Filmmaking Tips

Filmmaking Tips

Intro: What follows is a long list of tips that are based on things I've learned while making movies.

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Script

-DO NOT START FILMING UNTIL YOU'RE SURE THE SCRIPT IS READY. With Hearts It Is, the script was done in January 2000. But instead of filming that summer, I took the year to work on the script. It went from 80 pages to 104 pages, and had a much better ending.

-Listen to other people's advice. Show your script to people who will not think that everything you write is great. Ask them what can be improved. The best filmmakers are those who are never happy with the script; they always think it can be better.

-Get some people together and read the script out loud. You'll get a better feel for the dialogue when you hear people read the lines out loud. You'll figure out which lines work and which sound stupid.

-Get to know your characters. Make up backstories for them, even if these stories don't make it into the movie.

-In real life, people rarely just sit there doing nothing when they talk. So don't let your characters do that either. Have them read a magazine, flip through channels on the remote, anything, as they have their conversation. It just looks unnatural when characters sit there and state their lines without doing anything else.

-The bottom line is that a bad script can ruin what could have been a decent movie. And a good script can save a movie that would have been otherwise horrible. So take the time to work on the script.

Pre-Production

-Do location scouting. Locations can be anywhere. A friend or family member's house works nicely. Ask your cast and crew if they're willing to use their house. ALWAYS check out the place before the filming day. Bring the camera and mic and make sure that there is no strange video or audio interference.

-If you need the settings, try asking local businesses, or schools. It never hurts to ask. In Hearts It Is, I was lucky enough to be able to film at a popular local restaurant as well as a public university.

-When location scouting, look out for potential lawsuits. Is there a giant South Park poster in the living room where you're going to film a lot? You may want to take that down.

-The laws on brand names are sketchy. Most people agree that you need to ask permission to show the logo if one of these is true:
1. the camera lingers on the logo enough that it is recognized.
2. the logo/product is part of the plot.
3. the name of the product is spoken.
But like I said, it's all sketchy. In the film Clerks, the characters say "Gatorade" many times, and many candy bar logos can be seen at the end. But no one complained to director Kevin Smith about using the shots without permission. In my opinion, as long as you're not saying anything bad about the company, they shouldn't get mad. But is assuming that worth the risk? Your call.

-Do all the paperwork. You'll need talent release forms, contract(s), location release forms, and music release forms. If you're trying to get permission to show a product in the movie, do this long before you start. Give yourself plenty of time. Don't forget local companies, most are more than willing to help out.

-If you're working with minors, don't forget to check your state's child labor laws and follow them carefully.

-Get into local music. Talk to the bands and ask if they'd be willing to let you use a song or two in a movie you're making. Most local bands will do it for free, but it's a good idea to offer them profit points anyway.

-Decide whether or not you're going to pay your cast and crew. At the very least, you should offer them a free copy of the film and pay for their food on production days. You could offer them gas money as well.

-A common indie film way to pay cast/crew is with net profit points. Write down which people get which percentage of the net profits (if any). Then have everyone sign the paper. Make sure you do this before filming.

Casting

-You can find potential actors in lots of places. Put an ad in the newspaper, or a local entertainment magazine if your city has one. Post flyers up around high schools, college campusues, and/or local theaters. Go to some plays and get in touch with the actors you liked. Ask other local filmmakers for recommendations.

-Write a short paper (1 or 2 pages) to hand out to all auditioning actors. Write about your filmmaking background, the movie they are auditioning for, and what they can expect through the filmmaking process. This will help answer the actors' questions they have going in, will give them something to read while they wait, and will make you look professional and organized.

-When you're interviewing the actors, make sure you ask them if they are a member of SAG or any other acting union. If they are, there are specific rules you'll have to follow.

-You could have the auditioning actors read a monologue. Then give them a direction on how to read it. Explain beforehand that you will do this so they won't think their first read was bad. Then pay close attention to that second read. If they can't follow your directions in the audition, they probably can't on the set, either.

-Instead of monologues, you could also have the actors read a scene from your script with an assistant. Again, you can have them read the first take however they want, and then do a second read after you've given a direction.

-You could also have them do an improvised scene with your assistant. Even if the monologue read was horrible, most people will loosen up for improv and you get to see their true personality. Use a scene from your movie if you want to, just give your assistant some lines to feed to the auditioning actor. Tell them before they start that you know it won't be perfect, but just have fun with it. I once had an actress give a horrible monologue read, but a very good improv read, so we brought her back and she eventually got a supporting role in a movie.

-After the first round of auditions, have a round of callbacks. This is a good time to have everyone meet at the same time and pair up, reading scenes from your movie. Look for on-camera chemistry in this round.

