Organization

Organization is easily one of the best ways to quickly get anything done in the film world. In most cases it can be almost impossible to get things done in a  timely manner if you don't have organization. It's one of the major reasons there are so many different positions on a film set. There is too much to be done by one person. When everybody is organized and does their job well is when a film comes out its best.

Every area of a film needs to be organized. I've taken part in many different positions on a  film set. To be honest when it comes to my daily life I tend to be very disorganized. Yet, when it comes to anything film related i become a complete neat freak. All of my camera gear is organized in a very specific way. In certain cases it has been extremely beneficial. In the world we live in inspiration can come from anywhere and the ability to quickly take out your camera and be ready to shoot is imperative.

My AC station on the film Before Your Eyes

Just the other day I was in my kitchen making dinner when I saw a hot air balloon flying just over the lake. I knew I had to get a picture of it. So in a boot I ran upstairs assembled my camera and ran outside and snapped some photos. I was able to do this all before my dinner started burning. Without my camera being organized in its bag there is no way I would have been able to get the shot in such a timely manner. I could have missed or worse, ruined my dinner.

The Picture I took while making dinner

my camera bag

Organization is most important to me when it comes to post production. You can have so many hundreds of files for a small project that if you lose the ability to stay organized then the project as a whole can suffer. Every project that I do has the same organizational process. The only thing that differs is the project itself. The folders stay the same. So if you want to succeed in the film industry start by cleaning up your act.

The five folders that make up every film I edit

Creativity and Originality in Film

I've been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be creative. Pre-production does that to you, apparently. Am I creative? Should I be more creative? Are there even levels to how creative somebody can get, or is it just like this big, overarching bubble of creativity that once you're in it, you're in it? Is creativity the same thing as originality? Does any of it even matter?

Those aren't rhetorical questions either. If someone has an answer, feel free to let me know.

You can find tons of articles online about how different writers and directors go about their personal creative processes (here's one that talks about how it took Chris Nolan 10 years to finish writing Inception, while Steven Soderbergh knocked out a script for Sex Lies and Videotape in 8 days - neither of which makes me feel particularly good about myself) but I've found very little about how to inspire creativity in yourself. There'll always be clickbait-esque pieces like this, suggesting different activities that might open your mind to new ways of thinking - thus bringing about creativity - but there's no tried and true formula. 

Because in the scheme of things, it's almost impossible to have a truly, never-before-thought-of idea. And that's kind of a bummer. It's an issue I've run into time and time again when working on scripts. Last year, I co-wrote a script about a washed-up TV star and had to listen to people go "oh, so you're making Bojack Horseman?" 

No. Dick.

But that's understandable. With so much media constantly getting thrown in our faces, it's impossible not to regurgitate some of that back out into our own work. It even happens to people who have already made it big, like the whole confrontation between Dane Cook and Louis CK - reenacted and dramatized in this clip from Louie - about how Dane might have, possibly, maybe, stolen a teensy bit of a joke from Louis. We all strive to make something that people think is "new" and "refreshing," but how do you do that when literally everything has already been done, one way or another?

The more time I spend writing, the less time I spend thinking about being original. After all, every story you tell - no matter who you are or where you're from - is going to have the same basic structure when you get down to the bones of it. There's no breaking away from that. And I don't know if that's awesome or horrible. Instead, I just focus on making something to the best of my ability, with characters that I find interesting and a plot that ties things all together, with the hope that it will all culminate in some tiny spec of originality. 

I guess I'm not really sure how to end this blog post, apart from giving what I - rightly or wrongly - assume to be the definition of being creative with a film. Creativity can't be quantitatively measured, despite what Cinemetrics seems to think. Films should make you feel something: whether it's happiness, love, fear, or anything in between. Shot lengths and camera settings and color palettes and every other "technical" aspect can be a part of this as well, as long as you play them to the overall effect that you're going for. You don't need to do anything groundbreaking. You don't need a 10 minute tracking shot (but oh man they're so cool). Emulate good films, take the techniques that you think will best help tell your story and use them.  In the end, as I've slowly learned, all you need is a camera, a story, and people willing to work their asses off to make something good. The rest will come. 

Ideas on how to fund your film

The other day I was contemplating how I would fund a movie or a short film I wanted to make in my college career. Now being someone who wants to produce I should know such things. I decided to look up ways to do so and decided to share this with you all. 

Something I feel like would be a necessity would believing in your film and making others believe in it to. Going to local business's and asking for sponsorship is a great idea. Finding sponsors may be hard, but completely necessary. You need away to provide things for crew and actors to keep them happy. They are the ones helping your vision come to life. Obviously, you wouldn't be funding it all yourself so anything will help. 

Another way to get money for your film, which I have seen first hand is raise money from doing various things and events. 

Last semester students that I knew threw a party and people paid to get in. All the proceeds went to their film. I feel like this would be a great way to get money for a student film, everyone likes parties! If people know you are trying to raise money, they might even give more to help your cause. 

Have spare change you never use? Get a change jar and start building change or even bills and raise money yourself. Have a friend who needs to stop swearing or saying inappropriate things? Make a jar  for that too and all the proceeds go to your film. 

Another thing you could do, is make a page where people can go and help fund it. There is a site called"Go fund me" and you can set up a page and post it on Facebook for your friends and family to visit to help your cause! Have your friends share and like it and maybe you could even get their friends or family to see and help.

