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.

T-shirts on demand

http://kapow.spreadshirt.com/

This is a set of t-shirt designs I've put up through Spreadshirt.

It's a great way to be able to get your designs out there without ordering a whole bunch of t-shirts from a printer.

Drawing

I recently did this illustration on the computer, it has been a while since I had done any kind of drawing so I really got into it. I think it looks kinda cool. some of the line work isn't that well done, its obvious that I'm out of pratice.

A couple of days later I did this one, I don't think the textures quite work with the style though and I may return to it with the intention of colouring it a different way. Probably not.

Shooting Short III

I started doing a second short film, thinking that the script I wrote would be easier... little did I know, once you start something and it builds, twists turns and changes. I have just finished filming a the second project before the first due to location access, though it was a much bigger job. I intended it to be a simpler shoot, only two locations, house/apartment and a restaurant. First I rehears the script (a mate playing the girls part, always good for a laugh if you want one, men playing female roles with other men) out of the rehearsals came script improvements but also more scenes. Well then I got my hands on a brilliant location for the restaurant and I had to fill it, then I wanted a particular look which meant more time setting up for shots.

In the end, it worked out and the film looks good. It just shows, when you do short films you get a sped up, compressed version of the film making process, and it is glorious to witness. A small idea becomes a script, the script is brought to life in mesh of takes. Now you have to bring all the pieces that are floating there, out of order, in the hard drive and piece the best ones together as tightly and neatly as possible.

Here we go... Oh, some stills taken in between takes the middle one is of the crew that stuck around till the end.

Shooting short part II

So, I shot the first half of the short film I've written, it was a great day of shooting too. We started early to get the morning light and ended up having a consistent cloud cover for the rest of the day, so our light stayed even.

We got to work with a couple of actors, who are fairly new in the game, that did a fantastic job at playing their character's. One of which came on board last minute thanks to Mooregrace Acting Studio.

The great thing about shooting digital, we got to watch the "dailies" as soon as we got to a TV. Great fun!

Keeping consistent with my "resolution" to make it a year of film making, I've started production on the next short. As production is halfway done on this I don't want to stay idle for too long.

Next is a call centre scene, still trying to get a location that I'm happy with and a funeral home, same deal, location, I won't have too much of a gap, I am trying to get the film finished before April. A friend from Germany who helped with producing is going back to his motherland at the end of April, I wont to be able to send it with him.

These pics are two stills from the shoots. Rob our guy on camera, in charge of DOP did a great job, with a bit of post work from Chris (also one of the actors) they came up quite cool.

Story Time

OK, so I've been a bit slack and I'm a bit behind in my blog entries. What's the ratio, 28 days to make a good habit, 3 days to break it?Well, I'm not doing too bad.

I've got 5 stories together now, to go in my ebook for publishing, now all I have to do is illustrate them.

Title: The Aretalogus
1. The Prince in the Castle
2. The Heart in the Hand
3. Mirror
4. Brian the Centipede
5. The lady in the Shoe

So my next task in this little project is to do the pictures. I've put some of them up here, in previous posts, well, really those are more like production sketches. I may ad more as time goes depending on how it all goes.

One question: When its all finished, should I offer the ebook for free, ask for donations or charge a normal price?

Let me know what you think?

LA Confidential: Characters with layers

A film that illustrates a good use of character ark and character development throughout the action and story of the film is LA Confidential. The film allows its characters to look at themselves and reflect on their actions and moral standards.

The characters achieve a step by step progression on their journey, with only a gradual change allowing the audience to see the actors perform these subtle changes over the course of the story. The acting in this film is brilliant. When an actor can make the slightest of changes in their eyes and express so much in a scene without saying anything, you know you're watching a great performance.

Good cop, bad cop, postitution, corruption, racism, ethics, personal morals all feature heavily in this mystery. Written by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson (Also the director) and based on the novel by James Ellroy the characters in this film have layers, the story is intelligent and it is beautifuly shot, with a great look and smooth, tight camera work, the cinematography by Dante Spinotti.

Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey are all fantastic in their roles. They blow everyone else out of water in this film. They create so much dramatic tension in their scenes that you can only imagine how brilliant it would have been to work on the film with them. That is to say, that the other actor don't do a great job, because they do. James Cromwell is fantastic in his role as the antagonist which he does do very well. He's the quiet bad guy, who are always the most dangerous.

If you haven't seen this film, add it to your list and enjoy.

On Character

Talking about characters and writing in discussion and contemplating, how much of one character has a small part of the writer in it? How much of the views and opinions of the character are similar to the views and opinions of the writer. Some people my argue that a character is only an apparition of the writer and is based only on the imagination of the writer, their experiences and knowledge of people. Some may Argue that a writer can't help but put part of them selves into each character along with the people they meet and know.

Aren't some of the best characters based on people the writers knew? Or are the best characters ones that have been created with the restrictions of only the mind of the person doing the creating?

When writing a character who may be a lesser liked person by the other characters around them and the audience, is there something of the writer in that person? It has been said that a writer can't help but take from themselves when creating any character. So does that mean that when writing, the mind of the person creating must delve into the areas of their most unsavoury thoughts in order to bring out the most unsavoury character's.

Is a writer then deemed to be unlikable because people know the extent someone has to go through to then put together a fictitious being. Or could they be praised for there ability to create all different kinds of people and imagine there ways of thinking and being, whilst staying separate from their "real life" character.

Many people will love to watch or read about characters that do horrible things yet may be "freaked out" or "disturbed" when a friend may tell them about an idea for a story about a serial killer, saying with distain "how could you think of something like that?"

On characters and there portrayal by an actor, well, this is an art very different to writing. An actor may take a written character and ad to that character. Is the actor in some way inclined to be like the character they play? The actor takes an idea of a character and gives it life with personality and a face.