-Choose your casting location carefully. Having auditions in your house tells the actors that you're not very organized or professional. Try to get a room at a local college or theater. Even an ordinary classroom is more professional than your place.

Rehearsals

-The first rehearsal should be a full cast read through. Do this in a very casual setting, like at your own place. Have some food and drinks. It's just everyone hanging out and getting a feel for each other and the script.

-If you have a limited rehearsal schedule, try to at least rehearse the most difficult scenes to film, such as scenes with a lot of movement and/or shot on one long camera take.

-Rehearsals are a great time to get all of the paperwork out of the way. Have the actors sign their talent release forms and the contract explaining net profit points (if you use one). You should do all the paperwork BEFORE you start production, because it is much easier then. Actors often scatter throughout the country when they finish making an indie film, and you don't have the time to track them all down.

Equipment

-Buy the best camera you can afford to buy. Do lots of research. Find a camera you think you might buy and look for reviews of it on the web. Go to message boards like on IndieClub.com and ask about the camera.

-If your camera does not have an XLR input, then get an XLR audio adapter. Those cheap ones from Radio Shack will probably not work. You'll need a more expensive one, like a Beachtek model. You will get what you pay for in the audio department.

-Lighting: All I know about lighting is that I know very little. In college I did some projects with professional lighting setups and couldn't get it to look natural. So I tried to make my first feature with just natural lights, some extra desk lamps, and white posterboard to reflect light. I thought it looked good. Some scenes I made dark on purpose to reflect the emotion of that scene. Unfortunately, most of the audience didn't get that and I became known as the idiot who doesn't know how to use lights. Go figure. For my next big project, I plan to buy some work lights and stands from Lowes and see if that works. The point is, there are many ways you can experiment with lighting. Find out what works for you.

-If you try to shoot day-for-night scenes, avoid getting the sky in your shot. Trust me, it will not look like a night sky and will be a dead giveaway.

-Make sure you have all of the appropriate emergency equipment: extra battery, tape cleaner, lens cleaner, AC adapter, etc.

-Always have duct tape. Is there anything it can't do?

-Buy some trash bags. If you're shooting a indoor night scene during the day, you can tape trash bags up in the windows to block out the sun.

Production

-I recommend that before every shoot, do something that gets you in the right mood. You know, that feeling good, "I'm ready to take on any problem today" feeling. For me, it's listening to some energy-filled music, something like Good Charlotte's first CD, or Metallica is always good too.

-The most time is spent moving around between sets. So when you get the camera and mic and lighting set up, shoot EVERYTHING with that setup before changing to the next setup.

-Set your shot on automatic, record on manual. If you leave settings like focus, iris, or white balance on automatic setting when you're recording, these settings may drift in the middle of the scene and ruin a great take. So always set your shot on automatic settings, switch to manual settings, then record the shot.

-Don't try to record audio outside around the 4th of July (we had this problem on July 3, 5, 6, and 7). If you have to shoot around that date, keep the takes short. It is nearly impossible to get in a long take without some idiot's firecrackers going off.

-Unless you have permission from the company, check the shot for brand names. If you've got beer bottles, you can always just turn them around so the labels can't be seen.

-Again, if you are trying to shoot day-for-night, do NOT get the sky in your shot.

Directing

-It is always a good idea to remind the actors where the current scene happens in the movie. Remind them of what happened to their character in the movie just before the scene you're about to do.

-Always tell the actors good job after each take (and at the end of the day).

-Despite what the books all say, some actors actually like line readings. Sometimes. Don't give them line readings on every single line or they will feel like you're treating them like morons. Try to help them with the character's emotions first, and if that doesn't work, maybe a line read will.

-Don't be afraid to blatantly ignore advice from directing books. Experiment and find out what works for you and your actors.

-If someone is not doing a good job, pull him/her to the side and talk to him about it. Never talk down to the actor in front of everyone else.

-When things go wrong (and they will), do not lose your cool. The cast and crew looks to the director to keep everything together when it seems like it's falling apart. Think of a backup plan, and do it. And when you screw up, admit it.

Keeping Everyone Happy

-Always have food and drink on the set. Ask everyone beforehand what kinds of snacks and drinks they would like to have on the set and do the best you can to accomodate everyone.

-Take lunch breaks on the longer days. Order some pizzas beforehand or find a caterer.

-Budget for a lot of water. Always have a cooler on set with lots of waters and a few cokes or juices as well.

-Bring things to do for actors who are waiting around before their scene. Bring magazines to read, or a Game Boy. We had people fighting over my brother's Game Boy when we shot at my mom's house. If I'd have known it would have been so popular, I would have bought a few more.

-Throw a great wrap party. This is your chance to thank everyone for working their asses off for you and getting little to no pay in return.

