MODVEC blog
This is where I ramble on about my views on filmmaking, the process, ideas, discoveries, what I've learned, etc. I'll put up a comment section soon.
Here's the most important advice for anyone wanting to make films. Just make your stupid film. Don't wait forever for the perfect actor--set a deadline. Don't wait for the "perfect" set or location; just rewrite your story. The message and controlling idea is the most important thing! I have too many friends who are still "pulling things together" to complete their film; they are years behind schedule. I'm on my sixth film, and each film I make sucks less and less! And now--finally--I got my first film into a festival, and I got sent that cool laurel wreath png file that I can plaster across my movie poster.
One of the best quotes about filmmaking--or any other creative endeavor--is "Professionals work on bad days". You want to make films because you have a calling, or just love the process, or whatever. But often it doesn't matter how much you love making films; sometimes you just don't want to work on them that day, or that week. Well, sometimes you have to just do it when it's the last thing you want to do. The ones who will only work on a film when they feel like it, or are inspired, or whatever, will spend the next years watching the completed films of the people who worked on them when the last thing they wanted to do is get up at six in the morning to spend the next 18 hours shooting, organizing, compromising, and pushing forward. So make your stupid film. Force yourself! It's like getting in shape or building a house. Make deadlines! Schedule film shoot days even if you don't have everything done--It will force you to complete your work 'cause you don't want to disappoint anyone.
PLAN PLAN PLAN
Storyboard every shot, not just the key shots. Draw the entire film as a comic. My second film, "American Ghost Story" had 1300 panels--not great drawings, but it was understandable enough so that I never arrived at a location with twenty people waiting for you and thought, "Okay, how am I going to shoot this?" You don't have to follow to the letter what you drew, but at least you'll always have a starting point for the shot setup that you can change on the set if you get more inspired.
Organize the camera placement! If you're doing a one camera shoot (and you probably are) then determine what shots of a multiple shot scene share the most proximate camera locations; then shoot the grouped camera proximity shots together to save even more time.
Once, for my third film "Jenny is Alone", we had to complete about 50 shots in a make shift "classroom", organizing 15 school kids and four costume changes for the leads--knowing we had only a few hours before we had to give back the room at the community center. We simply didn't have time to "figure out" the best place for the camera--we had to know where the camera would be so we could go through the shots as quickly as possible. So we storyboarded the entire film, "filming" it virtually on paper. We were able to get every shot we needed.
DO IT YOURSELF
Don't have millions of dollars? Then you're going to have to learn a lot of stuff. Most of it's really interesting.
Learn writing: It's all about the story. Write one. Have your friends tell you why it sucks, and tell them to be brutal. Or pick a really good short story for your first practice film--Something that excites you. Read "Story" by Robert McKee.
Learn directing: Get some friends and direct them in a short scene. Read theatre books about general blocking and cinematography. Read "Directing Actors" by Judith Weston.
Learn acting. Really, one of the biggest complaints that actors have about directors is that the they don't know anything about the thought processes of an actor. Your actors, and the story itself, are the most important things in your film. Get involved in community plays. Read "An Actor Prepares" by Stanislavski (There's a reason actors always talk about Stanislavski).
Learn filming: Take lots of pictures. Learn composition, the rule of thirds. Read books about cinematography, and see the amazing 1992 documentary "Visions of Light" in a theater or on a really good TV.
Learn editing: Use Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, etc. Film a short dramatic scene and see how you can change the tension, humor, and even the objectives and emotions of the characters just by cutting in different places. Read "In the Blink of an Eye" by Walter Murch.
Learn sound: You've probably heard it before that indie filmmakers can get away with bad visuals but never amateurish sound. It's true. Get a good shotgun microphone, practice recording dialogue. Listen to sounds at different distances and in different rooms, and learn a program like Soundforge to understand reverb, equalization and other sound processing so you know how to change a recorded sound to fit a scene. Use Garage Band or Cakewalk to get used to tracks and panning.
Learn visual effects: This is the key knowledge that can add a few virtual zeros to the end of your film budget and make it stand out from the other films (provided it's still a good story with great performances and technical competence). Buy books on Adobe After Effects and learn how to composite. Learn a 3-D modeling program like Lightwave 3D, and teach yourself how to composite in 2D and 3D with programs like Syntheyes so you can create virtual sets. Visual effects are fun, and you can use the visual medium of film to manifest ideas in a visually astonishing way as long as you always ground yourself in reality and don't go overboard with the effects. (More to come on that later.)
And remember: Never think you're an expert in anything; always be in a continual process of learning. Take advice from everyone; you will always learn more from brutal criticism than friendly compliments (although those are always nice). Know that, as an indie filmmaker, you sometimes have to settle with your own incompetence to complete a film.