Creating a Short Film 101: Pre-Production

Once you finish your script and you've had it looked at by other people, you start getting into pre-production. Pre-production is a pretty big topic, you are, to put it simply, preparing for production, the shoot. As a film maker, especially in the beginning, with short films, in a project of your own, its your job to get all the elements together and organise them.

There isn't any real order that this should be done, a lot of the time you'll have a bunch of things going at once. which is good. The trick is to get everything together for the shoot date.

What you become in the pre-production process is a producer, you manage people and spend a lot of time emailing and calling. If your budget is low, which is most of the time, you're also looking for like minded people. Get those involved that can see that your project will benefit them. Work with enthusiastic actors, proactive editors and cinematographers. People who you know want to be in the game just as much as you do.

If you don't have these types of people your project will suffer and it's only frustrating for everyone involved. Many of the types of people you'll need are:

Actors. Some of the time it's tempting to just get your friend or someone you know who did drama class in high school, or even yourself to play your roles. This can work, and sometimes is fine, but there people out there who have done acting classes for years and who have probably spent a great deal of time, effort and, not to mention, money doing those classes. Actors can make or brake your film, I'm sure you've seen it in other films. There are plenty of sites that will help you source actors, find them and use them. And most important of all, before you shoot rehearse with them!

Editor. Often a film maker can edit, you learn to cut video at high school, at home and then again at uni if that's the path you chose. But consider what a fresh eye will bring to the final cut. Also consider that as it's your 'baby' you'll want every scene, almost every take left in. An external editor will see a project completely different and possibly, if they know what they're doing, (of course they do, other wise you wouldn't have asked them) will give your scene continuity and depth, they'll really link it together without wanting that obscure shot that you love but, just doesn't work.

Cinematographer: Again, you can do this yourself, but film is about collaborating. A DOP will be able to talk about shots, framing and the right equipment to use. They could possibly think of something or a way of shooting something that you haven't thought of. Also if you don't have to be behind the camera, making sure the camera is recording, you can focus on performance and directing.

Director: Of course, you may not be a director, directing is a skill in itself, just like the other roles. If you want to just write and produce a good director will have good vision and scope for your project. They will be able to connect with the actors and understand where they need to come from to get into the role you've written. They'll also know what the cinematographer is talking about when they role off a bunch of equipment that they have or need.

Writer: As has been mentioned in the previous posts, you may have an idea but no way of writing or any idea about how to get it into the proper format. Writers are around and they can cost money or they can just be interested in getting involved. It's about finding someone proactive, someone, hopefully with a sample to show you, that will deliver, on time.

Producer. Another producer on your side is an enormous help, if you can divide your job and get someone else to organise things it makes your life easier. Even if its just organising rehearsal times, then you're able to focus on getting the right location. Location it almost a person in itself. The right location can give your film another character that most people won't even realise is playing a part. A producer can help in many ways and sometimes this person can be the director or cinematographer. Whoever it is treat them well.

VFX and Make-up. Depending on your story you may not need VFX on set, on location, but make-up is a good idea, someone to do the makeup and be onset to fix make-up or redo the make-up properly. If you do have VFX in script get someone who knows what they're doing. You can try and do the research yourself, but really, with everything else you're doing, unless of course, it's a hobby or interest, this is better left to someone to do for you.

Sound. An extremely important part of all films, including silent ones, is the sound. If it sounds bad, it looks bad. If you can get a dedicated sound guy to do your sound, get them! If they can do post as well, even better! Production sound and post production sound are very important, this can't be stressed enough.

It's a long post this time, a lot to cover. Yet the surface on this topic has really only been skimmed. Pre-production is sometimes longer than Post production, as you rely on other people to get back to you or to let you know somethings available on the right dates, you can be waiting a while and then you keep others waiting and it goes back and forth. But remember to keep everybody in the loop, let everyone know about any changes or updates. And of course have fun in the process.

Creating a Short Film 101: The Script

The idea is good the idea is solid. Now, lets write a script, a screen play. Hmmm... Well film is a visual medium, right. So, start with a good visual, then what?