-If you can, give away some of the props to the actors. They make nice mementos. My lead actress thought it was so cool that she got to keep the dead rose from Hearts It Is.

Editing

-As with the camera, buy the best editing setup that you can afford. Buy a PowerMac G4 with Final Cut Pro if you can afford it. You will not regret it. This setup was designed by Apple specifically for editing. PCs are designed for internet, gaming, video editing, and lots of other things. They are also less stable and crash more often.

-Make sure your computer has lots of memory (at least 512RAM).

-Make sure the computer has lots of hard drive space, especially if you're doing a feature. Many people (me included) like to use 2 hard drives, a smaller one (around 20GB) for the basic applications and a huge one (about 80GB) to store video files. I use a 30GB and an 80GB on my G4 and the setup works great.

-Don't edit alone. It's best to either have a co-editor, or show someone your movie as you go and get opinions from them. If you edit everything by yourself and don't allow any feedback along the way, your movie will probably be great to you, but the audience might hate it.

-That being said, make sure the person helping you edit is not afraid to point out when what you do is bad. It hurts to have your ideas shot down, but through compromise the movie is ultimately better.

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Tags: filmmaking
Posted at 09:40PM Feb 22, 2009 by Jan Sutton  | 

Good Teaching The Top Ten Commandments

Here are the top ten commandments for teaching. I thought they were spot on![Read More]

Tags: education
Posted at 07:03PM Oct 31, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

The book verses the scroll

Here is a funny example of evolution for you to consider...

 

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Tags: education
Posted at 09:11PM Oct 20, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

Is Google making us stupid?

 'Is Google making us stupid?' is an article that highlights the arguments some students have been presenting lately. I too felt in the beginning that my brain was turning into a rewired configuration of mush. But now that I have had some time to get used to it, it has rewired some more and settled into an epiphany of new thinking. Having said that, I haven't had time to read a book for a long period of time so I'm yet to find out if I still have the ability!

As the article went a bit gar gar in transit,  I have linked the URL to the title so you to go to the original article and read in peace.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Illustration by Guy Billout

"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?� So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial “ brain. “Dave, my mind is going,� HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.� I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)[Read More]

Tags: learnin educa
Posted at 10:12PM Oct 08, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

About Digital Youth

Today I was chatting with a fellow Flinders student and she brought to my attention the trouble parents are finding with their kids cutting and pasting information from the internet to produce brilliant power points etc, but found they had no idea about the subject matter when questioned.. Something we need to think about when working with students and multimedia.

 Inquiry based learning and the Web

Using the Web within an inquiry-based pedagogy begins with asking or framing an essential question. For our purposes, an essential question is defined as a question that requires students to make a decision or plan a course of action. Making decisions and/or planning a course of action are essential adult skills that students need to display at a high level of proficiency. Educators need to focus on such questions; many teachers rely to heavily on "What is.." questions such as "What is cancer." Asking a student to answer such in a research project is licensing the student to move i nformation from point A to point B without concern for integrating discrete information pieces into new knowledge or fresh insights. Effectively, in this day of digital "cutting and pasting," asking a "What is.." question is a license to plagiarize.

A much better question requiring the development of an action plan regarding the cancer topic cited above might be: "What plan can I develop for reducing the chance that I will contract cancer in my lifetime?" In this scenario, a student must research the question to develop a list of strategies; the teacher then may require the student to select the top three strategies from the list and then justify why those were chosen. In this question, active knowledge construction is required.

Teachers my also ask students questions involving decision-making. Such questions as "Should Puerto Rico become the 51st state of the United States?" or "What invention of the 20th Century has had the greatest impact?" require students to engage in critical thinking and build knowledge.

 Youth Digital Ethnography

ABOUT DIGITAL YOUTH

Since the early 1980s, digital media have held out the promise of more engaged, child-centered learning opportunities. The advent of Internet-enabled personal computers and mobile devices has added a new layer of communication and social networking to the interactive digital mix. While this evolving palette of technologies has demonstrated the ability to capture the attention of young people, the innovative learning outcomes that educators had hoped for are more elusive. Although computers are now fixtures in most schools and many homes, there is a growing recognition that kids' passion for digital media has been ignited more by peer group sociability and play than academic learning. This gap between in-school and out-of-school experience represents a gap in children's engagement in learning, a gap in our research and understandings, and a missed opportunity to reenergize public education. This project works to address this gap with a targeted set of ethnographic investigations into three emergent modes of informal learning that young people are practicing using new media technologies: communication, learning, and play.

The Principal Investigators on this project are Peter Lyman at the University of California, Berkeley, Mizuko (Mimi) Ito at the University of Southern California, Michael Carter of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, and Barrie Thorne of the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, the project is administered by the Institute for the Study of Social Change. With the help of a large number of graduate students and postdocs, a variety of projects are under way in both the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas.

