Recently, I found myself paging through the scripts my students wrote, cleaning out folders now that my school year is over.
And I realized that I had shared a fun idea with my kids that I forgot to share here.
So here we go:
My first batch of students wanted to create a sitcom (of sorts) based around a school. It would be, they said, a bunch of zany characters having zany things happen to them.
As a teacher, I kind of loved this idea. It took place in a school (we were in a school!) and used students (we had students, by cracky!) and we could make the format as long or as short as we wanted.
(Eventually, we decided to create very, very short episodes, which I started referring to as webisodes.)
At that point, we started brainstorming episode ideas. Each episode needed a clear, easy-to-state idea that we could hang a five-minute story on.
We all ended up staring at each other for a few minutes.
The problem was, I realized, that we hadn't set many parameters. All we had was "The Office in a School." This is a pretty great idea, and if I could pull it off I'd totally take all my kids to Hollywood and sell the show to The N, and have them write and star in it, because they're all very funny.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The problem was, we had no characters.
A story, for better or worse, doesn't happen to itself. It happens to a person, or to people. (That story definition again: A person fights their way through more and more difficult obstacles until they get to the end of the story, and win.)
We couldn't tell a story, because we had no people in the story.
Since the kids wanted to star in the show (which worked well for us) we used their real first names.
And here's the part that can help you write.
What we did next was give each character two things:
A defining characteristic.
A goal.
In a lot of "how to write" kind of books, they'll tell you to write long back stories on your characters. I don't think that's a terrible idea, but it can take a long time, and at the end you have a bunch of writing that probably won't appear in your story.
But if you give your character a single thing to define them with, it makes them easier to track (oh, that's so-and-so - he's the angry one) and it helps you to answer the question, "What would this character do next?"
Since we had five people who were willing to act, we set them up with basic characteristics:
The Smart One Who Is Angry No One Notices They're Smart
The Dumb, Loyal One
The Girl Who Shoots Guns - and Has Anger Issues
The One That's Forgetful and Easily Freaked
The Girl Who's Mexican - And A Little Oblivious
Now, I won't argue that those are brilliant characters, but it always gave us something to work from.
Over time, some of the characters evolved a bit. The Smart Angry One also developed a bit of confusion about their orientation. Not in real life, but on the show. And we ran with it, referencing it from episode to episode.
The Girl With the Guns evolved from kind of angry into a sort of wise-cracking cruelty.
But these baseline personalities served us well, even into shooting the last episode. At one point, we realized that we had a funny line, but it wasn't something the character would say - it was too mean. So we gave it to the mean character.
At one point, there was even some discussion of taking the "dumb" character and basing an episode around the character admitting it was all an act - she was doing it so people would like her.
It would have been one of the saddest episodes of anything, ever.
Okay, so now we had characters, and we could put them into a situation.
For the pilot, the characters all had a paper due... and only one of them had it finished.
Why did only one of them finish it? Well... let's go back to personality.
The angry girl tore hers up talking about a blind date gone wrong.
The dumb girl was still writing her paper... about an improper topic.
The smart girl finished her paper, and lorded it over other people.
The girl who tends to freak out realized she forgot her paper, and ran out of the room to get it. Eventually, she was hit by a car.
And the Mexican girl's paper got chewed up... by her pet Chihuahua.
Now, I'm not going to argue that any of this is genius. As sitcom tropes go, it's all pretty standard.
But the thing is, it's all standard for a reason. "Modern Family" did an episode a few weeks ago that was, basically, about how watching people fall down is funny.
Which brings me to the second idea I shared with my students: Goals.
In each episode, every character needed a goal. Sometimes, it was the same goal. Sometimes, the goals were different. Sometimes the goals put the characters at odds, and sometimes they all just spun through their own universe.
But, everyone had a goal. And in each scene, they did something in an attempt to further (or discuss) that goal.
And honestly, those two little ideas (defined characters, strong goals) gave all of our episodes a motor to run them.
Again, I won't argue that the motors were brilliant, but I don't know how many motors really are. When you think about something like "Star Wars," what's the goal? Rescue the princess and get some blueprints to the rebels.
It's been done, is what I'm saying.
But as a writing tool, having those two things on hand always kept us on track. If someone said something funny that didn't work for character A, we'd move it to character C.
And if a scene was wandering along, not going anywhere, we'd go back and look at the character goals... and once we had a goal in mind, it made it a lot easier to send the scene in a direction.
In the end, I won't argue that we made brilliant movies worthy of dissection as great art, but our webisodes were never boring, because they were all moving forward, towards something the audience could follow.
In conclusion: Defined characters, strong goals.
And if you know someone at The N looking for the next great show, shoot me an email. I've got a couple of DVDs they should see.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
With Half an Hour to Go
A quick Idol Prediction:
As of yesterday, pre-show, Scotty had it in the bag. He's a better performer and doesn't act like a scared kid half the time.
Then the show started, and there was the whole, "Lauren almost couldn't sing! Here's a doctor!"
And then Scotty's single sucked.
Then Lauren hugged her mom.
I think the Idol people knew that Lauren was going to lose, and they know there's money to be made on her.
My prediction: Lauren takes it tonight.
Scotty has a longer career, as Lauren has no idea what she's doing.
I still think the smart thing to do would be to get them both on tour together.
As a bonus, they need to cast them both in a Disney movie based on the book "Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance." They'll have to Southernize it a bit, but it would easily be the next "High School Musical," if they did it right.
And those are my thoughts - 30 minutes until the truth comes out.
As of yesterday, pre-show, Scotty had it in the bag. He's a better performer and doesn't act like a scared kid half the time.
Then the show started, and there was the whole, "Lauren almost couldn't sing! Here's a doctor!"
And then Scotty's single sucked.
Then Lauren hugged her mom.
I think the Idol people knew that Lauren was going to lose, and they know there's money to be made on her.
My prediction: Lauren takes it tonight.
Scotty has a longer career, as Lauren has no idea what she's doing.
I still think the smart thing to do would be to get them both on tour together.
As a bonus, they need to cast them both in a Disney movie based on the book "Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance." They'll have to Southernize it a bit, but it would easily be the next "High School Musical," if they did it right.
And those are my thoughts - 30 minutes until the truth comes out.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Fairy Godmother-In-Law: An Excerpt
When you’ve been on as many blind dates as I have, you come to recognize “The Moment.”
What I mean is this:
“The Moment” is that very second, that very instant, that you know when a date is going to end well, or going to end poorly.
