Do you want your video to look like film?

I’m sure you’ve been poking about on the internet and come across many differnent forums.  Have you noticed that everyone is talking about this mysterious thing called “film look”?  I’m sure you have.

The way people talk about it, it seems like making your video look like film is the holy grail.   I’m sure in your mind this has raised many questions.  What is film look?  Do I need it and why? How do I get it?

The truth about ‘film look’

If you float around the message boards long enough…you’ll probably be really confused as to what this whole concept is about.  Obviously, people are trying to make their digital video look more like film…but how….and why?

Let’s talk about the “why” aspect first.

Why make your video look like film

Many people just assume film is better so it only makes sense to try and make your video look like film.  That may be your opinion, but you can get yourself into trouble thinking this way.  Many people who think film is better will do anything to make their video look like film, even if that means putting ‘dust and scratches’ effects on their video.  The result of doing something like that is video that looks like it has scratches on top of it.

The real reason to strive to make video look like film is because audiences are used to the look of film when watching a movie.  If your movie is shot on video, people will notice that the movie looks different than what they are used to seeing.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Video has a look of realism and if you are trying to portray a gritty realistic story then video great.  However, if you are trying to portray a mystical fantasy world, video could be distracting to your audience.

Ultimately though, you have to shoot with what you have.  So rather than strive to make your video look like film, make it your goal to make the best possible looking image for the medium you are shooting.

That being said, lets discuss some of the differences between video and film, how to compensate for them,  and when you should just leave things alone.

Film look demystified

There are a variety of components that make film look different than digital video.

1. Dynamic Range - Film has the ability to capture much bigger variations in light intensity.  Have you ever seen video where the sky is completely white?  The sky is white because when the camera’s CCD chip sees something so bright it can’t translate it.  Instead it says “that is so bright…its just white”.  The same is true on the dark side.  If something is too dark, the camera just assumes it is black.  Digital video has a very limited range of intensity it can see, while HD is slightly more, and film is drastically greater (several F-stops.)
   • How to compensate - This is probably the hardest thing to overcome when working with video.    In some very expensive cameras you can do somethings to slightly improve this…but that is a subject way  to complex for this article.  Instead, the best thing you can do is to prevent this limitation from distracting your audience.  The number one distraction caused by this is blown out highlights..aka the white sky.  You should try to do everything you can to avoid blown out highlights.  You do this by exposing for the brightest thing in the scene.  Outdoors, this could cause your subject to become very dark, so its a good idea to have a big reflector to bounce light onto your subject.  Or block out some of the suns light with what is called a butterfly scrim.  Here is a great tutorial on how to build a scrim.
   • When in doubt underexpose - That statement probably sends chills down the spine of a professional cinematographer because it sounds like such bad advice.  However, rarely do I see a single shot that seems so underexposed that some post production treatments can’t save them.  Shots that are too bright, however, are very difficult to treat.
2. Gamma Curve - Film reacts in a non linear fashion to light, while video is completely linear.  If you want a good (but very technical) explanation of that, check out this wikipedia article.  But all you need to know is that film colors look different because of this, and there is very little you can do about it.  However, some of the higher end prosumer and professional camcorders actually have gamma correction features which help it to mimic the look of film.
3. Noise - Video CCDs produce noise due to the way it picks up light as well as the way it digitizes the image.  You can’t completely eliminate noise, but you can minimize it by keeping your camera’s electronic gain settings at their minimum.
4. Dust and Scratches - Since film is a physical thing, dust and scratches can easily end up on the film negative.  Alot of people get so into the ‘film look’ thing that they think this is important to add to their video.  Don’t be stupid.  There is no reason to purposefully degrade your image.  This is the one area that digital has a significant advantage over film, so be happy and keep it the way it is.
5. Resolution - Film technically doesn’t have a resolution because it doesn’t actually have pixels.  However, just like video, if you project the image of a 35mm film big enough, it will start to look soft just like video does.  Most experts estimate 35mm film to be about equivalent to a 4K resolution.  That is about 4 times more resolution than 1080p
6. Depth of Field - This is the big one.  Most digital cameras have a small CCD that is about 1/3″.  Higher end cameras sometimes have a 1/2″ or 2/3″ CCD.  This is much much smaller than a 35mm frame.  Because of the way light goes through a lens, the result is that the smaller the CCD size, the more of the image is in focus.  That means that on 1/3″ chip the entire shot will be in focus, where as on 35mm film the DP can control the focus to be on the subject and blur out the background completely.  This can be of huge benefit to the filmmaker as it forces his audience to look at the subject.  With video, you have much less control over what is in focus and what is not.  Because of this, you have to be very careful not to have a cluttered distracting background that will pull your audiences attention away from the action
   • Back up zoom in - You can get some of the same effect of a shallow depth of field by backing your camera up as far as possible, and then zooming in to get the shot type you want.  Technically you haven’t changed your depth of field, but you can achieve close to the same look with the subject in focus and the background out of focus
   • 35mm adapters - There is an entire industry now of 35mm adapters.  These are devices that allow you to put a 35mm lens on the front of the a device, which then is projected to an intermediate screen which your digital camera focuses on.  These can be a bit pricey and difficult to work with, but they are a bargain compared to shooting with film.    Here is a trailer for a short film, Wide Asleep, that we shot with a 35mm adapter.  The shots look beautiful, but I can tell you from experience these devices are often quite a bit of trouble to use.

