Digital Film Production Tips To Help You Shoot Like An Experienced Filmmaker
No amount of free filmmaking software is going to help you learn the ins and outs of digital film production. How many people out there have had a friend or relative with a digital camera and free digital editing software show them a terrible movie they made? The screening is usually in someone’s living room. Friends and family gather around eating movie popcorn to show support. Nobody says it while they watch, but they are thinking, “what a POS.” When the end credits mercifully appear a few people will offer up half-hearted words of support.
Digital film productions that looks amateur should be kept to homemade sex tapes and cheesy wedding videos. Owning some digital film production software and gear is not going to help if you do not know how to use them like a seasoned indie filmmaker. Putting in extra time and effort to grasp the basics of digital film production will make your movie a whole lot more entertaining. As with life, the more you put into learning a craft the better you become at it. Stick with me as I pass along to you some cool digital film production tips that can help you be a more savvy filmmaker.
It makes no difference if you plan on making your movie with a iPhone, Red One camera package learn how to sue them before you go into production. An absolute death blow scenario is to start learning how a camera works while you are shooting your movie. You will piss off cast and crew causing them to put in so-so efforts in front and behind the camera. Technical problems will happen and are forgiven while they are fixed. You not knowing how to operate the camera will not be forgiven. Your cast and crew as much as they liked you before will turn on you. Even if you are not paying them a dime respect the value of their time and come in prepared on your end.
Indie filmmakers I know use filming locations they have full access to. A good move is walk through your locations with screenplay in hand to decide where the camera shots will be. In movie talk this is where shot sheets and storyboards are born. A shot sheet is a sequential list of where the camera will be as a specific scene is filmed. It’s like directions to get to somewhere. In this use the somewhere is the completion of the scene. Storyboards run along the same lines, but they use images. It is smart to know where your movie is visually headed or it might not get finished or worse be a POS. Using a shooting road map gives you more options to be creative with your filming because you know where you are going and not saying, “where do I go from here?”
If it all possible rent, borrow, or buy an external shotgun mic to make your movie. Poor audio will turn off viewers quicker then rabbits make love. Two mistakes some rookie indie filmmakers make is overlooking where the mic is positioned and possible audio problems at shooting locations. It is truly amazing how much smart mic placement adds to crisp and clear audio recording. A decent shotgun beats only using a the built-in camera mic any day of the week. A shotgun mic gives you freedom of movement to zero on that sweet audio spot. On one movie shoot we started off capturing audio using the shotgun as a overhead boom, but discovered booming from underneath worked a lot better. The sound operator went from using a step ladder to lying on their back.
No matter how interesting a location is let it go if you are facing audio problems. Avoid train tracks, airports, and busy city streets if you want to record clean dialogue. True indie films cannot afford the budget costs of using automated dialogue replacement (ADR) to replace stepped on dialogue. When you are at a location plant the mental seed that the audio captured then and now is what you will have in post production editing.
I could only go over a small part of digital film production in the brief time you stuck with me. I would not bet my life on it, but what you have picked up has already elevated your chance for making a successful movie. If you can this far then join the list for Movie Biz Coach. I will be a regular contributor letting you know what worked and did not work for me from screenwriting to getting movies distributed around the globe.
If all you want to do is make personal sex tapes, bad wedding videos, or movies that stink this where we go our separate ways friends. Sid Kali signing off.
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