I’m not talking about whether or not you’re getting invited up for a drink. I’m not even talking about whether there’s a goodnight kiss or a second date in your future. I’m talking about “The Moment” – that second where you either relax and start to enjoy yourself, or realize that you are in for the kind of night where you try to memorize all the horrible details, so that you can at least get an amusing anecdote out of it.
I wish I could say this was a funny story.
Maybe it’ll be funny to you.
***
My date with Jennifer was, naturally, set up by my mother. I say this is natural because she’s been “retired” since she was about twenty-five.
It’s an odd story.
I never knew my dad. The way my mom tells it, he was handsome and dashing, and even though he took off the minute he found out that he’d impregnated my mother, she still refers to him as, “My knight in shining armor.”
I finally got one of my aunts to spill the beans about the guy responsible for half my DNA after plying her with several beers at a family reunion. It seems that the guy left mom with some sort of strange trust fund setup, which meant she could quit her job at the local supermarket, deliver me, and live off some variety of compound interest.
(It also left us with enough money that I could see a really great shrink about my issues with my absent father. My doctor said, and I quote, “If he left you with enough money to pay my fees, you don’t really need me. You need a girlfriend and a hobby. In that order.”)
My mom needed a hobby as well.
What I mean is this:
If you’re thirty-seven years old, and you’ve never been married, and your mother doesn’t have a job, you become her hobby.
When I asked my mother what she knew about Jennifer, mom clammed up. Which was different.
Most mothers, when setting their kid up on a date, want to talk the girl up. She’s so smart, or so pretty, or so well-liked, or so talented, or in one memorable case, “So rich she’s worth marrying just to knock her up and get a divorce so you can get partial custody and some rockin’ child support and I can be a grandma and I don’t have to worry about your financial security any more.”
But Jennifer? Nothing. No info. I eventually got my mother to admit that she’d met Jennifer’s mother at her book club, where they’d been reading their way through a popular series involving wizards and witches and their many adventures at school.
(When I pointed out to my mother that the books were supposed to be for kids, she admitted that the club had tried to read “Pride and Prejudice” first, only to discover that everyone had opted to watch the movie instead of slogging through page after page of turgid prose.)
“Do you know anything about Jennifer at all?”
“Well, her mother is very… unique. I thought that if Jennifer was anything like her, perhaps you’d get along.”
“Unique?” I pressed.
“It means,” sighed mom, “that I’ve been setting you up with normal women for years and none of them have worked out, and perhaps if you try eating the fried Oreo instead of getting the same old chocolate cake again, maybe you’ll find you like the new flavor.”
I love my mother, but her metaphors border on lunatic babbling sometimes.
***
Going on a blind date is not unlike trying to solve a murder mystery before you hit the last page.
What I mean is this:
Everything you discover about your date is a clue about who she is and how the night might go, starting with her place of residence.
When you get to her house or apartment complex, you generally know what kind of neighborhood you’re in, and how much it costs to live there.
Jennifer lived on the fourth floor of a five-floor walkup, in an okay-but-not-great part of town. Which said to me she was probably working a blue-or-pink-collar job and paying all the bills under her own steam.
So I was somewhat surprised, when the front door of her apartment presented me not with a woman in her mid-thirties, but a woman in her mid-sixties.
Her hair was short, and a perfect, uniform white. The kind of white you only see on old people wearing wigs. Her shapeless dress was covered by a bizarre white robe shot through with some sort of metallic piping.
Gold, maybe? Silver? Hard to tell.
Also, she was holding a stick.
I stood there for a moment, as it finally hit me why my mother hadn’t told me anything about Jennifer. She was old enough to be a grandmother.
“Good evening, Jennifer,” I said, when the saliva returned to my mouth.
The woman in the door sized me up.
“I’m not Jennifer.”
“Oh,” I said.
Now, perhaps that looked a lot like “The Moment,” to you, and on paper, I can understand that. But rest assured, that was not it.
Granted, I was in trouble. At this point, I had possibly insulted Jennifer, and possibly insulted her, what? Mother? Grandmother? Aunt? Uncle-becoming-an-aunt (she was a little man-ish in the face)?
I finally decided to plunge right in. “I mean, by, um – by saying ‘Oh,’ I meant, ‘Oh, of course you’re not Jennifer.’”
That was also not the moment.
The next moment was.
What I mean is this:
The woman in the doorway extended her hand. The hand not holding a stick.
“I’m her fairy godmother,” she said.
“Her godmother?” I replied, as I took her hand, and gave it what I hoped was a firm-but-not-too-firm shake.
“Fairy godmother,” she repeated.
Now, I’ve had “The Moment” early on before, but this was kind of a first. I had always at least met my date before I realized that things were just not going to end well.
You can judge me if you want to, but people have gone to war on less substantial grounds than the one that caused me to step through the doorway, rather than fake a sudden urge to vomit while manufacturing a story about how my lunch meat had smelled a little “off” earlier in the day.
When it comes down to it, though, I was lonely, and in my late thirties.
Plus, hey, it looked like it had the makings of a great story, assuming I made it through the entire evening. “And then, before I even got in the door? I met her fairy godmother. She even had a wand. Well, a stick, but you know…”
Jennifer’s fairy godmother turned her back to me for a moment. “Jennifer! Your date’s here!”
I heard a faint “Coming!” from behind a door just outside my line of vision.
The white-haired woman turned to face me again. “Typical princess,” she said. “Always running ‘just a little late,’ don’t you know.”
“I – uh – I don’t mind,” I replied, unsure of what to say. I’d dealt with a few meddling mothers before, including one who took pictures of me with my date before heading off, as though it was prom we were going to, and not a first date at a minor league baseball game. A minor league baseball game where we bought a lot of beer because we were both over the legal age by a decade, and had discovered that we had only one thing in common: we hated her mother.
“You should,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder again. “If you can’t put a princess in her place right off the bat, she’ll walk all over you.”
At a loss for anything else to say, I opened my mouth to ask the fairy godmother if they lived together, when Jennifer stepped out of her bedroom, dressed for – something other than what I had planned for the night.
What I mean is this:
I came to her house in my usual first-date garb. Khaki pants, turtleneck, sport coat, loafers. If you’re a guy, you’ll recognize this as an easy dress-up-dress-down outfit. Good enough to get you into a reasonably upscale eatery, but not out of place at a bar, either.
She was wearing – and I am not exaggerating to make this story more amusing – a ball gown and a tiara.