There isn’t a whole lot more to it than that.  But remember, the idea isn’t to make people think that your movie was shot on film.  Honestly….who cares?  Your goal should be to make the best film possible, using the techniques and tools available.

Don’t let lack of experience stop you from achieving your goals

Just like everything else in life worth doing, there is a steep learning curve to becoming a great film maker.  This is true whether or not you are trying to break in using the traditional route or the entrepreneurial route.

The traditional route is to start out as a production assistant, work you way up to line producer, then to production manager, and so on until you reach your goals.  The problem is you no matter how many films you work as a PA no one is ever willing to put their faith in you to do the next job up.  You just don’t have the experience.

The same is true for the entrepreneurial filmmaker.  If you are going this route, then you are out hustling for investors or for a studio to back your project.  “What have you done before?  Can you show me something?” will be one of their very first questions.

If either of these sounds like a situation you are currently facing, let me share with you the advice of a friend of mine named Donny.  This advice came up during a conversation with a friend of ours, a young actress, who was looking for a day job, but couldn’t find anyone who would hire her because she lacked some skill  for each of the jobs she had applied.

The advice he gave to her was golden advice that I will remember forever.  He said:

If you let not knowing how to do something stop you from getting what you want, then you’ll never get anywhere in life.

Donny has a great story of how he had got his first job working for a video production company.  He wanted to work the camera, but the company wasn’t hiring for the camera position.  Instead, they were looking for someone to do DVD menus and animations using the Lingo programming language in Macromedia Director.  Donny is a good friend of mine, and for all of his skills in art, film, animation, and business, if there is one thing he is not its a programmer.  So when they asked, “Can you program Lingo, because that is what we really need?“  His response was “Absolutely…but I want to give my old job two weeks notice…can I start in two weeks?”

He didn’t need to give his former employer two weeks notice…he didn’t have a former employer.  He was broke and jobless.  Instead he went out and bought three books on programming lingo, and proceeded to teach himself for those two weeks.  He got the job, and worked his way into a camera operator position in no time.

Now, I’m not saying lie about your abilities…and please please don’t lie to an investor about what you’ve done before.  There are severe legal consequences for lying to an investor.  But what I am saying is that you can’t let your own lack of experience dictate what you can or can’t accomplish.  People always tell you to think outside the box.  I’m here to tell you there is no box.

Let me give you a real life example.  I have an a friend who is an actor who wants to start producing some feature films.  However, he has absolutely nothing produced.  He has all the contacts to make a film.  He knows crew and talent both here in the south and Los Angelos.

