TIPS FOR FILMMAKERS
WORK WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT. Don’t write a movie that you don’t have the resources to make.So… no giant battle scenes, no guys riding elephants, no high-tec special effects. Play to your strengths. There’s probably something unique that you or your friends have access to that you can use in your movie. If your dad has a tractor, write a movie around that. If he doesn’t, don’t.
STUDY FILMS. A lot of the mistakes that young filmmakers make could be avoided if teenagers actually just paid attention to their favorite films. Pick a movie you love and watch it with the sound down; look closely at the camera angles, the editing and the lighting. Watch short films on Youtube orvimeoand see how an effective story can be told in five minutes. You won’t be able to match the production value of these films—and you don’t need to, anyway—but oftentimes the craft of good filmmaking doesn’t cost any money. You just have to actually watch films.
KEEP IT SHORT. Don’t waste time on non-essential scenes. Your film MUST be 10 minutes or less.
DON’T NEGLECT THE BASICS. Audiences will forgive a lot of technical flaws in your film if your story is compelling, your actors are engaging or your jokes are funny—but there’s still a threshold point where the technical mistakes start to get in the way. That point is usually when they’re no longer able to clearly see, hear or follow what’s going on. So get to know your equipment, and practice with it. Learn the basics of shot composition. Do your best to record quality sound (use an extension mic on a boom), and if that’s beyond your means.
GET ORGANIZED.Start filming EARLY. Organize your time and start scheduling everything as soon as possible. You will probably have to re-take a lot of your shots, and good editing takes a lot of time! For a 10 minute film, you will probably spend 10 hours organizing, preparing, and writing the script, 10 hours filming, and 10 hours editing.
THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS. Make sure you are paying attention to details. Can you hear the person speaking? Is there lots of background noise drowning out everything? Would adding music make the scene more dramatic? What type of music would be best? Can you down load sound effects? Is the lighting good? Are there lots of bad shadows? Can we see what the characters are doing or are they too far away or moving too quickly? Are you always shooting from the same camera angle? Try shooting from a ladder, from the ground, zoom in, pan, from a moving car, close-ups, etc.
SCREENPLAY.Your film should probably be basically 3 acts:
part 1: Establishing Stuff (introduce characters and set up story)
part 2: stuff goes bad (the meat of the story)
part 3: what happens to stuff in the end (wrap up story)
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