Rosie Rosato and John Woods on the set of Cut Up.
| 1. INTRO | 2. FORMATS | 3. VIDEO | 4. SOUND |
| 5. GETTING STARTED | 6. PRE-PRODUCTION | 6A. STORYBOARD | 7. PRODUCTION |
| 8. POST-PRODUCTION | 9. DISTRIBUTION |
Okay, so you've decided you want to make a movie. Now what? You could start with a story or idea. Develop it into a script and/or storyboard and go right into production. Or, you could start with the available equipment and decide what kind of film you are able to make based on what gear you have or have access to, and come up with a story from there. You could start with what you want to do with the finished film and write the story and obtain the equipment after that. Do you want to make a theatrical feature? Go straight for a video release? Make an artistic statement for your own use? Enter film or video contests? Whatever you decide, you should have a goal in mind. My personal preference would be to start with your goal.
For the purposes of this article, I'm going to assume this is your first stab at the moving visual arts. I'm going to lump film and video into the umbrella of "film" to make this article easier to write and read. With that in mind, let's state the goal thus: "I wish to make a film that I intend to show to my friends, and perhaps enter into a few contests. My first project will give me experience and allow me to work into bigger and better projects." Fair enough?
Now that you have a goal, a few things fall into place. Your film will be short. This is because large productions are often unwieldy and you shouldn't be overwhelmed on your first attempt. Your choice of format is simplified a little. You can rule out 35mm, as it is expensive and not well suited to the beginning film maker. So what format do you use?
SUPER-8:Super-8 millimeter film was very popular in the 1970's and into the 1980's. At the time, film was cheap and plentiful. Virtually all of the cameras had automatic exposure control and many would also record sound. The cameras were, and still are, light and easy to use. Nowadays, film costs $15 to $20 for a 50-foot cartridge. Processing adds another $10 or so. At 18 frames per second (fps), the standard for super-8, 50 feet of film gives you 3 1/3 minutes of image. At 24fps, the standard for the larger formats (25fps for European films shot for video), you have 2 1/2 minutes. At today's prices, a 20-minute film can be rather expensive. The advantages of super-8 are its light weight, ease of use, and most importantly, the fact that it is on FILM. I'll discuss the differences between film and video later. One more advantage of super-8 is that the cameras can be had for very little money. The "professional" models can be in the thousands; but a look at your local paper will reveal more basic models starting at $10 or $20. Super-8 sound cartridges are hard to come by sometimes, so you probably don't need to get a sound camera. More on sound later, too.
SIXTEEN MILLIMETER: This is the standard for low-budget films, documentaries and film schools. Many television shows (e.g., "In the Heat of the Night", "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman") are shot on 16mm (actually, super-16mm. See below.). Virtually all 16mm cameras do not record sound. Some may be used with a sound recorder, and some may not. "MOS" is a term said to have been coined by crew working under a German director. He would call for a shot to be filmed without the sound recorder running. "Mit out sound!" or "Mit out sprechen!" The crew would write "MOS" on the slate and logs. There are "MOS" cameras and "Silent" cameras. Silent cameras are used when you wish to record sound (using a seperate sound recorder, discussed later). These cameras run quietly and have motors that run at a precise speed for sound filming. The speed of the motor is controlled by an oscillating quartz crystal like the one in a watch. A silent camera with a "crystal-sync" motor will set you back a few thousand dollars. MOS cameras have noisy mechanisms and so are not suitable for filming sound takes. They may be driven by any number of motors: "wild" or variable speed motors, constant speed motors (not accurate enough for sound takes), crystal motors, or spring-wound mechanisms. I bought an old spring-wound Bolex camera for $60. Add to that a parallax viewfinder ($25) and some sort of lens ($35) and you're ready to go for next to nothing! (I added a zoom lens with a reflex viewfinder for $300). Electric motor-driven cameras are considerably more expensive, starting at about $1000 for a Beaulieu R-16 with a battery and zoom lens, and rising to $100,000 or more for a new Arriflex SRIII with lenses and accessories.