I think there are probably some girls who could have pulled this off – but Jennifer wasn’t one of them. It’s not that she was unattractive, not really, but she wasn’t hot or gorgeous or stunning, or really any descriptive term that I could think of outside of ordinary.
Her straight brown hair was ordinary. As was her face. As was her figure. As were her other accessories, which consisted of an ordinary purse that didn’t go with her odd ensemble, and some unmemorable jewelry.
That was the moment when I decided to bail out. I breathed in, willing my brain to come up with a reason I couldn’t go out – and found a stick pressing against my nose.
Well, okay, it was kind of up my nose.
Jennifer’s fairy godmother leaned forward, and in a voice I’m sure only I could hear, said:
“If you hurt her, I will turn you into a toad.”
The moment she stopped talking, she took a step back from me, and said, pleasantly, “Sorry about that. The old balance isn’t what it used to be, you know? I’m constantly bumping into things.”
“It’s true,” confirmed Jennifer.
“No harm done,” I said. I turned to Jennifer. “Shall we?”
Jennifer stepped up to the woman in the robe and pecked her on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.”
“Oh, you know me,” she replied. “Won’t be able to sleep a wink until I hear you come clumping into the apartment.”
“I won’t keep her out late,” I said, and Jennifer followed me out the door.
***
As I let Jennifer into the car, I realized that I had a serious problem. Outside of the threat to turn me into a toad. So, two problems, really.
I had no real place that I could take a woman in a ball gown. The eatery I had chosen was on something of a mid-range scale, much like my clothing for the night. There were better restaurants in town, and I ate out often enough to get preferential treatment at a few of them (provided I tipped everyone well).
But were any of them ball-gown-worthy? No.
I got into the driver’s seat and looked at my date, who smiled and blushed. “Sorry about that. She can be…” she took a moment to select a word, “overprotective.”
“I… ” I began to say, then trailed off. What was there to say about a woman who clearly needed a visit from the nice young men in their clean white coats? “You know what? Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s worry about where we’re going to eat.”
“I thought you picked a place,” she replied.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not sure if it’s quite up to the task of working with that dress.”
Jennifer looked at me, uncertain. “This old thing?” I was reasonably sure she wasn’t kidding.
“You know what? Why don’t we just go to the place I have a reservation for.”
Find out how the story ends...
On the Kindle
On the nook
At Smashwords
What I mean is this:
“The Moment” is that very second, that very instant, that you know when a date is going to end well, or going to end poorly.
I’m not talking about whether or not you’re getting invited up for a drink. I’m not even talking about whether there’s a goodnight kiss or a second date in your future. I’m talking about “The Moment” – that second where you either relax and start to enjoy yourself, or realize that you are in for the kind of night where you try to memorize all the horrible details, so that you can at least get an amusing anecdote out of it.
I wish I could say this was a funny story.
Maybe it’ll be funny to you.
***
My date with Jennifer was, naturally, set up by my mother. I say this is natural because she’s been “retired” since she was about twenty-five.
It’s an odd story.
I never knew my dad. The way my mom tells it, he was handsome and dashing, and even though he took off the minute he found out that he’d impregnated my mother, she still refers to him as, “My knight in shining armor.”
I finally got one of my aunts to spill the beans about the guy responsible for half my DNA after plying her with several beers at a family reunion. It seems that the guy left mom with some sort of strange trust fund setup, which meant she could quit her job at the local supermarket, deliver me, and live off some variety of compound interest.
(It also left us with enough money that I could see a really great shrink about my issues with my absent father. My doctor said, and I quote, “If he left you with enough money to pay my fees, you don’t really need me. You need a girlfriend and a hobby. In that order.”)
My mom needed a hobby as well.
What I mean is this:
If you’re thirty-seven years old, and you’ve never been married, and your mother doesn’t have a job, you become her hobby.
When I asked my mother what she knew about Jennifer, mom clammed up. Which was different.
Most mothers, when setting their kid up on a date, want to talk the girl up. She’s so smart, or so pretty, or so well-liked, or so talented, or in one memorable case, “So rich she’s worth marrying just to knock her up and get a divorce so you can get partial custody and some rockin’ child support and I can be a grandma and I don’t have to worry about your financial security any more.”
But Jennifer? Nothing. No info. I eventually got my mother to admit that she’d met Jennifer’s mother at her book club, where they’d been reading their way through a popular series involving wizards and witches and their many adventures at school.
(When I pointed out to my mother that the books were supposed to be for kids, she admitted that the club had tried to read “Pride and Prejudice” first, only to discover that everyone had opted to watch the movie instead of slogging through page after page of turgid prose.)
“Do you know anything about Jennifer at all?”
“Well, her mother is very… unique. I thought that if Jennifer was anything like her, perhaps you’d get along.”
“Unique?” I pressed.
“It means,” sighed mom, “that I’ve been setting you up with normal women for years and none of them have worked out, and perhaps if you try eating the fried Oreo instead of getting the same old chocolate cake again, maybe you’ll find you like the new flavor.”
I love my mother, but her metaphors border on lunatic babbling sometimes.
***
Going on a blind date is not unlike trying to solve a murder mystery before you hit the last page.
What I mean is this:
Everything you discover about your date is a clue about who she is and how the night might go, starting with her place of residence.
When you get to her house or apartment complex, you generally know what kind of neighborhood you’re in, and how much it costs to live there.
Jennifer lived on the fourth floor of a five-floor walkup, in an okay-but-not-great part of town. Which said to me she was probably working a blue-or-pink-collar job and paying all the bills under her own steam.
So I was somewhat surprised, when the front door of her apartment presented me not with a woman in her mid-thirties, but a woman in her mid-sixties.
Her hair was short, and a perfect, uniform white. The kind of white you only see on old people wearing wigs. Her shapeless dress was covered by a bizarre white robe shot through with some sort of metallic piping.
Gold, maybe? Silver? Hard to tell.
Also, she was holding a stick.
I stood there for a moment, as it finally hit me why my mother hadn’t told me anything about Jennifer. She was old enough to be a grandmother.
“Good evening, Jennifer,” I said, when the saliva returned to my mouth.
The woman in the door sized me up.
“I’m not Jennifer.”
“Oh,” I said.
Now, perhaps that looked a lot like “The Moment,” to you, and on paper, I can understand that. But rest assured, that was not it.