He called me asking me to do some random projects for him to use as a reel that he could use to approach investors.  The thing is, what he is basically trying to do is do a bunch of projects for the sole purpose of building a reel, because he thinks investors won’t give him money without one.  The fact is, he hasn’t tried to raise money yet, so he doesn’t even know if they will ask for that sort of proof.  Ultimately he might spend the better part of a year doing purposeless projects, just to make a good reel.

Capitalize on other peoples experience

If you aren’t trying to get a ‘job’  but are instead trying to get a movie funded you have another great option available to you.  You can capitalize on the experience of your team.  Think of the above example.  My friend wants to raise money for a film.  He thinks he has the investors, but is afraid to approach them without some proof of experience.  However, he pretty much knows who his core crew is.  They all have experience and extensive reels.  Do you think that if he had a good possibility of getting funding that that crew wouldn’t let him use their reels to get the money?  After all, as a crew person it means you will get work and get paid.  Try this experiment: Call any professional camera operator in the world…preferably a steadicam operator because they usually have killer reels.  Tell him you have a feature script, you want to hire him as Director of Photography, but you are still raising funding  If he is interested, ask him if its ok to use his reel  to convince an investor to fund the movie.  He won’t say no.

Take the group of experience crew who have agreed to work with you. Form a Production Company, and edit together an extremely awesome reel from all of them.  Then say the following words: “This is an example of various projects my crew has worked on in the past”.  You haven’t lied, and you aren’t really even being deceitful.  After all, the people responsible for this reel will be working on your film, so the investor can probably expect close to the same quality of work.

Does it really matter if you personally don’t have the experience?  It shouldn’t because obviously you are good enough to surround yourself with smart enough people to get the job done.  Are you smart enough to get the job done?

30 seconds to a successful film: How to make a compelling movie trailer

The other day I wrote about The 9 things you need to do if you really want to be a film maker. The very last item, Making a Bad Ass Trailer, may be most important item on the list.  In fact, despite my continuing mantra of finish the film that I keep harping on, making a bad ass trailer may actually be more important than finishing the film itself.  The reason I say this is I’ve had friends get work, or offers of investment purely off of a really awesome trailer for films that were not yet even finished.

A trailer only needs to be 30 seconds.  There has to be at least 30 seconds of really awesome stuff in the hours and hours of footage you shot.  Make everyone want to see your movie.  Make the movie seem larger than life.   If someone sees your movie and is disappointed because they had high expectations from the trailer…so what!  At least they saw your movie.  You can accomplish this by doing the following:

• Study other trailers - Watch the trailers of big movies.  What makes you want to see a movie?  Think about it…its just a 30 second advertisement.  What makes you want to see a movie in those thirty seconds?  What immediately turns you off?
• Sell the sizzle - Put the really cool shots in the trailer.  Put the really cool lines of dialog.  Do not explain the plot. People in marketing always say, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak”.  The sizzle is the really cool stuff that makes your movie look awesome.  The steak is the plot.  All you want is for people to kinda get the gist of what is going on.
• Build curiosity - I’ve talked about this in a previous article: The cloverfield method of marketing.  Lets say in your movie a witch casts some crazy spell that awakens a giant evil crocodile that comes out of the lake and attacks some campers.  The trailer should basically be cool shots of a witch doing a creepy thing and some campers being attacked by something.  You are telling your audience, “Something attacks some kids, and its scary”.  That’s all they need to know.  Furthermore, the less they know the more it builds curiosity.  I definitely would not show the crocodile, or give any hints as to the fact that its a crocodile attacking.  You want the audience to ask “What is attacking them?  What is that witch doing?” If they ask those questions, then the only way to have them answered is to see the movie.

Remember, there is nothing more important to your filmmaking career than getting the most people possible to want to see your film.  You must convince your target audience that your movie is worth investing their valuable time (and hopefully their valuable money).  There is no better vehicle to do this than a really great trailer.

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Looking for an easy way to make a successful horror film franchise? Why not try a ‘mask’ movie.