Actors sometimes give a lot, emotionally, to their roles and can really delve deep into the person they want to become in order to give a brilliant performance. Does that make them actually become the person or is it just someone they have to pretend to be, where they can distinguish from the character and their reality with out taking any of it across, either way.

Character, especially those with a less likable nature are loved and hated by many people. Sometimes they are based on real life people and sometimes they can be completely fictitious, does the writer or the actor put themselves into these types of character? Is there somewhere, deep down inside the actor or writer that is like the character they are designing? Maybe.

Characters can be shallow, indifferent, boring. The best characters have layers, writers and actors give them layers. Weather or not there is some part of the writer or actor in each character, all the time, is hard to say. Characters make a story interesting and make the action in any story mean something. Without anyone caring about the character, the action of the character doesn't mean anything.

Next time you read or watch something think about this discussion and how much of real people may be in the characters. What lengths do writers and actors go to to make a character most interesting?

Shooting short

I've written a few short films over the last year, all with the idea to eventually shoot them. Some are just small stories that wont go past their short film life, others are short films written with the idea that they will be made into feature films.

I've decide that it's been too long between films for me, so I set some dates to shoot one of these stories and I'm aiming to get everything together in time. I have no money for it yet, its never easy to get funding for short films, but if gets shot with no money then at least it gets shot.

A good team of talented, motivated people is the most important part. So far there are some really talented people getting involved in this project which is great!

I'm still looking for cast at this stage, but I have a few people in mind, we'll see how it goes...

The sort will shot at the end of this month and edited, coloured etc by the end of Feb. It'll definitely be up on the net for all to see when done. I look forward to the feed back.

On Writing

I found that there are many different books and opinions on writing. Structure, formatting, rules to follow, rules to break, more rules and rules you should never break, then you see or read someone breaking them.

The best rule, that seems to work across the board of formats and structures is: Always write for your audience.

This one seems the best to follow as, unless it's your diary, your always writing something that other people need to be able to at least follow.

That is to say, it's fine if your audience changes while in the "Creative Process" of writing. You may start writing a horror/thriller but instead it takes a natural progression into a romantic comedy. This is fine and a writer can often discover new and exciting stories by allowing this to happen. But always reassess who your audience is.

Is it mothers telling their daughters to see or read your story? Is it boyfriends dragging along their girlfriends to the film? Is it the other way around? Is it teens, tweens or little kids? Are you aiming at family's, couples (young or old)?

Keeping this in mind will often determine the action of character and the plot of your story. Does the protagonist kill the love interest? Does the love interest even exist? Most of the time yes, that's just drama for you... But is there going to be a fight scene with lots of blood and martial arts and swords? How old are your characters?

I have found it frustrating to watch, when a film doesn't know who it's intended audience is or if it's intended audience is quite specific, the action and characters don't fit or relate to the intended audience. The story doesn't work and the film is passed by.

Of course, as mentioned at the start, there are rules and rules get broken all the time. If you know your audience at least it's a good place to start.

Children's tales, grown up fables...

Regarding the stories I I've told my children: As I said previously, I've decided to right them down. I've realised that as I write them down they are less like children's stories and are becoming much darker. I might pass a few around and get other peoples opinions.

I've done a concept sketch for one and the scene looks much darker than the story really is. I need to work on it a bit more, change a few things. See below...

Yeah, really, way to dark... anyway, the end result will lighter. I might post the story here tomorrow once i get a chance to revise

The Heart in the Hand and stories for children

I tell stories to my kids at bed time, most of the time the tales star them, occasionally I create something, on the spot, that doesn't have them in it, rather, some other group of characters doing strange things and going on strange adventures.

So, I decide that I need to write these little tales down. Compile them in a group and illustrate them. It'll just be one or two pictures per story. Once they're all finished I'll publish them online for your veiwing pleasure or hatred or delight or disgust or facination or indifference...

The above picture may seem kind of violent when talking about children's stories. I do recall, though, being told about old women that eat little children and Queens that want to have heads roll off peoples bodies and evil witches putting curses on babies... So I think, maybe minus the blood and knife (don't get me wrong the stories I tell my kids aren't violent... not that much, really, at most PG rated) it will go quite well with one of the stories.

I'll keep you, ah, posted...

The Hunger Artist

I was watching Julie and Julia last night and Meryl Streep, in character said something that peaked my interest. "... we almost had our own Kafka experience..." (it may not be exactly that). I know the comic Automatic Kafka, illustrated by Ashley Wood, but I never knew what it meant. So, hearing that in the film I had to go look it up, as the comic wasn't around in the period the scene was set.

In doing this, I mean, googling, I came across Franz Kafka, the German writer. I found a website* that has been put together for the purpose of translating his work, uploading it, discussing etc... I read one, a short piece titled The Hunger Artist. And drew a picture.

The picture represents a part in the story, I found some ink I owned had spilt in the box and gone thick. I used the ink to make this pic with a Quill and a dry, fine tip Sharpie. It's a bit scratchy and messy, all in all, it turned out OK.

The story is a great allegoric tale of what it's like to be an artist sometimes. Also, it could be seen, the problems associated with mental illnesses such as anorexia and other eating disorders. I also found the tale fascinating as it scraped the surface of the mind of it's character. As the story develops it's interesting see what he thinks of the people around him, concerning his own performance and how the various reactions and opinions to and of his art, as the hunger artist, precipitate different feelings from him.

I haven't had a chance to read through any others, if I do I might mention them here... I did read the start of one, A Report to an Academy, A man reporting to "The Academy" about his life as an ape, that he recollects from five years previous... very interesting so far.

* www.kafka.org