Granted, I was in trouble. At this point, I had possibly insulted Jennifer, and possibly insulted her, what? Mother? Grandmother? Aunt? Uncle-becoming-an-aunt (she was a little man-ish in the face)?
I finally decided to plunge right in. “I mean, by, um – by saying ‘Oh,’ I meant, ‘Oh, of course you’re not Jennifer.’”
That was also not the moment.
The next moment was.
What I mean is this:
The woman in the doorway extended her hand. The hand not holding a stick.
“I’m her fairy godmother,” she said.
“Her godmother?” I replied, as I took her hand, and gave it what I hoped was a firm-but-not-too-firm shake.
“Fairy godmother,” she repeated.
Now, I’ve had “The Moment” early on before, but this was kind of a first. I had always at least met my date before I realized that things were just not going to end well.
You can judge me if you want to, but people have gone to war on less substantial grounds than the one that caused me to step through the doorway, rather than fake a sudden urge to vomit while manufacturing a story about how my lunch meat had smelled a little “off” earlier in the day.
When it comes down to it, though, I was lonely, and in my late thirties.
Plus, hey, it looked like it had the makings of a great story, assuming I made it through the entire evening. “And then, before I even got in the door? I met her fairy godmother. She even had a wand. Well, a stick, but you know…”
Jennifer’s fairy godmother turned her back to me for a moment. “Jennifer! Your date’s here!”
I heard a faint “Coming!” from behind a door just outside my line of vision.
The white-haired woman turned to face me again. “Typical princess,” she said. “Always running ‘just a little late,’ don’t you know.”
“I – uh – I don’t mind,” I replied, unsure of what to say. I’d dealt with a few meddling mothers before, including one who took pictures of me with my date before heading off, as though it was prom we were going to, and not a first date at a minor league baseball game. A minor league baseball game where we bought a lot of beer because we were both over the legal age by a decade, and had discovered that we had only one thing in common: we hated her mother.
“You should,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder again. “If you can’t put a princess in her place right off the bat, she’ll walk all over you.”
At a loss for anything else to say, I opened my mouth to ask the fairy godmother if they lived together, when Jennifer stepped out of her bedroom, dressed for – something other than what I had planned for the night.
What I mean is this:
I came to her house in my usual first-date garb. Khaki pants, turtleneck, sport coat, loafers. If you’re a guy, you’ll recognize this as an easy dress-up-dress-down outfit. Good enough to get you into a reasonably upscale eatery, but not out of place at a bar, either.
She was wearing – and I am not exaggerating to make this story more amusing – a ball gown and a tiara.
I think there are probably some girls who could have pulled this off – but Jennifer wasn’t one of them. It’s not that she was unattractive, not really, but she wasn’t hot or gorgeous or stunning, or really any descriptive term that I could think of outside of ordinary.
Her straight brown hair was ordinary. As was her face. As was her figure. As were her other accessories, which consisted of an ordinary purse that didn’t go with her odd ensemble, and some unmemorable jewelry.
That was the moment when I decided to bail out. I breathed in, willing my brain to come up with a reason I couldn’t go out – and found a stick pressing against my nose.
Well, okay, it was kind of up my nose.
Jennifer’s fairy godmother leaned forward, and in a voice I’m sure only I could hear, said:
“If you hurt her, I will turn you into a toad.”
The moment she stopped talking, she took a step back from me, and said, pleasantly, “Sorry about that. The old balance isn’t what it used to be, you know? I’m constantly bumping into things.”
“It’s true,” confirmed Jennifer.
“No harm done,” I said. I turned to Jennifer. “Shall we?”
Jennifer stepped up to the woman in the robe and pecked her on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.”
“Oh, you know me,” she replied. “Won’t be able to sleep a wink until I hear you come clumping into the apartment.”
“I won’t keep her out late,” I said, and Jennifer followed me out the door.
***
As I let Jennifer into the car, I realized that I had a serious problem. Outside of the threat to turn me into a toad. So, two problems, really.
I had no real place that I could take a woman in a ball gown. The eatery I had chosen was on something of a mid-range scale, much like my clothing for the night. There were better restaurants in town, and I ate out often enough to get preferential treatment at a few of them (provided I tipped everyone well).
But were any of them ball-gown-worthy? No.
I got into the driver’s seat and looked at my date, who smiled and blushed. “Sorry about that. She can be…” she took a moment to select a word, “overprotective.”
“I… ” I began to say, then trailed off. What was there to say about a woman who clearly needed a visit from the nice young men in their clean white coats? “You know what? Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s worry about where we’re going to eat.”
“I thought you picked a place,” she replied.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not sure if it’s quite up to the task of working with that dress.”
Jennifer looked at me, uncertain. “This old thing?” I was reasonably sure she wasn’t kidding.
“You know what? Why don’t we just go to the place I have a reservation for.”
Find out how the story ends...
On the Kindle
On the nook
At Smashwords
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Film Festivals
Once your movie is made, and you’re happy with it, it’s time to get it out into the world.
Naturally, everyone wants to go to Sundance. Or Cannes. And maybe your movie is amazing, and it will go there.
But… probably not.
Granted, you can enter your movie, and if you really think it’s good enough, I say do it. It’ll cost you money which you might never see again, but at least you tried.
The thing of it is, there are probably five or ten really “important” film festivals in the world. They’re hard to get into.
And if you do it, then, awesome! And if you don’t, well, even if you got in, the chances of someone important seeing your movie and buying it and putting it out were always kind of small.
But film festivals, in general, can be a good thing. You can get a few awards, and sometimes that gets you into bigger festivals.
And more importantly, your movie will get seen. And that’s why you made it, right?
Right.
So here’s what you want to do:
First, find a film festival (or two or three) that’s near where you live. Why? To see it with a paying audience. So your cast and crew can see it on a screen, and invite their friends and family to see it with them.
It’s fun, man! Remember when you wanted to make a movie? Remember when you just wanted to have fun and make something cool?
So yeah. Someplace nearby.
After that, go here:
https://www.withoutabox.com/
Register. Find film festivals that interest you. And please, read the rules. If you live in New York, and the film festival is for people with New Mexico ties, then don’t enter.
Yes, people do stuff like that. All the time.
And after you enter your film in a few festivals…
Well, what comes next is up to you.
If you win some awards, see if you can turn that into distribution.
Or put the film up online, and let people buy DVD copies. You can do that through Amazon.
Or get it up on Netflix.
Or don’t do anything with it. It’s your movie.
And after that comes to next question: Do you want to make another one?
Good luck.