To outline or not to outline, that, is the question. I've heard a lot of great writers say they always outline and I've heard a lot of great writers say the complete opposite, "I ever outline". Really, in the end, as a film maker you should have some idea about how your own head works. If you can't articulate this then at least there should be some inner sense of it.

Outlining can be great for one project, horrible for another. It may be that with an out line you reach your points to quickly and you've written the whole story in three pages. Or the outline restricts your creative flow.

Whatever it is the outline is never the rule, its just a guide. you may even find that the out line can be done in your head and that works much better. Having said/written that, don't be lazy about it. Everyone wants to get to writing the script, but often if you put the scripted page off and focus on your plot and characters even in a short film you'll have better material to work with.

For a short film you need to know where your characters are going, what they want to achieve. Is it the girl? Is it the boy? Is it the donkey? or gold or treasure of some sort, immortality? then you put obstacles in the way and raise the stakes with each step.

And you're done, all.. however many, short few pages of story. It's perfect, you can't find anything wrong with it. It's a master piece! You've even re-read it a bunch of times and fixed everything you think is wrong with it. No need for a rewrite, what is that anyway? I'll never need to rewrite this, BRILLIANCE!!

I'm pretty sure I've had these fleeting thoughts of ego from time to time, maybe every time. One really good trick to kill this bloated vision of your script is to read it out loud to someone. This, in itself, is harder than it sounds, who wants to sit there listening to you drone on, right? Whoever it is, make sure their not just going to tell you its brilliant and give you a false sense of security.

The truth is, no matter how good you think your script is the first time around, it will only get better the more you work on it. Unless, of course, you do some thing weird like change the characters names half way through for no reason. (Who does that?)

Writing is a fun process, so have fun when your doing it, it's never going to be perfect the first time. That's what makes it fun, your trying to make the best story you can.

Creating a Short Film 101: The idea

So, you want to be a film maker. So you think you want to make a short film first. And you have an idea. What is it? Is it a premise (A guy walks into a bar. He's the best speed walker around, someone challenges him)? A smash of genres you think will go well together (Horror/Romance/Doco)? or Do you just want to do some cool VFX ("imagine if a guys ass exploded with giant flowers that turned into DVD's and the discs were eaten by a bunch of cables and satellites" (this could almost be a premise, sort of.))? Do you want to make people laugh, cry, both?

Whatever your idea, it's got to be short. You've got to get it in under 20 minutes right? Some people may say you can make it longer, and you can if you want to, it's your film. But short films are short films, so don't make it too long. We'll come back to time later.

Essentially the idea has to come from somewhere. For example, in my current short film that we've just cast, I wanted to work on dialogue and, directing dialogue well, so that it sounds natural. But just putting a bunch of people in a room and filming the dialogue can be very boring. So I needed to think of a purpose for the dialogue. Have a group of people, they can talk, then what.

Well, I like thrillers, and I like horror, and I like sci-fi. So that gives my dialogue a bit of direction. I have my idea for a short film, a dialogue driven horror/thriller/sci-fi. I called my idea: Woody Allen meets Wes Craven. Because, like it or not, as a learning film maker, even as a pro, you look at other peoples work for inspiration.

Sometimes watching anything and everything is the only way to figure out what you do and don't like. I've had an idea of how I think something could be shot, independently of seeing something similar, then I've watched a film, an old one I haven't seen and there is the idea right in front of me. And I hate it, not because someone else did it first, but because I just didn't think it worked.

The spark of your idea is often the best part of the whole process, pure creation, it's all inside the head, your own little world of unlimited creation. Then comes the business of writing it down. Often an idea is hard to put into words, but the sooner you can do this the better off you'll be. Especially if you're not going to write the short yourself. You need to be able to express what you want to others. Writing it means you can say it out loud or send it in an email and still get the same message across. eg: "I've got this cool idea for a short film that would be cool, for you to write. Its like, um, this guy goes to this place and it won't take much money if you keep the locations easy and have only a few characters with this amazing idea".
"Ah, well, that sounds great! Send me an email"

As with the example above. Most people, film makers especially, will know what Woody Allen's films are like, even if they haven't seen them all, very dialogue and character driven. And even if you haven't seen many horror films, the chances are that you know Wes Craven for his Horror. It's simple really, it's your idea, but incredibly important, and most likely going to change as the film takes shape and more people get involved.

