So, You Want to Make a Film?

Today guys, I thought I'd lend to you some tips and tricks in terms of film making that I've learnt over the years at university. I am highly aware that I have no real authority in film making that I can be telling you the do's and don't's, but I can tell you that I've made a lot of mistakes over the years (a lot), so I can tell you what I've learned from those mistakes and hopefully save you a bit of pain in the meantime.

As a canon owner I feel slightly traitorous posting a nikon.

Firstly, and I cannot emphasise this enough, is that audio trumps video. Your image quality could be amazing, so sharp and crisp and clear and so on and so forth, but if your audio quality sucks, then you're in trouble. Peoples eyes can take a bit more torture than their ears can. If I'm watching a short film and a character opens their mouth to speak and I cannot make out a word their saying, either because it's too quiet or muffled or static-y or whatever, my enthusiasm to continue watching said short film plummets by about 3000% in the space of 0.2 seconds. Same with audio being out of sync with the video, which is an unforgivable sin in my opinion - because it's not enough for me to stop watching whatever it is that I'm watching, but it is enough for me to sit and be irritated beyond belief. Sync your shit!

If you need to choose between camera quality and sound quality, it is sound all the way. I know that most DSLR's have internal microphones, I know mine does, but do not rely on these for all your sound recording needs, an external microphone is definitely something you should get your hands on. This is why I love it when we get assigned a filming exercise which doesn't require particular focus on the sound; like this week was setting a film to a piece of music, so all the audio that has been picked up by my camera will be deleted and it's not something we have to worry about. For filming your audio, I would recommend getting silent noise (I've forgotten the technical term for this, sue me), which is where you film something where nothing is happening so that you have some sound that you can loop for when you don't need any sound in a scene but maybe noise, like people talking or something, has been picked up in the background.

It says, "shot", "location" and "description of
the shot".

Whilst talking about sound this will lead me nicely into my second point. If you are doing a shoot which requires people to be speaking, have a script. Always have a script. Even if it's an interview, have interview questions. Don't just say to your actor, "Oh, make it up." because it'll sound forced and unnatural and they'll probably come up with something you're not happy with, but because you don't have a script to refer to, you don't have anything better to tell them to say. So have a script ready, and when you're sitting down to write your script, you know what else you should do? Yes, you do, because you looked to the left of the screen and saw the picture of a shot list. Make a damn shot list okay. Trust me, shot lists are going to be your saviour. Making a film is long and you're going to take a lot of different shots of the same scene, and you're going to forget which scenes you've already done and which scene comes next. So always have a shot list to hand which you can refer to. It just makes life so much easier.

Obviously when I was in first year, I thought shot lists were an unnecessary waste of time and a source of stress that I did not need pre-shoot and if I could, I would travel back in time and slap myself whilst shouting, "Write a fucking shot list! It takes two seconds! Do it!". Before you even get your hands on a camera and start filming, shot lists make you think more deeply about your idea and how you see the scenes coming together, which makes you realise that certain things may not work - which has happened to me before, but only once I'm in the editing suite, which at that point it is too late to rectify, which meant it was time to get very creative with the editing. Shot lists just make things way more organised on the day and will save you so much time and stress. Speaking of time:

Now it's all a tiny SD card.

Shooting will always take longer than you think; and you will always have way more footage than you think you will. If you estimate a shoot will only take about an hour, plan for two. If you think it'll take about half a day, you better clear your schedule for the entire day, or else you're screwed. Because things come to light when you're filming that would not have come to mind when you were developing ideas - it's not until you see the shot through the camera that you realise it doesn't look right. So now you have to change it, and this'll happen a lot. Setting up between scenes also takes a long time, especially if you only have one camera, one tripod and one microphone, which I'm assuming is the type of equipment you're working with, because if you have access to multiple cameras, multiple camera operators, extensive equipment and such, then why the hell are you reading how to shoot a film written by a university student? Get your life together. Anyway, yes, so things will take longer than you realise, because it's only when you take into account the fact that you may have to collapse your equipment after every shot and set up again before you start filming again, the time adds up - don't even get me started on changing locations. Next, you will have more footage than you think you do.

Never have I come away from a shoot without enough footage to fill the space. Of course I've thought we wouldn't have enough footage - at the end of first year, we had to film a three minute film and due to various different reasons, things didn't exactly pan out the way we hoped. Actors dropped out last minute, we thought we had more time than we did and we didn't really have an idea solidified the day before filming. So we had planned to film over two days. We filmed on the first day what we thought would be the second half of the film, but lo and behold, we get to editing it and find we have far too much material for three minutes. Couple this with the fact that we were planning to film even more the next day. So be strict with what you film, and don't be afraid to cut stuff. Even if you really love a particular shot, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Be brutal.

The dead eyes, the soulless smiles. Must be students.

So that wraps up our session over here in 'Rhona pretends she knows what she's talking about'. Hopefully these will help you on your way to making your very own short films and hopefully they'll minimise any pitfalls you may stumble into. So my laptop is about to die and I need to go to bed as I'm up for work tomorrow(today, as it'll be Saturday when this goes up). Remember when I didn't work on a Saturday? Yeah, neither do I.