Naturally, everyone wants to go to Sundance. Or Cannes. And maybe your movie is amazing, and it will go there.
But… probably not.
Granted, you can enter your movie, and if you really think it’s good enough, I say do it. It’ll cost you money which you might never see again, but at least you tried.
The thing of it is, there are probably five or ten really “important” film festivals in the world. They’re hard to get into.
And if you do it, then, awesome! And if you don’t, well, even if you got in, the chances of someone important seeing your movie and buying it and putting it out were always kind of small.
But film festivals, in general, can be a good thing. You can get a few awards, and sometimes that gets you into bigger festivals.
And more importantly, your movie will get seen. And that’s why you made it, right?
Right.
So here’s what you want to do:
First, find a film festival (or two or three) that’s near where you live. Why? To see it with a paying audience. So your cast and crew can see it on a screen, and invite their friends and family to see it with them.
It’s fun, man! Remember when you wanted to make a movie? Remember when you just wanted to have fun and make something cool?
So yeah. Someplace nearby.
After that, go here:
https://www.withoutabox.com/
Register. Find film festivals that interest you. And please, read the rules. If you live in New York, and the film festival is for people with New Mexico ties, then don’t enter.
Yes, people do stuff like that. All the time.
And after you enter your film in a few festivals…
Well, what comes next is up to you.
If you win some awards, see if you can turn that into distribution.
Or put the film up online, and let people buy DVD copies. You can do that through Amazon.
Or get it up on Netflix.
Or don’t do anything with it. It’s your movie.
And after that comes to next question: Do you want to make another one?
Good luck.
Monday, May 16, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Editing
Before I talk about editing, a questiont:
The Question: If you’re reading these posts, is there something you’d like me to cover that I haven’t? Or is there some detail you’d like covered more in-depth?
As a secondary question, I was thinking about putting all these posts together, expanding them a hair, taking a few old articles I’ve written on the subject of movie-writing and putting them together as an ebook.
Since it’d be pretty short, I’m thinking I’d sell it for 99 cents.
If you’d like that kind of thing, let me know, and I will get it done.
Anyway.
Now we’re into editing. If you know anything about editing, say, twenty years ago, it was all done by hand. Meaning someone had to log the film, then trim it using special razor blade devices, then splice it using a special kind of tape…
That would have driven me insane.
So if you’re reading these posts, and thinking that you’re going to shoot on film, and try to make your first movie look really, really professional, so you can sell it and start your film career…
Don’t do that.
It wastes time and money, and you’d be much better off paying a really good director of photography and having him shoot on HD video. You’ll save money. Lots of money.
And you’ll save conversion time, because if you can find a local place that still cuts film, I’m not sure you want to know those people, as they are clearly not all there, if you get what I’m saying.
Surprisingly, while I’m not a professional director, I am a professional editor, inasmuch as I’ve been paid to do it.
So this is my advice.
1. Get yourself a fast computer. You can use a slow computer, if you want to, but trust me, you’ll spend a lot of time feeling sad while waiting for stuff to happen.
I’m not saying you need the newest and biggest and best. But last year’s computer is going to treat you a lot better than a computer that’s more than five years old.
Do I have a preference, Mac Vs. PC? I use a PC. I’ve used a Mac, and so much of what they do seems counterintuitive to me. Because, and I say this honestly, I love my second mouse button. Love it. Use it all the time. Have no idea how people live without it.
I will say that PCs are cheaper. So if you’re on a budget (Of course you are! You’re reading this online instead of buying a book!) a PC is probably the way to go.
2. Get yourself some decent software. In all honestly, what you need depends on what you’re doing.
I know people who do really snazzy stuff with iMovie, which is free. And honestly, MS Moviemaker looks pretty decent these days, too. So if you’re just making a practice flick, or doing that test film I talked about earlier, try using something that’s on your computer already.
As for the other major software you can get. Yes, you can pick up the real software that the pros use, but it’ll run you a few thousand dollars. Then you’re looking at Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and Avid software.
However, all three types of software I just listed also come in “Home” versions.
And here’s the only place I’ll make a recommendation that’s entirely personal:
I really like Adobe Premiere Elements.
Why? Well, it’s got what I think of as a training wheels version, where all your scenes are lined up in boxes, you mostly use a very simple drag-and-drop system, and when you try to “cut” something, you have a little scissors to do it with.
Really. It’s a graphic that looks like a pair of scissors.
Whenever I’ve worked on editing jobs, I can figure out about 95% of what I want to do without having to look at the instructions.
And the other 5%, I can find using the fairly decent search function.
Now, I will say, I’ve recently started using version 9 of Elements, and I like it less than the version I was using before. A few things have been moved, the help files aren’t as good, and it’s locked up on me for reasons I don’t understand.
However, I also got a new computer at the same time I updated, so there may be some issue there.
That said, yeah, I’d still go for Elements. The first time I opened up the program, it made sense, was easy to use, and I cut together a silly little trailer for a movie in about an hour.
The first time I tried to use Final Cut, I stumbled around for 45 minutes, and all I accomplished was putting some footage into the program. I couldn’t figure out how to get it on a timeline, how to change the sound and video… Nothing.
And when I showed it to my students, I had the same issues. I handed them a copy of Elements, and got them cutting and moving and editing in about 15 minutes.
I had a special guest come in to give an hour of editing training on Final Cut, and at the end of it, I got mostly blank stares.
The good news is, while Elements used to be a PC-only program, you can now use it on a Mac.
The better news is, if you’ve got a few months to spare, Adobe drops the price of their software constantly. You can generally get elements for about $80, and then get a $20 rebate.
Okay, so enough about software, how do you use it?
That depends…
Personally, I always start with a really basic assembly. Since most of the time, you’re shooting out of order, your footage is kind of all over the place.
In theory, this should be easy. All your footage is a big puzzle, and all you have to do now is put it together. All the pieces are there. It’s just that some pieces look better than others… (That’s pretty much it for that metaphor.)
So start by putting it in the right order. Get the lines of dialogue where they belong. Get the action where it goes.
If you were paying attention to my previous screed in directing, you should have all your shots, so that shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Right.
So get it all in the right order.
Then, start watching it.
If you’ve got 90 hours of footage, this could take a while. If you’ve got four (Robert Rodriguez said he had 4 hours of footage for his 80 minute “El Mariachi,” and I believe him) it’ll take you, you know… half a day.