There are many ways you could go about to funding your film, and I just scratched the surface. I feel as though the pre-production is one of the most important things because if you have a bad foundation your ending product will be shaky. Having options to work with will make your life easier and your final product better.

5 Phases of Making a Fiction Field Production I Film

Well my friends, it's that time of the year. Picture Lock season. Each and everyone of us has worked hard, suffered greatly, and felt like we've gotten nothing accomplished. But as we near the end of our filmmaking journey, I want to reflect on the steps we've taken (or at least I've taken) to get to this point.

5 Phases of Making a Fiction Field Production I Film

1. Pick Your Group
Though this seems like an easy task, the cooperation of your team members can either make or break your film and/or mental state. A group that works well together and has members with different strengths makes the difficult process of making a film a little bit easier. They become your family. Either you love them or you hate them, but you're attached to them no matter what. Thankfully, I got lucky and have a really strong group with some great people, and they have become not only my coworkers, but my friends.

2. Pre-Production
You're all so excited. "We're going to make a movie!" You assign jobs, then start planning how the rest of the semester is going to go. You have to write the script, find sponsors, start a fundraising campaign, get actors, get additional crew members, get locations, storyboard, start production design, the list goes on... forever. But you're bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on this film and make your family proud. So how do you get started? You don't... for weeks. Because you think you have time. You have all semester! Why bother?

Don't worry, it'll all get done. Right?

3. Beginning Production
Nope. You were wrong. You were so, so wrong. By now you've wasted at least three weeks, spring break has come and gone and you haven't even casted. The script may or may not be done (sorry guys, my bad), and you have to start filming in a week. As of right now, your blood pressure is shot through the roof. You have to distribute flyers and still make a blog post. Coffee is your new best friend. But you get together with your group and you muddle through it, dealing with one crisis after another to start on time. You are now familiar with panic attacks, but feel like you have gained superhuman powers at the same time. This is what adulthood feels like, and although you're unsure of the future, you go into the next phase head on.

4. Production
You're in the heart of your production phase. Check your pulse. Yes, you're still alive, but barely. You haven't slept in what feels like years. Your friends and family are worried because they haven't heard from you and don't know where you are. You forget that you have other classes, and your grades suffer from it. Coffee is not your friend, but has become a part of your bloodstream.

Schedules are no longer set in stone. Film shoots are temperamental, either convincing you that you will be the next Steven Spielberg or making you rethink your entire career and future. Arturo laughs as your health deteriorates, slowly but surely. Someone, if not every single person in your group has had some sort of a mental breakdown. But post production is so close, so you torture yourself a little bit longer, hoping and praying that something, ANYTHING good will come of this hell known as filmmaking.

5. Post-Production
You think you'd be relieved, but the work has really just begun. This is the part where you save your film from every little and big mistake that you've made during pre-production and production. And it all falls on the one or two people you call your editors. Thankfully, this is not me, but I have a feeling my work is not done. As we approach this stage of our voyage, I can only hope that it's smooth sailing. But like all of my hopes and dreams this semester, I'm fully aware that this will not be the case. Until then, I'll live my life day by day and hopefully come out of this with at least one lesson: Making films is hard. If anyone ever says anything different, this semester has shown me that it is completely appropriate to react with physical violence.

So to everyone in my class, and all future Fiction Field members, I wish you luck as we come to the close of the longest (yet shortest) semester of my life, and I look forward to all of our hard work to translate into something we're not embarrassed to show even our parents.

(Bonus) Wrap Party

Pick up a Pencil!

Filmmaking is by nature a visual medium.  That means as filmmakers, we need to be able to accurately convey ideas in a visual manner.  And it is not as hard as some people make it out.  In an article called Don't Be Afraid of a Pencil, Caryn Vainio makes a compelling case that anyone is able to pick up a pencil and sketch out a basic visual idea.  And she makes sure to differentiate between drawing, which is accurately rendering a three dimensional shape, and sketching, which is just using basic shapes to convey an idea.  She makes a good case:

The only thing you have to know how to draw in order to sketch effectively for communication are basic shapes, like boxes, circles, and arrows. Can’t draw a sword or a house? That’s okay. You’ll probably still convey more information in your amateurish attempt than you would trying to explain something. Because when it comes to sketching, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

She goes on to explain how communicating visually instead of verbally or relying only on written words can make it easy for a group to have a unified idea that can be quickly communicated.  This is important in all fields, but especially one like filmmaking that is intrinsically visual.  So go out and play a game of pictionary-- It's good practice!

The Hobbit

everyone. the Hobbit shooting has finally begun! The video in the title shows you how much goes into the preproduction on this beautiful film. it should be done in about two years and everyone will be patiently waiting. Also, something that is interesting is that they are shooting it at 45 frames per second. check it out though. its so sweet. I can't wait. Peter Jackson is incredible.

Storyboarding and storytelling

Time to really dig in and read the section on storyboarding on our class ebook:
Directing the Story; Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques, by Francis Glebas.

Check out Chapter 4 page 90 for some useful tips. Remember no one expects a masterpiece of art, but rather a clear simple depiction of your key shots. If you cannot visualize them you can't shoot them!

It is from the storyboard/script combination that you will have a successful and useful breakdown so you can have a smooth shoot, so make an effort to put your visual ideas on paper.

As I believe I mentioned, you can also "colllage" your storyboard using clip-art, cutouts from magazines, comic books etc. I like to use grpahic novels sometimes because they have such great angles and scene depictions that really give you a sense of athmosphere, character and place.

This is from DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli