.

Dont tell me my excuse is lame you can think what you like just dont insult my intelligence like that. When its finished ill smack those words right off your smug face.

Furthermore I feel that having to explain detailed techniques with film making jargon to people who think its all about alamdv and muzzle flashes is arrogant and obnoxious in itself. The thing is why storyboard a sequence where you "look" for shots as a cinematographer? Where you have to place things artistically and if they dont look right change it.

I want to tell these people to grab their camera and in a controlled environment look for the story and look for the shots. I wish my lecturers did the same to me. It gives you an outlook on their style, their eye, and basically their hand. If your looking for a fight Vamp go some place else because Im fully capable of backing myself up to morons such as your self.

And Zac.... well thats just sad trying to be like me

[wildstorm]

Ok I'm no mod here but we all need to stop right now. Otherwise if Matt shows up he may start suspending users on this site. We all got our shots in on each other so let it be. This is a film making community folks.

[ctbullet]

YES FILM-MAKING, why did you even start this post if your too busy to show or mark peoples work...

[Vamp]

Right, first off, I have a Directing and Camerawork & Lighting essay due within the next week, I need to complete a twelve page screenplay and storyboard a three-person dialogue within May. I don't think up "exercises" for people when I have nothing of my own to show.

What qualifications do you have to teach? You encourage bad habbits by telling people not to storyboard, when in ANYTHING, preproduction is what makes something good or bad. It's the Director who's ideas get storyboarded, not the DP "looking for shots"

No pleasing some of you people at all... it takes me one day to timecode and organise 9 hours of tape to have something readable for a batch capture. It takes me little over a week to edit and refine my editing and edit some more to a seqment of ugly DV footage. It then takes 6 hours a day using my full computer resources to recolor stabalize and deartiface 5 minutes of a finished edited piece and even then if something is off i have to tweak it some more.

Then why waste your time thinking up little assignments for people who really don't care what you have to say because you've done nothing to earn anyone's respect or actually prove yourself as a filmmaker or editor. Why not use the ten minutes it took you to write up this thread and reply to it, and actually upload something?

You remind me of this one guy I know, a total megalomaniac who just speaks a lot of bullshit, uses the jargon, but is actually a downright egotistical power-seeker. I have a feeling your six hours of this and one week of that is just deceptive cr**. I'm sure a lot of people agree with me.

You speak as if you're a professional, complicating a simple procedure by using the jargon to confuse entry-level filmmakers. You speak of DV as ugly, let me guess, you've worked on 35mm film and lead the full telecine process, you obviously work on Media100 workstations?

I work on $9k DVCPRO decks at school, I've been an assistant editor on commericals, I know about timecoding footage and I know about editing.
Yet when I'm strapped for time I don't pretend to be a benefactor by spouting off silly assignments for people.

And yes, I can insult your intelligence seeing as you present yourself as a ponce. Don't call me a moron when you can't spell "you're".

Are you even out of high school?

And just by the way, I used AlamDV as an example because it's an application that cuts out the need for a separate compositor. Ok, let me name Particle Illusion instead. Does that make you happier? It's software that's good enough for thousands, but obviously not for you. I think you're actually a sixteen year old kid using a cracked version of Premiere and After Effects and using a consumer grade camcorder.

Please, for once and for all...Come clean and actually show us something. Maybe then people will appreciate the time you've taken out of your busy schedule to arrange exercises for them.

Oh yes, stop talking to people as if we're idiots?

"No pleasing some of you"

"Im far too busy right now to do any filming... all my tapes are sitting here on my desk all full and theres like 40 of them once ive got this all under control i can play with you guys but right now i gotta live."

We don't want you to "play" with us, we want you to prove that you are who you say you are, because at the moment you're nothing but a liar.

[DarkElastic]

Well said Vamp. I hope wildstorm is right and Matt does come on and sees this. He might then warn or even ban Aaronv2 and do us all a favour.

[Vamp]

He doesn't need to get banned...Just needs to realize that he's not better than everyone else...At least until he proves he is.

[justin!butcher]

He needs to be banned. Hes ticked of Rhys and pretty much everyone else like me, and causes arguments and disputes everywhere he posts.

[SammyJim]

aaronv2 did say that everyone was cranky in the first place, so he made it because it is more constructive than arguing. if there was ONE topic we shouldn't argue in, it would be this one.
So what if there are spelling mistakes in people's posts, you can still read them. i make mistakes all the time. Maybe aaronv2 was rushing, or he just wanted to post this so urgently, so people would stop arguing and have a nice talk about what they did.
My step brother and I make lots of films, but we don't post them here. No one HAS to show off their work, they could be doing it to make a point, or for personal gain. Maybe they just want to show it to their family, and think its not suitable here.
Apart from professionals, i don't think anyone really thinks that they are better than anyone else. Why should they? "i am better than you"...woop-de-doo. Congrats. Big deal.