Have you ever noticed the one thing that all of the biggest horror movie franchises have in common?  I’m talking about the big ones:  Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm street, and so on.

It just so happens that this weekend we shot our first episode of killerfilm tv.  In it, Jon and Donny talk about the Friday the 13th remake, as well as discuss the franchise itself.  During the clip Jon brought up an amazing fact that I had not even noticed.  The Friday the 13th franchise is now up to twelve movies!  I don’t know about you, but I find that literally absurd.  Not that I have anything against the movie…I just find it amazing that any movie can have that many sequels and still be alive and kicking.

All it takes is a mask

So…you may be saying, “so what”.  I mean who cares how many Friday the 13th sequels there are?  Well, you should because the movies themselves contain an interesting phenomenon.

Everyone knows that distributors and Hollywood types only seem to care about “name” actors.  The reason is, a name brings in an audience.  There is no doubt about it.  However, the Friday the 13th movies don’t follow that template.  There doesn’t need to be a name.

Why doesn’t there need to be a name?  Because, Jason is the name.

Think about it.  The reason you go to see a Friday the 13th movie is pretty much all about Jason.  You can say the same thing for Freddy, Michael Myers, Pin head, or any other horror staple.  These characters are not just villains, they are unstoppable forces.  They are the personification of death itself.

So the trick to building a successful horror movie franchise is…

• Create an extremely menacing masked character and chop up a bunch of kids up in a single location.

It’s doesn’t get much easier than that…but as they say in the infomercials: Wait, there’s more!

Actors no longer matter

As I’ve already stated, the biggest benefit of doing a film with a masked villain is that you have a much better chance of getting distribution without needing a name actor to sell the film.  But it goes one step further than that.

Let’s call your imaginary horror villain Mackey.  Mackey is a gigantic psychotic beast of a man that escaped from a mental institution who for some unknown reason wears a Tweety Bird mask.  The actor that plays the Mackey doesn’t matter.  He doesn’t really  even have to act!  In fact, it could be a different person in every shot so long as all the guys playing Mackey are about the same size.

The character becomes larger than the actor himself.  It is not a person, it is a metaphor…a force.

Sequel Mania

The real beauty of this sort of film though is the ease of doing sequels.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t get same actor for Mackey…he’s in a mask.  Furthermore, the other actors…aka the “kids” at camp…don’t matter either.  After all, the majority of them were killed off during the last film right?  If some did survive but the actors don’t want to be in the sequel…well maybe this is a story how Mackey attacks some other kids.  But maybe you have some actors that want to be in the sequel.  Well, Mackey is upset that he didn’t get them last time so he’s stalking them now.    Maybe in this film Mackey kills all the same people he killed in the last film in an alternate universe.  You can literally have Mackey do anything, anywhere, to anyone…and still retain the same audience of your original Mackey film.

So what are you waiting for?  Grab a video camera, ten friends, and find a really scary dude to put in a mask.  It’s a cheap ticket to becoming the next big horror filmmaker.

The only film making advice you really need

Yesterday, I told you how Listening to ’so called’ experts could destroy your film career before it even starts.  Today I’m going to share with you the few principles you really need to know.  If you’ve ever dreamed about being a director, then this post is a must read for you.

The 9 things you need to do if you really want to be a film maker.