Creating a Short Film 101: Intro

As you may have noticed by the other posts in this blog, I have been making some films, short films. At the moment they're in various stages of production, the shelf, ADR, script development, the film festival circuit or casting.

With my current short, that's in casting, tentatively titled "The Nightmare Trilogies", working title only, I have decided to document the process and create a "making of" book. I enjoy these books, you can usually pick them up at amazon and they are generally quite informative. They'll have a full shooting script, production notes, director notes, story boards, sketches etc.

So with print on demand publishing and the low cost per book, if you don't get too extravagant, it seemed like a great way to show off/share the way I make films. Then I thought, why don't I tell people the way I make films through my blog, when the film is done the book will  be available to buy.

So we have; "Creating a Short Film 101" blog series. In the series I will share the film making process for a short film, which isn't really any different to a feature, there area just less scenes to organise.

Posts to expect:
The Idea
The script
Pre-production
Casting
VFX
Location
Crew
Production
Shooting
Post-production
Now What?
The Festival Circuit

There may others in between, things I forget or think of to share, short clips from a shoot or bits of dialogue from the script maybe.

The idea is that you guys read a comment on the post, let me know if it sounds good, bad, like, hate etc.

So come back in a couple of days for the first installment. "Creating a Short Film: The Idea" soon!

P.S. The pic above for a short, Sweet Farewell I produced and directed Iurgi Urrutia a very talented Film maker from Basque, who lives in Australia now. Check out the FaceBook page for the film and we'll keep you updated as to when there will be more screenings.

Bridesmaids and Comedy

Bridesmaids was written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, both two really funny gals with an acting background. I listened to a podcast, Q & A with Jeff Goldsmith, where he had chance to chat with Annie Mumolo about the whole process, her background and what it was like receiving notes from producer Judd Apatow.




It was really interesting to hear about how Wiig and Mumolo used rehearsals and even right up to the shoot days, while shooting to do rewrites. Based on the improve from other actors and ideas they also came up with on these days the girls would rewrite scenes and lines into the "shooting script".









As you can imagine some of the funniest material wold have come from the actors improvisation at the time of the shoot and the different talents bouncing ideas off each other.




With this kind of crude humour I thought that some of the jokes would have come across as bad taste if written by guys. It seemed though that many of the kinds of conversations that girls may have seemed all the more funny because they were coming from a female voice.




Wiig's physical presence on screen is great, I really enjoyed her "slap stick" stuff. The fountain of chocolate scene is gold. Mumolo has a cameo in the film also, she play the passenger sitting next to Wiig in the plane and for only a couple of shots, you really do remember her.









The comedic timing in this is cool, it's brilliant to watch Wiig deliver awkward pauses and really well timed punchlines. In the interview Mumolo said that Apatow encouraged them to push the story to places they may not have gone otherwise. This is important for other writers to take note of, well for me at least, as while writing it can be hard not to restrict yourself with action and dialogue.









If you haven't yet check out Bridesmaids it's worth a viewing and has a killer female cast, including Australia's own Rose Byrne who does a fantastic job. I'll never look at a bridal party the same again.

The Bank

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241223/

Above is the link for an amazing Australian thriller, that seemed to slip under the radar in 2001. From director Robert Connolly  who brought us such flms as Balibo and Romulus, My Father. And brilliant acting from David Wenham, Anthony LaPaglia and Sibylla Budd.

It is a thriller account the story of a young IT genius who is employed by the bank to create a program that can predict the stock market. The acting, cinematography and story in this film are all extremely well done.

They have just released it out on Blue-Ray so look out for the high def delight.

Shooting Short IV

Our short film has been shelved for a bit, but it'll be coming back to get a good overhaul in the sound department. After a long review and many times watching it, then showing it on Robert Connolly's big screen at Arena Films, it's been decided that we need to redo all the sound just to make it that much better.