Can you start cutting right away? It’s a matter of personal style. With my students, since they’re always rushed, they usually have two takes of a scene that works, and as many as ten of a scene that doesn’t. They shoot a lot of hand-held, rather than cutting back and forth between actors, so that speeds the process.
Generally, if they just choose the last take, their final cut is pretty much ready to go. So there’s no real need to watch each take, again and again, looking for the perfect cut.
But! That’s no always the case. And sometimes, you’ll realize that something needs to be moved around, and often it’s easier to do that when your “film” is in one huge chunk, instead of a bunch of little ones.
So watch it all before you start cutting, if you can.
Keep a copy of the script nearby, and refer to it as you cut. Why? Because just like when you were shooting, it’s easy to cut a line, or miss an important gesture. It’s not a big deal now, but if you cut something, and delete it, you’ll have to go footage-hunting later, and that will irritate you to no end.
But hey, at least it’s not film.
(An aside: If you’re doing a big, multi-day shooting project, try to watch the footage every day. I say this because I almost didn’t once, on a three day project, and then at the last minute I thought I should check the footage. In one shot, nothing was white-balanced, and EVERYTHING was blue. Luckily, we had a day left to reshoot. So we did.)
Once your movie is cut, walk away from it for a couple of days, then go back and rewatch the whole thing away from the computer, if you can. Drop it to DVD, go somewhere else, and see what you think of it.
Take notes.
Then take an axe to it, and pull out all the little bits that don’t need to be there. Cut away. Take out the lines that you don’t need, and the long pauses that seemed meaningful the first time.
Then show it to some people. Talk to them. Take notes.
Then take an axe to it again.
Then show it to some more people.
When you’ve got it to the point that the movie more-or-less works…
Then fix stuff.
Add or replace the music that needs replacing. Don’t use famous music unless you’re rich, or you never want to show the movie to anyone, ever, in a public space.
Fix the sound editing. Add in all the little sounds you think are missing. If you want, get a sound designer. But yeah. Fix it. Just wait until you reach this point to do it, of you’ll end up moving a bunch of sound effects around over, and over, and over again until the movie is done.
And when you’ve done everything you can to make the movie as good as you can… slap on some credits.
Credit everyone who helped. Thank them profusely, if you can. Why? Because you want them around to help you make another movie. Plus, it costs you nothing. It’s just words on a screen, and the people who want to turn off the movie can totally do that.
Just remember, though – if you’re making a short, little or no credits at the beginning. And make your credit crawl quick at the end, so it can be programmed easily at film festivals.
And are you done?
Eh. I’d show it to one more small group before you shove your baby out into the world at large. And if there’s a big problem?
Fix it.
By now, you’re probably pretty sick of your movie, and never want to watch it again. But if something is wrong – and I mean really wrong – you want to fix it now, before you start showing it off to the world and spending money to have people tell you where you screwed up.
And that’s editing.
The Question: If you’re reading these posts, is there something you’d like me to cover that I haven’t? Or is there some detail you’d like covered more in-depth?
As a secondary question, I was thinking about putting all these posts together, expanding them a hair, taking a few old articles I’ve written on the subject of movie-writing and putting them together as an ebook.
Since it’d be pretty short, I’m thinking I’d sell it for 99 cents.
If you’d like that kind of thing, let me know, and I will get it done.
Anyway.
Now we’re into editing. If you know anything about editing, say, twenty years ago, it was all done by hand. Meaning someone had to log the film, then trim it using special razor blade devices, then splice it using a special kind of tape…
That would have driven me insane.
So if you’re reading these posts, and thinking that you’re going to shoot on film, and try to make your first movie look really, really professional, so you can sell it and start your film career…
Don’t do that.
It wastes time and money, and you’d be much better off paying a really good director of photography and having him shoot on HD video. You’ll save money. Lots of money.
And you’ll save conversion time, because if you can find a local place that still cuts film, I’m not sure you want to know those people, as they are clearly not all there, if you get what I’m saying.
Surprisingly, while I’m not a professional director, I am a professional editor, inasmuch as I’ve been paid to do it.
So this is my advice.
1. Get yourself a fast computer. You can use a slow computer, if you want to, but trust me, you’ll spend a lot of time feeling sad while waiting for stuff to happen.
I’m not saying you need the newest and biggest and best. But last year’s computer is going to treat you a lot better than a computer that’s more than five years old.
Do I have a preference, Mac Vs. PC? I use a PC. I’ve used a Mac, and so much of what they do seems counterintuitive to me. Because, and I say this honestly, I love my second mouse button. Love it. Use it all the time. Have no idea how people live without it.
I will say that PCs are cheaper. So if you’re on a budget (Of course you are! You’re reading this online instead of buying a book!) a PC is probably the way to go.
2. Get yourself some decent software. In all honestly, what you need depends on what you’re doing.
I know people who do really snazzy stuff with iMovie, which is free. And honestly, MS Moviemaker looks pretty decent these days, too. So if you’re just making a practice flick, or doing that test film I talked about earlier, try using something that’s on your computer already.
As for the other major software you can get. Yes, you can pick up the real software that the pros use, but it’ll run you a few thousand dollars. Then you’re looking at Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and Avid software.
However, all three types of software I just listed also come in “Home” versions.
And here’s the only place I’ll make a recommendation that’s entirely personal:
I really like Adobe Premiere Elements.
Why? Well, it’s got what I think of as a training wheels version, where all your scenes are lined up in boxes, you mostly use a very simple drag-and-drop system, and when you try to “cut” something, you have a little scissors to do it with.
Really. It’s a graphic that looks like a pair of scissors.
Whenever I’ve worked on editing jobs, I can figure out about 95% of what I want to do without having to look at the instructions.
And the other 5%, I can find using the fairly decent search function.
Now, I will say, I’ve recently started using version 9 of Elements, and I like it less than the version I was using before. A few things have been moved, the help files aren’t as good, and it’s locked up on me for reasons I don’t understand.
However, I also got a new computer at the same time I updated, so there may be some issue there.
That said, yeah, I’d still go for Elements. The first time I opened up the program, it made sense, was easy to use, and I cut together a silly little trailer for a movie in about an hour.
The first time I tried to use Final Cut, I stumbled around for 45 minutes, and all I accomplished was putting some footage into the program. I couldn’t figure out how to get it on a timeline, how to change the sound and video… Nothing.
And when I showed it to my students, I had the same issues. I handed them a copy of Elements, and got them cutting and moving and editing in about 15 minutes.