1. Shoot the damn thing - Stop obsessing over what gear you need, stop worrying about raising money, stop obsessing over every little detail.  If you can’t raise the money you need, then figure out how to do it with less money.  If you can’t find the location you need, rewrite the script for a new location.  Rewrite until you have a movie you can actually do right now then do it right now!
2. Three takes and go - Ok, so its digital video.  You can have as many takes as you want right?  No!  Shoot three takes and move on just like you were shooting 35mm film.  Only on the really really important scenes, or really short shots are you allowed to go up to five takes, but after that move on.  The actors aren’t going to do it any better. Deal with it.
3. Get coverage first, then do the fancy stuff - Do a wide establishing shot, do a medium close up of each character, then do some inserts.  If you are positive the scene will edit together, then you can start doing some more fancy stuff.   But even then…if that “fancy stuff” you want to do doesn’t add to the film, maybe you should just move on to the next scene.
4. Get good sound or learn to ADR - It’s imperative you get excellent sound.  If you can’t do it while shooting, then you will have to ADR.  This can be very expensive, if you don’t have access to a post production audio suite.  Try to capture the best sound you can during production, but be sure to budget and plan to do a little ADR as well.  It’s probably a good idea for you to start trying to figure out how to ADR dialog right now.  It is a skill you will definitely use later.
5. Learn to edit - Regardless of whether or not you intend to edit your film yourself, you need to learn how to edit.  If you don’t know how to edit, then you’ll never know if your movie will cut together at all.  Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll shoot way more coverage than you could possible use and your editor will have to sift through hours of pointless footage.  This is also a bad thing because if the editor gets bored while sifting through useless footage, he is more likely to half ass his way through the edit.  If you’ve directed the thing right, the edit should naturally evolve from the footage itself.
6. Finish the film - Above all finish the film.  If its your first film, it will probably suck.  Deal with it.  But you have to realize that no matter how bad, a a finished film has value but an unfinished film is worthless. Go to best buy and search for some of the action or horror four packs and watch them.  It will likely be the best $7.99 you ever spend.  Many of these movies aren’t just bad…they are laughably horrendous.  Everything is out of focus, the story makes no sense, and fifteen year olds pretend to be mob bosses.  It’s utterly ridiculous…but they have one thing going for them:  They were finished.  Not only that…they were sold.  There are distributors who make it their business to pick up extremely terrible movies and sell them in retail stores like best buy.   Typically, a producer of these types of movies can make between $5000 to $10,000 selling 100% rights on one of these masterpieces.  Not going to put you sipping Champagne in Beverly Hills…but at the very least you can say you’ve sold a movie.  The reality is very few people can actually finish a film.  It’s a difficult, if not nearly impossible task to do even when you have millions to spend.  But if you’ve finished a film, you can approach real investors and pitch yourself as a real producer.  Let the entire movie fall to pieces, frame every shot poorly, stay out of focus the entire time…but finish it.  Your career has to start somewhere.  It starts here…with one crappy (yet finished) film.
7. Nail one aspect - Hopefully I’ve convinced you by now that you are not going to make the next big hit movie shooting DV with your friends and editing on your iMac.  And also, I hope that I’ve convinced you that its still worth doing regardless of the fact that you aren’t hitting theatres anytime soon.  How do you go about making sure you build the most momentum towards achieving your real goals in your filmmaking career?  Well, as I’ve said, the persuit of a perfect film is a fools errand…but that doesn’t mean you can’t be perfect in one regard.  Make at least one aspect of your film really stand out.  Ok, so maybe it doesn’t have the best acting…but maybe you have the skills to make the cinematography really wow the audience.  Maybe you know someone with an epically beautiful location that you can use to make your little movie seem larger than life.  Maybe you and your friends are black belts in karate and you can put together a killer fight scene.  The idea is that you want at least some aspect of your film to really stand out.  Lets say you do put together that killer fight scene.  Maybe you will never make another film again, but you and your friends are noticed at your film festival premiere  by a producer looking for a stunt team for his next action flick.  Two years down the road you are now a professional stunt and action choreography team.  Maybe not the goal you were chasing in the beginning, but certainly not a bad result.
8. Nail one scene - Make at least one scene in your film really highlight the one aspect that you want to show off.  Maybe you need to expand the fight scene and make it more epic.  Maybe you can do one scene as a single continuous take to show off the skill of your actors and your direction.  Above all you need one really solid scene that you can use to show off your talent in the future.
9. Make a badass trailer -Without a great trailer no one will want to see your film.  The secret to a great trailer is to build curiosity…and on that note, stay tuned for my upcoming article:  Thirty seconds to a successful film: How to make a good movie trailer.

Warning: Listening to ’so called’ experts could destroy your film career before it even starts.