Sixteen millimeter cameras can be almost as handy as a super-8 camera or heavy enough to be a pain without a crew. My Bolex was relatively light, but it is not capable of of sync filming. It also holds only 100 feet of film, so you can only shoot for 2 1/2 minutes without reloading. That doesn't matter though, because the spring motor will only drive it for about 28 seconds before you need to rewind. My Eclair NPR on the other hand, DOES have a crystal motor, and with its 400-foot magazine, can record for about 11 minutes. But it is rather heavy.
The advantages of shooting in 16mm are a better image due to the larger size of the medium, more choices of film stock, better treatment (versus super-8) at processing labs, and a more professional "look". The disadvantages are the expense of the equipment, the expense of the film stock and processing, and the weight and bulk of the equipment.
SUPER-16 MILLIMETER: Standard 16mm and super-8mm have an "aspect ratio" (the relationship between the width and height of the screen) that is the same as you television screen. Super-16 is a wider format. That is, if you show the full width of the image on a television screen, it will not fill the entire height of the screen. Wide-screen productions are shown on television in one of two ways: "Pan and scan", where action at the edges of the screen are shown by "panning" the camera making the transfer to video to cover the action; and in "Letter-box" format, where black areas are left at the bottom, or top and bottom of the screen. Super-16 has virtually the same aspect ratio of 35mm film. With the coming of wide-screen TV, many for-television productions are being shot to cover the wider format. Many 16mm cameras can be modified to super-16 for two or three thousand dollars.
THIRTY-FIVE MILLIMETER: Better just forget it for now. Way too expensive for a first project.
VIDEO:Ahhh, video! Cheap cameras, cheap tape, records sound without a seperate recorder, easy to view! Why would ANYONE want to shoot on film? Video lacks contrast. It lacks depth. It lacks that certain "look" that can only be captured on film. Why do you think dramatic television shows and sit-coms (as opposed to soaps and game shows, which are shot on video) are shot on film??? Commercials are shot on film. Movies are shot on film. One film maker wrote that he could have half a million dollars' worth of video equipment, and someone with a $100 wind-up Bolex could capture images that would blow his out of the water. And venues for publicly showing videos are somewhat limited. So why shoot on video?
Well, there are advantages. Mainly in cost, but also that video equipment is much more portable than film equipment. Being mostly plastic, it is much lighter. Convenience? You can pick up blank tape anywhere. There is no need to process the tape, so you can view it immediately after shooting it.
It may appear that I am biased toward film. Well, I am. But I also have a video camera. Realistically, if you're making your first "film", you'll probably want to use video because its low cost and ease of use. You can learn much about how to put a film together by using video. You can make as many mistakes as you want without worrying about how much money you're spending.
DIGITAL VIDEO: Digital Video (DV) is the latest technology in "filmmaking". DV equipment is fairly cheap ($3,000 to $4,000 or so) for a very capable unit. The Celebration, a Danish film, was shot using a one-chip DV camera and was transfered to 35mm for distribution. Lars von Trier also shot his award-winning film The Idiots on DV. The advantages of this format are the excellent image quality, CD-quality sound, virtually no loss of resolution when editing digitally, and lower cost compared to film. As of this writing (July, 1999) we are planning to shoot a feature-length movie in September, using a Sony DV-1000 three-chip digital video camera.
SOUND: Sound is something most people expect nowadays. There are a few ways of getting it. On video, of course, the sound recorder is built right in and the sound is put right on the tape in sync with the image. Super-8 sound cameras do the same thing, but the picture is some three inches away from the image. This is because the sound head on the projector can't be right over the aperture! Or maybe it's the other way around. Perhaps the camera was designed to accomodate the projector. In any case, when the film or video is played the sound is synchronous with the image.