I had a special guest come in to give an hour of editing training on Final Cut, and at the end of it, I got mostly blank stares.
The good news is, while Elements used to be a PC-only program, you can now use it on a Mac.
The better news is, if you’ve got a few months to spare, Adobe drops the price of their software constantly. You can generally get elements for about $80, and then get a $20 rebate.
Okay, so enough about software, how do you use it?
That depends…
Personally, I always start with a really basic assembly. Since most of the time, you’re shooting out of order, your footage is kind of all over the place.
In theory, this should be easy. All your footage is a big puzzle, and all you have to do now is put it together. All the pieces are there. It’s just that some pieces look better than others… (That’s pretty much it for that metaphor.)
So start by putting it in the right order. Get the lines of dialogue where they belong. Get the action where it goes.
If you were paying attention to my previous screed in directing, you should have all your shots, so that shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Right.
So get it all in the right order.
Then, start watching it.
If you’ve got 90 hours of footage, this could take a while. If you’ve got four (Robert Rodriguez said he had 4 hours of footage for his 80 minute “El Mariachi,” and I believe him) it’ll take you, you know… half a day.
Can you start cutting right away? It’s a matter of personal style. With my students, since they’re always rushed, they usually have two takes of a scene that works, and as many as ten of a scene that doesn’t. They shoot a lot of hand-held, rather than cutting back and forth between actors, so that speeds the process.
Generally, if they just choose the last take, their final cut is pretty much ready to go. So there’s no real need to watch each take, again and again, looking for the perfect cut.
But! That’s no always the case. And sometimes, you’ll realize that something needs to be moved around, and often it’s easier to do that when your “film” is in one huge chunk, instead of a bunch of little ones.
So watch it all before you start cutting, if you can.
Keep a copy of the script nearby, and refer to it as you cut. Why? Because just like when you were shooting, it’s easy to cut a line, or miss an important gesture. It’s not a big deal now, but if you cut something, and delete it, you’ll have to go footage-hunting later, and that will irritate you to no end.
But hey, at least it’s not film.
(An aside: If you’re doing a big, multi-day shooting project, try to watch the footage every day. I say this because I almost didn’t once, on a three day project, and then at the last minute I thought I should check the footage. In one shot, nothing was white-balanced, and EVERYTHING was blue. Luckily, we had a day left to reshoot. So we did.)
Once your movie is cut, walk away from it for a couple of days, then go back and rewatch the whole thing away from the computer, if you can. Drop it to DVD, go somewhere else, and see what you think of it.
Take notes.
Then take an axe to it, and pull out all the little bits that don’t need to be there. Cut away. Take out the lines that you don’t need, and the long pauses that seemed meaningful the first time.
Then show it to some people. Talk to them. Take notes.
Then take an axe to it again.
Then show it to some more people.
When you’ve got it to the point that the movie more-or-less works…
Then fix stuff.
Add or replace the music that needs replacing. Don’t use famous music unless you’re rich, or you never want to show the movie to anyone, ever, in a public space.
Fix the sound editing. Add in all the little sounds you think are missing. If you want, get a sound designer. But yeah. Fix it. Just wait until you reach this point to do it, of you’ll end up moving a bunch of sound effects around over, and over, and over again until the movie is done.
And when you’ve done everything you can to make the movie as good as you can… slap on some credits.
Credit everyone who helped. Thank them profusely, if you can. Why? Because you want them around to help you make another movie. Plus, it costs you nothing. It’s just words on a screen, and the people who want to turn off the movie can totally do that.
Just remember, though – if you’re making a short, little or no credits at the beginning. And make your credit crawl quick at the end, so it can be programmed easily at film festivals.
And are you done?
Eh. I’d show it to one more small group before you shove your baby out into the world at large. And if there’s a big problem?
Fix it.
By now, you’re probably pretty sick of your movie, and never want to watch it again. But if something is wrong – and I mean really wrong – you want to fix it now, before you start showing it off to the world and spending money to have people tell you where you screwed up.
And that’s editing.
Friday, May 13, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Directing
Yikes.
Okay, here’s the deal. I say this all the time, and here I’m going to say it again.
I’m a writer.
I have been paid to write, in multiple mediums.
When I’ve directed, it’s been on an amateur basis.
So all my advice is either stolen, or things that I’ve worked out while working with high school students.
So let me start with two books:
David Mamet: On Directing Film
http://www.amazon.com/Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/0140127224
Robert Rodriguez: Rebel Without a Crew
http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-without-Crew-23-Year-Old-Filmmaker/dp/0452271878/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305232809&sr=1-1
Why recommend those two books?
Mamet is, by most accounts, not a great director. But he brings his movies in on time and on-budget, and that’s worth something. Plus, unlike the big-name directors, he usually doesn’t have that much money to spend.
He knows how to get it done.
And the way he gets it done is pretty basic. He figures out what’s supposed to happen in a sequence, he breaks it down into a series of shots, and he gets those shots.
The actors, the sets, whatever else, are all window dressing. As near as I can tell, the man is not looking for great acting (though he hires great actors, so maybe that’s moot) or great sets, or whatever else.
He just wants a place to shoot, so he can get his shots. Then he makes everyone create the shots he needs.
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but the book didn’t tell me what that was. So let’s pretend that’s all there is to it.
“Rebel Without a Crew” says pretty much the same thing, by the way, but it emphasizes that you should try to make your movie look awesome.
Mamet, generally, makes movies that could be stage plays, and generates excitement through drama. Rodriguez gets in his emotional licks here and there, but really, he’s an action director who seems to love finding new and entertaining ways to blow stuff up.
As a teacher, this is what I emphasize:
Get your shots.
My favorite editing advice came via a friend who asked Tim Minear (Angel, Firefly) for tips on directing. Tim said (more-or-less) go watch an editor try to put a movie together, and ask them what’s missing that they could really use.
Taking the reverse of that, the question is always: What’s missing?
So, make sure nothing is missing.
Make sure your script is on-set, even if you’re just there with a couple of friends stealing shots for your indie movie. Bring a highlighter. As you get your shots highlight them. Make sure none of your shots are missing.
When you’ve got your shots, you’re done. Not before that.
You might think, “Oh, I probably don’t need this shot.”
Well, if you thought it was important enough to put in the script, then you need to shoot it. Because a week later, when you realize that you just need, like, an insert shot… the weather will be different. Or a table will be missing.
Or, in the case of my students, the classroom they were shooting in got all-new desks.