Are you constantly searching the internet for advice on how to make your own movie?  Do you find tons and tons of “expert” advice that doesn’t seem to lead you anywhere?

Does you movie career seem to be stuck in neutral?Regardless of where you want your film career to go, sometimes it can seem impossible to break into the business.  How do I get noticed by the studios?  How do I get Scarlett Johansson to return my calls?

I think that is when most of us arrive at the following conclusion:  I have to just make my own movie to showcase my talents.  After all, what better way to demonstrate your talents at moving making than in a real movie?

But I think this is also where most movie makers get bogged down, and your average internet filmmaking guru is absolutely zero help.

Lets take a look at the typical kind of advice that you seem to find floating around on the internet.

Good Advice that is actually bad for you

Here is the type of advice that sounds good on the surface, but ultimately has a very negative effect.  In particular, this is the type of advice I see coming out of a certain village of so called “experts”.

1. Hire a good DP/Assistant director/Gaffer/Editor/Composer
2. Pay the actors and crew.  Offer deferrals if you can’t pay
3. The camera is the most important piece of equipment.
4. Use storyboards to play your shoot
5. Continuity errors will destroy your film

What’s wrong with all of this advice?

The above advice isn’t wrong.  In fact, it’s almost all good advice on its own.  The problem is how seriously you take the advice.  Will you worry so much about these things that you ultimately won’t finish the film?  Lets go through these things one by one.