But didn't I say that production cameras DON'T record sound? That's true. In order to record the actors you need a sound recorder. This is usually a Nagra 1/4" reel-to-reel deck with a motor that runs at a precise speed. Your crystal-controlled camera ALSO runs at a precise speed. Have you seen the slates, or "clap boards" and wondered why they do that? It's to sync the sound and the image! The film, running at precisely 24 fps (in the US. 25 fps in Europe) records the instant the sticks come together. The tape recorder, running at a precise speed, records the sound of the sticks coming together. The image of the slate and its sound are lined up on a synchronizer and since both the camera and recorder were running in sync their products are in sync.
You could also film a silent movie and add dialog later. This is tricky because you don't have a recording of how the actors sounded in the first place. If you DID record sound, often it doesn't turn out as well as you liked. Then you have the actors mimic themselves until their voices fit the images. This is called "looping" or "ADR" (Automatic Dialog Recording -- also Automatic Dialog Replacement and Additional Dialog Recording). Some people call it "dubbing", but that's really another animal.
Robert Rodriguez had almost no money to make "El Mariachi". He used a non-synch (MOS) Arri-16S camera and a tape recorder. He shot a take and then had actors re-inact the shot for the recorder! In post production he kept the pictures and dialog together as long as he could. When they got too far apart he cut away! Ingenious. It also brought him kudos for his fast-paced editing!
Sound effects or "foley" are added after the film is edited. The film is projected in a studio where the foley artists have their tools of the trade: sand and gravel boxes, shoes, sticks, celery... anything that makes a noise. When the actor on the screen is walking in gravel, the foley artist walks-in-place in his gravel box to provide the sound that will be put onto the film.
GETTING STARTED: The following paragraphs will deal with topics that may or may not apply to a "first film". You're probably not going to get it distributed, and it's probably not going to be feature-length. But the concepts are valid and I think they'll be useful. Given our goal stated earlier, we've chosen our format and camera (super-8, 16mm or video). But you can't go anywhere unless you know WHAT you're going to shoot! You need a script. Write the script before you do anything else. Don't buy equipment, don't hire actors, just write the script.
Traditional, linear stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning sets up the action. The middle is where the conflict is. The end is the resolution. More involved stories have subplots that are brought up and resolved within the frame of the major plot. Skillful writing will bring together the resolutions of all of the subplots in a crescendo at the climax of the movie.
The problem with traditional stories is that everyone knows how they run. This can be comforting, as in a romance story where, against all odds, the lovers live happily ever after; or it can be boring like too many Hollywood Movies. You may decide to do an "experimental" film. This is a story that makes the audience think. Often they are decidedly non-linear. Often audiences will find them too "obscure" to understand. Hey, this is art.
No matter what kind of story you are trying to tell, you have now written a script. (Some filmmakers dispense with the script and just have a storyboard. Either way you have the outline of the production.) A storyboard (click for example) is a good idea. This is a visual representation of the shots you want in the film. Major studios have Storyboard Artists who create comic-book quality art. If you don't have that kind of skill or money, you can use stick figures. Now the work truly begins. Which scenes can be filmed at each location? How many days will it take to shoot? How much is all this going to cost?
PRE-PRODUCTION: Now you know what you are going to shoot. You'll need to "block" out your shots. Go through the script and say, "All of this takes place in location A. All of this takes place at location B..." You'll want to plan to "use up" a location for all of your scenes at the same time. This is because setting up is a pain in the posterior. It will be much easier to shoot all the scenes if you already have the equipment there. It's also cheaper because you don't have to keep going back. (In case you didn't know, films are almost never shot sequentially.) Oh, you've scouted your locations, right? It would be hell if you had a major part of your project taking place in a library, and then couldn't get access to it!
Make a roster of what will be needed for each day of the shoot: Cast, crew, props, light stands, camera(s), food (it's customary for the cast and crew to be fed at the production's expense, even if it's only a pizza for lunch and snacks, coffee, water, etc. throughout the day)... Include everything and everybody that will be needed for a shoot. It's better to bring too much than too little.
