My friend and collegue Donny just wrote an article on Adding Value to your DIY film. In it he covers some common mistakes director’s make when doing a no budget film, and how to add value to your film by avoiding those mistakes. His article inspired me to write a bit about production value.
First off…just what is production value? It’s one of those buzz words we in the indie world like to throw around, but rarely do we define it. I would define production value as those elements within the film that make the film appear (whether it is true or not) to have been shot on a high budget. These can be anything from a nice car, to a building exploding. A film with high production value is one that the audience looks at and thinks its a big hollywood movie. A film with low production value is one where the audience asks, “Did this kid film this in his backyard?”.
Most of you guys reading this article probably don’t have alot of money to make your first films. So in your case, ‘production value’ achivied through creativity and hard work, not through throwing money at the problem. So lets cover a few ways to add production value.
Donny’s article already covered wardrobe, locations, and acting so make sure you read his article. Those three things usually aren’t too hard on your pocket book, but make a huge difference. Instead, I have a few tips more on the technical side of things
Ways to add ‘production value’ to your film
- Smooth Camera Movement – There is nothing like a smooth tracking shot to add both production value and emotional context to a scene. Handheld Stabalizers and dollies are the tools of the trade here. Unfortunately, high quality tools come at a high price…but fortunately if you search around the internet you can find ways to build these devices for a fraction of their usual cost. I’ll make sure to add some tutorials on building such devices in the near future.
- Sound (vocal) This is not so much a way to add production value, as it is something to prevent you from completely destroying your film. Bad sound is absolutely unforgivable. If you find yourself with bad sound and no way to fix it, go back and completely overdub everything in post (I’ve done this…its not fun, but the final product is worth it).
- Sound DesignYou typically only need to capture sound when you are recording dialogue. For everything else (and even when you have captured dialogue), there’s sound design. Sound design is building, from scratch of many tracks of audio to emulate the sound that would really be there if the scene were happening in real life. The first and most important rule is consitancy of the audio levels. If there is a refrigerator humming while one character is talking, when you cut to the next shot of a second person talking…that refrigerator hum better match up. If it doesn’t, it instantly breaks the audiences concentration. Most field audio engineers believe its good policty to capture at least 2 minutes of “room tone”, i.e. the sounds of the room while completely silent. These room tone tracks can sometimes save your life when it comes to editing. In addition to consistancy, sound design can include big effects, like gunshots, glass breaking, or other things that occur prominently on screen. If that weren’t enough, you may also want to add mood enhancing sounds. These are enviromental sounds that give an impression of the mood of the scene.
The best example I can think of offhand is in the remake of War of the Worlds. When the first big hit of thunder booms out, everything goes quiet…except you can hear a dog barking what seems like blocks away and the backyard gate creaking. What is odd is that these sounds make it seem more quiet than just keeping a silent track would, because it gives you the impression that everything is so dead silent you can hear little sounds from far away.
- High Angle Shots – Getting the camera up in the air isn’t the easiest of tasks, but it certainly shouldn’t have to cost you much. There are several inexpensive jibs and cranes on the market that yield excellent results for smooth moving crane shots. And at the very least, I’m sure you can find a ladder to stand on to do a static high angle shot (becareful and have a spotter when doing so please)
- Proper ExposureIf your camera has a zebra stripe setting, its probably a good idea to turn it on (unless you are a pro and can work with light meters…but if that’s the case you don’t need my advice on this topic). A digital camera has a limited dynamic range…the range of how light and dark that it can see. Make sure you have adequate lighting so that you can see your subject matter…but also make sure that your background isn’t blownout (that super bright white that you tend to see on videos taken in sunlight). Always avoid the blownout look…it just screams amatuer video. I personally think its better to be slightly too dark than too light. When shooting outside this can be especially hard to avoid. Bounce as much light as you can onto your subject using reflectors. Also, another great tool is a circular polorizer. It’s a filter that fits over your camera lens, and like polorized sunglasses, it cuts down glare, and tends to make the sky look more blue…as well as cut down a bit on that washed out brightness.
- Color Correction In post, be sure that you have a consistant color pallette, and adjust your gamma curves. If all that sounds greek to you, then don’t worry…I’ll put out some articles on doing this as well soon. But basically, play with the colors in your editor or compositing software until you get something that looks good, and then make sure their is consistancy of colors throughout each scene and the entire movie. An actor’s red shirt should appear the same color red in every shot in a scene. Red isn’t just red…there are infinite varieties of shades and saturations you can play with. The color may appear slightly different from scene to scene (say for example you have a scene that is very blue because the actor is in a night club). However, even if you change colors from scene to scene, you don’t want to be skipping wildly through different shades of color for no reason. If the colors are ‘warm’ (saturated reds or yellows) it says something about the scene, or if they are cool (bluish), it says something different. Unless their is a total reversal of mood, your colors should not shift that much. This is one of those things you never notice when its done right…but when its not done right it shows bigtime
Keep these tips in mind when you are producing your next feature and you need that high dollar look, without the high dollar price.