Or, in the case of another class I was running, we got moved to a totally different building on our shooting day, and one actor-person was there the first half of the day, and a second actor-person was only there the second half.
Did we make it work? Yep. Because you have to. But with all the things that might go wrong, why shoot yourself in the foot?
Bring your script, shoot what’s in the script. Leave only when you’ve got everything.
I hear a voice crying in the wilderness, asking how to deal with actors.
Well, okay. Remember that script you’ve got? You do? Good.
What you do is, you bring a bunch of people in, and you have them read the script, and if they read it a way that you like, you cast that person.
Then you make sure the person is responsible enough to show up on the days and times you need them.
And if you do your casting right, then you shouldn’t need to do a lot of “directing” your actors. Because they already read the script the way you want them to.
I realize this sounds kind of bland, and the truth is, if you’re a big-name director, or making a movie for a big studio, you’ll probably be able to pick and choose a little more.
But in the small-time world, the smartest thing you can do is cast actors who are doing what you want them to do. Then make sure they do it again on set.
And get your shots.
Finally, a couple of thoughts on how to go about choosing your shots.
If you want some terminology, go here:
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/
When it comes time to break down your script, you can do it using storyboards, or you can do it with a shot list.
Use whatever works for you. I had my kids do storyboards, and then we never used them because we had so many issues to juggle.
But we kept the script in front of us, and highlighted things as we got them done…
And we got our shots.
Get your shots.
Will doing any of stuff I’m recommending you do make you a great director? I’m going to say no. But at the end of your time shooting, you’ll have all your shots, and you’ll be able to cut them together into a movie.
And that’s a win.
Okay, here’s the deal. I say this all the time, and here I’m going to say it again.
I’m a writer.
I have been paid to write, in multiple mediums.
When I’ve directed, it’s been on an amateur basis.
So all my advice is either stolen, or things that I’ve worked out while working with high school students.
So let me start with two books:
David Mamet: On Directing Film
http://www.amazon.com/Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/0140127224
Robert Rodriguez: Rebel Without a Crew
http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-without-Crew-23-Year-Old-Filmmaker/dp/0452271878/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305232809&sr=1-1
Why recommend those two books?
Mamet is, by most accounts, not a great director. But he brings his movies in on time and on-budget, and that’s worth something. Plus, unlike the big-name directors, he usually doesn’t have that much money to spend.
He knows how to get it done.
And the way he gets it done is pretty basic. He figures out what’s supposed to happen in a sequence, he breaks it down into a series of shots, and he gets those shots.
The actors, the sets, whatever else, are all window dressing. As near as I can tell, the man is not looking for great acting (though he hires great actors, so maybe that’s moot) or great sets, or whatever else.
He just wants a place to shoot, so he can get his shots. Then he makes everyone create the shots he needs.
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but the book didn’t tell me what that was. So let’s pretend that’s all there is to it.
“Rebel Without a Crew” says pretty much the same thing, by the way, but it emphasizes that you should try to make your movie look awesome.
Mamet, generally, makes movies that could be stage plays, and generates excitement through drama. Rodriguez gets in his emotional licks here and there, but really, he’s an action director who seems to love finding new and entertaining ways to blow stuff up.
As a teacher, this is what I emphasize:
Get your shots.
My favorite editing advice came via a friend who asked Tim Minear (Angel, Firefly) for tips on directing. Tim said (more-or-less) go watch an editor try to put a movie together, and ask them what’s missing that they could really use.
Taking the reverse of that, the question is always: What’s missing?
So, make sure nothing is missing.
Make sure your script is on-set, even if you’re just there with a couple of friends stealing shots for your indie movie. Bring a highlighter. As you get your shots highlight them. Make sure none of your shots are missing.
When you’ve got your shots, you’re done. Not before that.
You might think, “Oh, I probably don’t need this shot.”
Well, if you thought it was important enough to put in the script, then you need to shoot it. Because a week later, when you realize that you just need, like, an insert shot… the weather will be different. Or a table will be missing.
Or, in the case of my students, the classroom they were shooting in got all-new desks.
Or, in the case of another class I was running, we got moved to a totally different building on our shooting day, and one actor-person was there the first half of the day, and a second actor-person was only there the second half.
Did we make it work? Yep. Because you have to. But with all the things that might go wrong, why shoot yourself in the foot?
Bring your script, shoot what’s in the script. Leave only when you’ve got everything.
I hear a voice crying in the wilderness, asking how to deal with actors.
Well, okay. Remember that script you’ve got? You do? Good.
What you do is, you bring a bunch of people in, and you have them read the script, and if they read it a way that you like, you cast that person.
Then you make sure the person is responsible enough to show up on the days and times you need them.
And if you do your casting right, then you shouldn’t need to do a lot of “directing” your actors. Because they already read the script the way you want them to.
I realize this sounds kind of bland, and the truth is, if you’re a big-name director, or making a movie for a big studio, you’ll probably be able to pick and choose a little more.
But in the small-time world, the smartest thing you can do is cast actors who are doing what you want them to do. Then make sure they do it again on set.
And get your shots.
Finally, a couple of thoughts on how to go about choosing your shots.
If you want some terminology, go here:
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/
When it comes time to break down your script, you can do it using storyboards, or you can do it with a shot list.
Use whatever works for you. I had my kids do storyboards, and then we never used them because we had so many issues to juggle.
But we kept the script in front of us, and highlighted things as we got them done…
And we got our shots.
Get your shots.
Will doing any of stuff I’m recommending you do make you a great director? I’m going to say no. But at the end of your time shooting, you’ll have all your shots, and you’ll be able to cut them together into a movie.
And that’s a win.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
More Reviews, and Interviews
New review!
If you are looking for a Zombie novel that is all blood and gore then this book is not for you. If you are looking for a novel that you can not put down; because you have to know what happens next - then this is more your style of book.
Interviews! And a book giveaway!
Here's the interview.
And here's an essay about my name, Mercy, and a giveaway. Actually, it'll be a couple of giveaways, as anyone who comments will get a free copy of my novelette, Baby Teeth.
If you are looking for a Zombie novel that is all blood and gore then this book is not for you. If you are looking for a novel that you can not put down; because you have to know what happens next - then this is more your style of book.
Interviews! And a book giveaway!
Here's the interview.
And here's an essay about my name, Mercy, and a giveaway. Actually, it'll be a couple of giveaways, as anyone who comments will get a free copy of my novelette, Baby Teeth.
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