So you have a script, a blocked-out script, a shooting schedule, a roster of crew, a roster of cast, and a list of equipment. How about a budget? List all of your expenses. All of them. Do you have to pay for a location? Camera rental? Salaries? Food? Props? Write it down. Don't forget post-production. You'll need to edit this thing, you know. More on post-production later. For now, suffice it to say that there are costs at the end that will need to be included in your budget that you are making now. Oh yeah, add 10% to 20% "contingency" to the budget to give yourself some breathing room.
Finally, have everyone sign a contract. The contract will state what is expected of the cast or crew, what compensation they'll get, terms of payment (if any), etc. You'll need Talent Releases too. This basically says "For compensation received, I (name of the actor) give my permission to (your production company) to use my likeness and voice in any matter for the production tentatively entitled (name of production)." You'll need to specify that they give you the rights to their sound and voice for use in the production, advertising, promotion, and anything else you may need it for. If you have investors, you'll need to have them sign contracts that say how and when and under what circumstances they'll be repaid. Payment on low-budget films are usually in "points", that is a percentage of the profits AFTER expenses. When you know how much this thing is going to cost, take 50 points for yourself and divide 100% of the expenses between the remaining 50 points. Example: If your budget is $10,000 each investment point will cost $200. In this example, each investor will pay $200 for each point he buys. If the film makes money, the investors are paid from the profits based on a schedule agreed at before-hand. You may want to include a stipulation that any profits will only be distributed for the first three years after the film is distributed. There are books about budgeting and selling films, and many books have sample contracts and releases that you can use. You should read those before you start. Don't forget to have musicians sign contracts too, so that you have permission to use their work.
PRODUCTION: The time has come to expose some film! Your starting point will be determined by the shooting script and the "blocking" you've made in pre-production. Get an early start. You'll need it.
Pack up your equipment and head out to the location. Don't be late. Cast and crew get impatient if you are. If you say the "call time" is 0700, be there at 0630. Or earlier. Make sure everyone else gets there on time too. An Assistant Director (AD) will be good for this. Set up all you can in advance. The crew should have things rolling by the time the actors arrive.
This might be a good time to mention that nothing ever goes as planned, and everything takes longer and is more expensive than you think. On one shoot in Malibu everything was set up, everyone was ready to roll, and then there were airplanes flying along the coast. There were constant holds for noise. (Incidentally, a good sound recordist is a must if you are shooting a film with sound.) What if there's a problem with the camera? What if laying dolly tracks takes twice as long? You'll be pulling your hair out by the roots! Tempers flare when people are tired. How do you handle this? Just take it in stride. As excited as you are when you've shot the first take, you'll be just as frustrated at the end of the project. How many films have never been finished because it all became too much to handle? Know that there will be frustration and delays and be prepared for them. Take a deep breath. Go with the flow. Try Yoga.
Be sure to keep a camera log and a sound log. The camera log will contain the production name, director's name, film stock, etc., plus the scene and take numbers and the footage used. This isn't critical with super-8 or video, but it helps. The sound log (if you're using a seperate sound recorder) will contain similar information. Film cans should have the film stock and production information. Tape the camera log to the can when you have put the exposed film into it.
Eventually, you will have filmed everything you'll need. Check the script to make sure you haven't missed anything. A Script Supervisor can help you here. Take still photos during the shoot. Not only will this help you remember how a person was dressed or where a certain prop was in a previous take, but they are useful if you plan to promote your film. In any case, there comes a point where you can say, "That's a wrap!" That's when you have the wrap party. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow comes the pick-ups.
"Pick-ups" are what you need if you missed something or if certain footage didn't turn out as you expected. Things sometimes have to be re-shot. Maybe you needed some footage that you didn't have time to shoot earlier? Pick it up.
Finally, all your footage is "in the can". Time for post-production.
POST PRODUCTION: You have a bunch of footage. What do you do with it? Edit it, of course! Edit the film and then send it to a distributor and wait for the cheques to roll in! Well, no. It's not quite that easy.