The project has three general objectives. The first objective is to describe kids as active innovators using digital media rather than as passive consumers of popular culture or academic knowledge. The second objective is to think about the implications of kids' innovative cultures for schools and higher education and to engage in a dialogue with educational planners. The third objective is to advise software designers about how to use kids' innovative approaches to knowledge and learning in building better software. This project will address these objectives through ethnographic research in both local neighborhoods in Northern and Southern California, and in virtual places and networks such as online games, blogs, messaging, and online interest groups. Our research sites focus on learning and cultural production outside of schools: in homes, neighborhoods, after-school, and in recreational settings.

This project is sponsored by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Principal Investigators Contact Information:

Mizuko (Mimi) Ito - mito at itofisher dot com
Michael Carter - mcarter at montereyinstitute dot org
Barrie Thorne - bthorne at berkeley dot edu

 

 

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Tags: technolog education
Posted at 07:22PM Sep 30, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

Classroom 2.0

Here's a great site for all of us that need a little help to familiarise ourselves with, and keep track of all the changes Web 2 has to offer.

Looking for 3rd grade class for Math collaboration project...17 Replies

Hello! I am a tech coordinator for a Minnesota public school. I've recently helped a couple of our 3rd grade math teachers begin a weekly "MathCast" episode, using voicethread.com. It's completely...

 http://www.classroom20.com/

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Tags: podcast web 2 technology
Posted at 10:30PM Sep 22, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

Victor Borge - Phonetic Punctuation

For all you up and coming primary school teachers, this Victor Borge YouTube is a must have to play on your interactive whiteboards. The children will find it hilarious and they will learn some punctuation skills at the same time. We played it during my practicum and the kids kept asking us to put it on again and again!

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Tags: punctuation literacy humour education
Posted at 09:04PM Sep 13, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

Bedtime Text Danger (Sunday Mail 7/9/08 p24)

I read this article on Sunday and could relate to it 100% with my own children. I had just finished telling my family how they had become irritable, tired and were on fast forward since we had the wireless router put in. I don't think this applies to just teenagers as I can relate to Dr Teng's symptoms myself!

Bedtime text danger

Sleep deprived teens are at risk of a lifetime of high blood pressure and chronic health problems due to the "technological invasion of the bedroom". Australian researchers have found.          

Leading sleep expert Dr Arthur Teng said text messaging and emailing friends late at night had created a "sleep deprivation epidemic".

His research is supported by an independent study that found teenagers are staying uyp until midnight and beyond to SMS and chat online.

Rather than having bed time, teenagers now have "room time," which is a period of vital social interaction, Neer Korn, of Heartbeat Trends, said "We found that from 10pm to as late as midnight and 1am were the key hours for socialising with their friends". As a result, teenagers were constantly tired. Dr Teng, from the Sydney Children's Hospital, said teenagers needed between nine and ten hours' sleep but were lucky to get six hours. He said the implications were enormous, predisposing them to adult hpertension, heart disease, memory loss and concentration problems.

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Tags: technology education
Posted at 05:06PM Sep 07, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

David Weinberger

David W einberger has a new book out which further elaborates on the benefits of Multimedia.

What is the Web for? And why do we care so much? Why has this simple technology sent a lightning bolt through our culture? It goes far beyond the Web's over-hyped economic impact: 500 million of us aren't there because we want a better "shopping experience." The Web, a world of pure connection, free of the arbitrary constraints of matter, distance and time, is showing us who we are - and is undoing some of our deepest misunderstandings about what it means to be human in the real world.

First reactions...

"This is a book to savor. Not to speed read. I am not a techie - but I ardently believe the Web will change everything. David has made me laugh ... and frown ... and pause and think ... and scribble furiously in the margins ... and call friends a continent away for long conversations. That's exactly the right mood for exploring the consequences of the most profound medium of social and political and economic change in hundreds of years."

Tom Peters

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Links

Flap Copy
Email David W.
My home page
My newsletter
My weblog
My bio
NPR Commentaries
List of current publications
The Cluetrain Manifesto
Have me speak at an event
This book was written online...Here's the story

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Tags: books technology
Posted at 08:53PM Sep 05, 2008 by Jan Sutton  | 

Multimedia and learning challenges

I found this article to be useful as we can can connect Multimedia into this framework nicely. Students are interactive and getting lots of different messages from visual, audio and text, instead of just trying to decipher text solely.

 

http://www.ldonline.org/article/5598 

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Tags: learning difficulties
Posted at 01:57PM Sep 05, 2008 by Jan Sutton  |