• Hire a good (insert crew member): Not bad advice, but chances are you might not know any good crew people, unless you’ve followed my advice to find top quality crew.  Furthermore, you probably can’t “hire” anyone, because the word hire involves paying…which involves the money you don’t have.  If you can hire professional crew, then more power to you, but don’t let the fact that you can’t hire someone prevent you from starting.  If worst comes to worst take six friends and assign them positions.  Teach them how to use the equipment if necessary.  Ultimately, a camera that is in focus and not over exposed is all it takes to finish a movie.  The only exception I would make, is that you should always find someone who knows something about sound.  I also recommend that even if you do hire a crew, make sure to keep the crew small.
• Pay the actors and crew.  Offer deferrals if you can’t pay - Absolutely pay if you can.  But I emphasize if you can.  Don’t let the fact that you can’t pay stop you from shooting your movie.  There is someone out there that will work for free, for whatever reason.  People need stuff for their reel, resume builders, or sometimes you might find someone like me who will shoot for you in exchange for using the footage in tutorials to teach film making.  Secondly, NEVER offer deferrals.  Deferrals have a way of ruining your life.  You will probably never pay them, but everyone will expect you to pay them.  Think about it…if a deferral actually entices someone to work for you, then obviously they must expect it at some point.  There are three things that end up happening:
  • You never pay - You never make any money on the film, so you never pay.  This only pisses off those people who expected to get paid.  More than likely they won’t work for you again.
  • You make just enough to pay - You manage to sell the film off, but the deferral costs have gotten so high that once you pay everyone you owe, you’ve made zero…or worse you might still owe a little to some vendor.  People will probably work for you again.  However,  they’ll probably expect you to pay upfront this time, and since you still don’t have any money you can’t.
  • You hit film making lottery and cash out big time - You premiere at Sundance or go to AFM and sell the film for 3 million dollars, pay back the investors, and pay back the deferrals.   Everything is great right?  Probably not.  More than likely its taken you a few years to accomplish this, in which time, all of the people you owe have written you off.  Now they suddenly hear about the huge sale you made.  They think about the big paycheck coming in the mail.  Only then do they see that compared to your $3 million, their deferral (which was probably scale or less) feels pretty small.  They feel like they were just as much invested in the film as you were….why do you get to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, while they only make a few thousand?  Believe it or not…this is more likely to happen when you offer deferral than if you just ask for free work.  The reason being is that if you offer a deferral the person feels like they haven’t been paid yet.  If they work for free, the work is done and they’ve moved on.  More than likely if they see the film they’ve worked on sell for $3 million dollars, they get excited and feel their work was worth something.  Now they might be famous…now you might call them and offer them a paid gig on their next movie.
• The camera is the most important piece of equipment - WRONG, WRONG WRONG.  That’s sort of like saying “The steering wheel is the most important part of the car”.  That’s not really true.  Yes, you have to at least have a steering wheel, but you certainly don’t need to spend $15,000 on the best steering wheel you can find.  It is extremely easy to get bogged down in trying to find the best camera.  You find someone willing to let you borrow a DVX100, and it seems like just the next day you see footage from an HD camera…and you think “The DVX is nice and all…but I want to shoot HD”.  So you spend six months that you could have been shooting with a borrowed DVX, raising the money to shoot HD with a Sony PMW-EX3.  Then by some miracle you find that money, but the same day you see some footage from a RED…and now the movie just won’t be right unless its shot on RED.  Gear mania is an ever escalating addiction.  There is always something a little better, and if you keep pushing for the best you’ll never actually start your movie.  The real truth:
  • Shoot with the best thing you can find - Just shoot with whatever you can find.  Whatever you can afford to rent or borrow right now is good enough to finish your film.  The simple truth is that an audience can accept bad looking video if the story is good.   If the story is interesting, even a web cam is good enough quality to keep people watching.  But no matter what camera you end up using the reality is….
  • Sound gear is the most important equipment - An audience will watch a web cam video if its good enough, but won’t watch an IMAX movie for ten seconds if the sound is terrible.  Bad sound is just too terribly distracting to ignore.  The the camera is the steering wheel of a car, the sound gear is the engine.
• Use storyboards to play your shoot - I’m sure you’ve watched tons of DVD extras where they show you all the storyboards from your favorite movies.  In the real world, story boards are next to useless for shooting the majority of scenes.  The reason - storyboards are static and linear.  You’ve movie is dynamic and will be shot non-linear.  If you are shooting a chase scene…then yes, story boarding is a great idea because the scene will probably be best shot in order.  However, if you are shooting a dialog scene you will probably shoot one characters part, then another character, and then a third character, and so on.  What will be 35 different storyboard frames might actually be done in only 3 separate shots.  Also,  unless you have meticulously measured every location and you are using a previs software like FrameForge3d, more than likely you’re storyboards will be extremely different than the real location.  More than likely only 3 out of every 100 storyboard frames will look anything like your finished product.  The only thing I would ever storyboard is linear action like a chase, or a special fx shot.
• Continuity errors will destroy your film -  They won’t.  Please stop worrying so much about them.  I can’t tell you how many sets I’ve worked on where the entire crew freaked out because no one was sure if they accidentally moved a cup on the dresser.  I’ve even been on one shoot where the director was worried that the pattern of a blood stain was different from one day to the next.  If you waste too much time on things like this, you’ll end up not getting all the shots you need, and may never finish the film.  The truth is most audiences don’t notice half of the stuff that is going on.  A movie audience wants to suspend its disbelief.  People want to believe everything you are telling them.  Check out Movie Mistakes.com to see just how many big Hollywood movies have mistakes in them.  So what should you be worried about?
  • The actor - The audience is looking at the actor.  If they are wearing a blue shirt in one shot, and suddenly wearing a pink shirt when you cut back to them, obviously people will notice.  Avoid things that are glaringly obvious.  Fortunately, this sort of thing will only happen if you have a long break between shooting, such as a scene that ends up being shot over several days.  Simply take some snapshots with a digital camera each time you go on a break, finish a scene, or wrap at the end of the day.
  • The unexplainable -  The audience will ignore, forgive, and forget just about anything that is even remotely explainable.  Does the actor jump from one side of the room to the other, with not enough travel time in between?  No problem, cut to a long take of a cat on the window sill and then cut back.  Most audiences will probably accept this without a second thought.   So the trick is if you find two shots that clearly don’t edit together, then you put some random insert such as something in the room, or a different actor doing something, and the audience will assume that the change happened during that time in between.  If it is reasonable that something could have happened (even if its a bit far fetched), while you the camera wasn’t looking…then I wouldn’t worry about it.