Most of the time i am here, i predict that at least one person is going to make them selves look big, and be nasty to someones post. So, you think a film was rubbish and it was not worth posting - so was that. really bad and hurtful stuff is not worth posting.
Remember, we are all still real people here, and we may get a little upset if someone says to us - who cares about stupid exercises?
I don't think aaronv2's idea was stupid at all. in fact, i might give it a try. i need to work on cinematography and storytelling. but of course, everyone else here is too perfect to improve aren't they?

I am not having a rant.

Maybe it is my wishful thinking that we could all actually get along here.

[Vamp]

The problem is, he simply thinks he's better than anyone else...That's he's doing us all a favour by imparting his "wisdom" which no one really cares about.


And spelling "thought" as "thaught" is not a rushed typo, it's just idocy.

[SgtPadrino]

Mm hmm, that's all good and well. Except that Vamp - hell, nearly everyone that's posted in this thread, have been the ones picking fights. aaron tried to do a little something to contribute, why is everyone insisting on arguing?

aaron has contributed to the forum, just do a search for the threads he's started and you'll get to see some of the stuff that he's posted online. Honestly, I think he knows what he's talking about. He can be a prick, sure, but Vamp, just because he's thorough doesn't mean he's full of s***.

Christ, I think it is impossible that people just get along here

[ALove]

Well as he says, putting together a film is no easy task. Hell, a visual effects test I did once took 3 days for a 6 second shot. Not easy, and that was not modeling anything in it, but using prerendered Tiffs. So I see where he's coming from. For beginners, I think this task is great practice, and should be attempted.

[Vamp]

I don't seeing as he is encouraging bad habbits.

Storyboarding is the most important part of your movie. The Director is the one who handles this. Not the DP as Aaron claimed.

You tell people that the action should flow left to right...What happened if you wanted to expose your character as being in despair or suffering emotionally? I would definitely use right to left to convey that sense of struggle.

Why would I want to use props to establish a character? I'd establish a character through their mannerisms, their beats and the way they react to everyday events.

[ALove]

Well, by not storyboarding, you're learning how to look at shots, and form them. Storyboarding is great if you can grasp visual composition.

Here's an extreme beginners tutorial on Basic Camera Techniques that I wrote a while back.

And I'm not sure what is meant by establishing a charecter through props. Usually the rule of thumb is "show don't tell." I think thats what he meant, dont establish characters too much through diologue.

[Vamp]

In my opinion, your movie, whether it's 30 seconds or three hours, should be storyboarded from start to finish if you want something that looks polished.

[jackbauer24]

i dont like story boards personally because i just picture it all in my head and i dont need to draw it out. but it does help a lot of people so just do it if you have trouble picturing all of your shots

[SgtPadrino]

The exercise is supposed to be practice at cinematography. Storyboarding is an exercise in direction, the meaning of this is to get you to start looking at the damn shots.

If you think something needs to be storyboarded, that's fine, but it's just what you think. If you're the one operating the camera/lighting shots, and you have good people skills, you really don't need to be storyboarding. I know that's what your professors are drilling into your head, but I'll make you a deal, kay?

I'll make movies my way. You'll make movies your way.

[Zac]

aaronv2. I was just saying all you have to do is give us a link to one of your movies on youtube or video google or anything like that (it doesnt have to be something to do with this excercise), if you dont have one of your movies on a site, then all you do is up-load it there off your computer, it would only take like 5-10min at the most for a 5min movie of yours. if its not on your computer, thats fine, just tell us. i was not trying to tell you to go edit a movie off one of your 40 tapes or tweak every little thing that doesnt look right.
i really want to see one of your movies and see your great film-making talents, as im sure lots of us here do.
and i dont think this exercise idea is stupid, its really quite good practice.

just dont insult my intelligence like that.

if what i said in that post insulted your intelligence, then what the hell do you call what you're doing to us?

and just like vamp, i really dont like you acting like you're superior to all of us, if you're some film-making genius, thats fine with me. infact, its excelent, cos then you can help me with stuff. but instead, you just tell me how s*** my movies are, absolutely nothing to/or how i can improve on something, just constant mindless insults.

P.S i was not trying to be like you, that would be the last thing i'd want to do.

P.P.S and to anyone here who thinks i'm picking a fight, i'm not. just telling aaronv2 the truth.