When you are making a low budget movie, it is important to realize that not everything is going to be perfect. You may have a vision for how you see your film, but if you’re not willing to compromise, it is unlikely that you will were be able to finish anything. Instead of [...]]]> 1. Never Compromise!

When you are making a low budget movie, it is important to realize that not everything is going to be perfect. You may have a vision for how you see your film, but if you’re not willing to compromise, it is unlikely that you will were be able to finish anything. Instead of giving up, use your creativity to come up with acceptable compromises and workarounds for your problems. It is your creativity that got you here, and it is your creativity that will allow you to finish it.

2. Fix It in Post

A common joke in Hollywood is to use the term “we will fix it and post”. It is very easy during filming to settle for bad sound, or other mistakes, and assume that they can be fixed during post-production. However, once you get into post-production, you will most likely hate yourself for making those decisions. Take the time to do it right the first time, or you could waste hours of your time trying to “fix it and post”.

3. We Are Friends, We Don’t Need Contracts

It is easy to partner with your friends to make a movie, but a common mistake, is not getting things in writing. I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard about film makers who have had falling outs with their friends, leading to legal nightmares during distribution. Before you shoot anything, always make sure that everyone is in agreement about their involvement, and get it in writing. If you don’t, be prepared for trouble down the road.

Original source and author from James Sosa‘s articel

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Stage 1: Planning The first stage of making a movie is centred on getting the film developed as much as possible before you start shooting. Substantial changes during shooting are expensive and disrupt continuity, or worse can result in a discordant and messy film. Good planning means that when you start shooting you go through a [...]]]>

Stage 1: Planning
The first stage of making a movie is centred on getting the film developed as much as possible before you start shooting. Substantial changes during shooting are expensive and disrupt continuity, or worse can result in a discordant and messy film. Good planning means that when you start shooting you go through a smoother process. You will encounter surprises and have to make changes here and there, but planning means you encounter more of the right sort of surprises and know how to solve the less welcome ones. The aim is to let your ideas grow and develop to a point at which you know every aspect of the project better than anyone else. You know the relative significance of each part of the story, the kinds of motifs and ideas that are running through it, and the kind of atmosphere that is to dominate.

In a sense, when you commit your ideas to paper you are taking them out of the comforting darkness of the imagination, where you don’t notice the loose ends and rough structure of a film, and exposing them to light. Some aspects of your ideas survive, some don’t, but it is better that the project changes now than later. Work on paper is cheap but work on film is expensive. An hour of scriptwriting can save you a day of shooting and a week of editing later in the process.

Visual blueprints
In planning your film you will make detailed written and visual blueprints of how the film will look and sound from the first to the last moment. Step 1 involves a written outline in the form of a short story. Even if your film does not rely on plot at all, you need basically and simply to write down all the scenes that you envisage in the order that you think they may occur. Getting to that stage may involve noting down all the elements of the film and producing several different versions of an outline. This rough draft we can call a treatment. Following that, you will produce a range of material which will trace the steps you take as you develop and grow the film.

Early visualizations
If you have ever found yourself doodling with a pen and paper then you will have some idea of what this stage of work involves. To some people what you draw when doodling is a true reflection of the natural inclinations of your mind; some people draw closed-in little boxes, tightly stuck together, others draw blossoming spirals or crystal-like structures. It doesn’t take a certificate in psychology to work out the meanings of the things we find ourselves drawing; what you are doing is reflecting the current inner architecture of your thoughts, not the thoughts themselves as such but the shape they take. Whatever your doodles look like – dark and angular, bold and bright – these can be viewed as potential design notes for a film. Of course, this is only relevant if you are determined to find and display your own personal world view, as opposed to following the needs of a client or audience focus group.
In a practical sense, what you are doing when drawing visualizations is a long set of small sketches, perhaps each the size of a cigarette packet. Each one is a quick outline of a possible scene from the film.
These are drawn in no particular order, but the order you draw them does say something about the relative importance of each to you. Each sketch should be quick and uncomplicated, showing the main elements in the shot and hinting at the kind of light in the frame. The aim is not to correct them or judge them in any way until you’ve gone through the whole exercise, with as many frames as possible on paper. Following this, you can then start to group your sketches together and compare the overall style of each frame.