If you've shot sound, then you'll need to synch it up with the image (assuming you shot on film). Your processing lab can do this for you... if you provide them with the appropriate logs! Or you can sync it yourself. "Resolve" the 1/4" magnetic tape onto 16mm film (again, assuming you're using 16mm) that is completely covered with iron oxide. This is called "fullcoat" or "mag film". When you were shooting, you used a slate (see the pic at the top of this page) to record the image of the sticks coming together and to record the sound of the same. See the discussion on sound, above.
There are three ways to edit. You could use a "flatbed" or a "Movieola" and edit a "workprint" of your film and sound with splicing tape or cement. Or you can transfer the synchronized film and sound to videotape (BetaSP is best, although hi-8 will work in a pinch. You could use 3/4" as a "workprint" and then conform a Beta SP copy for the master) and edit on video using a video editing suite or on your computer. Or you can transfer your image and sound to digital and edit on a computer, outputting your finished product onto tape. Long and tedious hours will be spent cutting your film so that it's just right. Stick with it. You'll do it.
Film your titles and end credits. Make sure you include everybody. Many people will work for free if they just have their names in the credits.
You'll need to add sound effects, music, and maybe some dialog. I'd start with any dialog first. Have your actors come in to "loop" their lines. That is, they will watch themselves on the screen and synchronize their lines to what they're seeing. Do one actor at a time for the best results. Voiceovers can be added now as well.
Sound effects are done by the Foley Artist. Gunshots, footsteps, the sound of a fist hitting a wall... the Foley Artist (or just "Foley") will watch the film/tape and provide the sounds you need in sync with the images. You can do the sounds yourself, of course. On one early film we made, the actor is ripped in half by savage aliens. (Okay, so it wasn't a very nice film!) To get the sound we got a bundle of plastic forks and twisted them slowly. This made a nice wet-sounding effect that makes up for the lack of entrails in the image. (Hey, it was a really cheap production!) Be inventive. If you have access to a recording studio you can put layer-upon-layer of sounds together to create just the right sound for the image.
The picture is edited. The dialog is synched. All the sounds you need are in place. Now for the music. You have permission to use an artist's original work, you have contacted the music publisher for permission to use recorded material, and/or you have obtained royalty-free music from your local library. Carefully record the music in the appropriate places in your film to give it the feel you want. Music adds greatly to the drama (remember the shower scene in Psycho). Keep the music, foley, dialog, etc. seperate. Although they will all be together on the finished product, it will make it much easier to "dub" into another language should you go for international distribution.
DISTRIBUTION: If your project is not "just for you", and even if it is, you'll want people to see it. Let's say you have a feature film and you want to make a little money off of it. You can self-distribute if you want to, but most people get a distributor. The distributor will take your master copy of the film (usually a film print, 1" video, or Beta SP video) and try to sell it. They will handle duplication, cover design, advertising and so on. Of course, they'll want to be PAID to do this! If you can make a deal where you get 20% of the NET preceeds, you're doing pretty well. Occasionally you can get a better percentage if you pay out-of-pocket for certain things; for example, slipcovers. Some distributors will obtain your film but they won't be aggressive selling it. They'll tie up your film so you can't sell it to another distributor, and at the same time they'll be "too busy" to sell it themselves. This tactic may be used if they decide they want out of the contract. If they piss you off enough you'll want to let them out of the agreement and shop your film somewhere else. When you deal with a distributor, expect to be boned. No Vaseline. If you're project is REALLY GOOD, you'll have a better chance of selling it. Even if it's not so good, it may fit a niche in the market. If your film is good enough to win a few awards at festivals or it obtains some sort of notoriety, then distributors may be battling each other to give you the best deal. What it comes down to is this: The distributor wants to make money. He's not there to promote your fabulous film because he believes in you as an artist. If you have a good product you'll probably find a distributor who wants to carry it and it will be profitable for BOTH parties. (And your investors, and cast and crew if you paid them with points.)
THE END: I'm
tired
of writing. I hope this brief overview of the filmmaking process has
given
you the information you need. If you have any questions, you can e-mail
me and I'll try to answer them as quickly as possible. 
Now go make a movie,