Now that I’ve gotten you thinking critically, tommorrow we are going to talk about The only film making advice you really need.

72 Essential Filmmaker Resources

Here are a ton of links to help you on your next movie.

Ten steps to raising $1 million dollars for your film

I’ve recently uncovered a really cool forum at FilmmakerIQ.  One of the posters there has an excellent forum post about how to raise money for a film.  You can check out the original post here.

I agree with nearly everything on the list with one exception.  Setting up your LLC in Nevada has some benefits, but it may not be worth it.  You have to have someone in Nevada you acts as an agent on your behalf whereas if you incorporate in your own state you can be your companies agent.  Also, you may miss out on some incentives that different states offer.  For example, where I live in Louisiana you can recieve a 25% tax credit on all spending over $300,000.    You can then actually sell that credit for cash.  But you can only get that credit if you are a Louisiana based corporation.

The Simple 10 Step guide to Post Production

So now you’ve got your film “in the can” as they say in Hollywood.  What do you do next?  Going into post production is often quite fun in the beginning but quickly becomes overwhelming.  It seems like there is always something that cant be fixed that needs desperately to be fixed.

One of the old jokes in film making is “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post!”.  I have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is nearly everything actually can be fixed in post.   The bad news is fixing things in post is expensive.  The even worse news is that with an inefficient workflow you can waste a ton of money fixing things  that don’t even need to be fixed, only to find you’ve wasted your entire post production budget on a set of shots you ultimately end up cutting out of the film anyways.

I can’t save you from having to spend time and money fixing things that truly need to be fixed.  It’s going to happen.  You are going to have a key scene where you don’t have a single take where the dialog came out clear.  More than likely you’ll find some edit that just doesn’t make sense.  There are probably at least a few shots that are way over or under exposed.  There is no getting around it…you have to fix it.

However, you absolutely must avoid doing work on footage that you don’t need.  You could spend a month color correcting a scene, adding ADR and foley, only to find that you don’t need the scene in the first place.  That is a waste of time and money.  To avoid this, you’re post production schedule needs to follow a logical work flow.

1. Sync Sound - The fist step in any post production workflow is to syncronize the sound if you didn’t capture the audio directly into the camera.
2. Assembly Edit - Put together a rough edit of the film.  This edit should actually be reasonably close to how the actual film will play out.  However, do not add any fades or transitions!  The reason you don’t want any fades or transitions is that inevitably the two clips you fade into one another will ultimately need two different color correction treatments.  It will be nearly impossible to adjust the color correction over the portion where one scene fades into the next.
3. Color Correction - Export the various clips and color correct each as necessary.
4. FX - Any visual effects that are necessary should be done at this stage.  After this you should have film that is entirely complete except for the sound.
5. ADR - Do the dialog replacement on any scene that needs it.  It’s best to have a professional do this, even if its just a guy with a home studio.
6. Foley and Sound Design - Your film should now have a complete dialog track, and  fit together as an almost complete film.    It’s now time to add atmosphere and feeling by putting in some sound design elements.  These are things like footsteps, dogs barking in the distance, crickets chirping, etc.
7. Score - Add music where necessary to highlight and enchance the mood of each scene.
8. Mixing - Have a professional mix all of the audio tracks.  I only recommend you do this yourself if you have a very in depth knowledge of EQ and audio compression.  Adjusting the volume on tracks is not enough.
9. The Final Edit - Go back and refine your edit adding transitions, fades, and more intricate cuts.  You should not be making large editorial decisions at this point, but rather just refining the pacing of the film.
10. Titles and Credits - Add the above the line credits at the beginning of the film, and build the rear title credits.

You are now beyond post production and into the marketing phase.  What comes next after this various quite a bit on your planned distribution medium.  You may want to have a 35mm blow up for festivals, or create a digital master.  You may want to begin designing the DVD menus.   Regardless of where you go next, congratulations, you now have a finished film.

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