Storyboard
The storyboard is used to explain the detail of the visual side of the film to a crew and allow those people working on a film to plan essential equipment and work schedules effectively. Working on a low budget with just yourself and a few friends does not excuse you from this process; it offers a chance to refine both the look and structure of your film and pare it down, stripping it of elements that divert from the idea, making it a project that fulfils the specific aims you had in mind right at the start.
In preparing a storyboard, you will draw frames on one vertical column of the paper with corresponding dialogue, notes or sound written next to it. This document is the most detailed visual and written description of the whole film, the single blueprint that you try to stick to throughout the shooting process.
Although storyboarding was rigidly adhered to by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, for the most part it is simply the most accurate plan you have at this point, ready to be challenged and altered during filming.

Script
In films where you have a story, a script is going to be the only way to prepare it and iron out the inconsistencies. Even in films where there are no speaking roles you may find it useful to prepare a script showing only director’s notes, as it gives yet another opportunity to hone your idea, add to it or subtract.
The importance of each stage of planning is relative to the sort of film you are making. Abstract,
theme-based movies will demand more consideration of visual aspects, while character studies with intense dialogue will need more attention paid to the script. All films, however, need to go through an intense period of planning in order to emerge fully formed before a camera starts showing up the faults.

Stage 2: Shooting
Shooting is to some a time where the film takes on a whole life of its own, to others a simple regurgitation of a paper storyboard. In practical terms, it seems simple enough: plan out a series of shots, go and shoot them just as you planned on paper, tick off the scenes one by one and go home. In an ideal situation this is more or less what happens, but since this is an art form it is natural to assume that the creative process continues throughout the project, through planning, shooting and editing. So, you should expect to encounter obstacles and temptations
along the way. Obstacles in the form of challenges to your plans and temptations in the sense of other seemingly better ideas that come up, possibly deviating from the original one. Great planning for a film is about giving you the confidence to know your idea inside out, giving you the commitment to get round problems and the confidence to know the good from the bad when new ideas come up.

Photo proprietary from www.teamworkcinema.com

Another important point to realize about filming is how nothing ever works out the way you imagine it will. Every good filmmaker needs to have a plan B available constantly, followed by C and so on.
When working on a low budget this is more likely because you have to rely more on goodwill, on people helping you out and lending you equipment. But you will also find that a shot that looks perfect on paper just isn’t possible for real. You may want the bank to be seen from the telephone box and it may be really crucial for the scene, but when you get there it becomes obvious that that tree in full leaf is going to get in the way. The answer is improvisation: the ability to think fast and clearly on set so that you stay on track with your plans, coming up with ideas that can solve a problem. If you don’t do this, your crew and actors will quickly realize there is a power vacuum and start arguing about the best way forward. So, plan to improvise.

Stage 3: Editing
Priorities
In editing a film you will add a further layer of development to the whole creative act as your footage – all those tapes accrued over days or weeks of filming – is cut together in a way which best resembles your plans. Editing brings your film out of the uncertainty that is the initial idea and out of the scramble that is filming. It is about order, priorities, structure, pace, timing, accuracy. But it is also about play spontaneity and creativity. Knowing how to place your clips in the right order is perhaps a triumph of instinct over expertise and, given the range of technical trickery on offer even in mid-level editing software, one of the hardest skills to learn is knowing when to stop editing. If you know what you want you are less likely to get side-tracked by the powerful influence of all that wonderful technology.

Skills you need
When you look back over the process of making your first production you may find that the skills you thought were essential to filmmaking – those centring on the technical aspects of the medium – were secondary to the more esoteric. Some filmmakers talk about the ability to remain both in control and open to new ideas; to negotiate your way through problems; to see all aspects of the process, however mundane, as having some creative contribution to the project, that nothing is purely technical; to think of a low budget as less a hindrance to realizing your imagination than a way towards doing so more artfully, more ingeniously.

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