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Directing, Filmmaking, Visual Storytelling

5 Challenging Scene Types and How to Conquer Them

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September 15, 2018

- Directing, Filmmaking, Visual Storytelling

Practice, practice, practice!

As the saying goes, you need to put 10,000 hours of practice into something to become a phenomenal practitioner of that thing. (It might actually take less than 10,000 hours, but that’s another story.) Well, it may hurt to think about how much time that means you really need to put in to become a master of your craft. I get that.

Don’t think about it too hard. Just practice when you get the chance and make it a habit.

So, a great way to become a great filmmaker is by practicing some of the most common scenes.

Each of these scene types reveals something important about your characters, create or resolve a conflict, or advance the story, so they are important to get under your belt if you haven’t tried shooting them before.

This article from Yeah Write! goes into depth about the elements of a scene, what makes a scene work, and what the goal of a scene is.

Basically, a scene mimics an entire film in that it has a beginning, middle, and end, and should reveal something about your characters as they make active decisions toward a goal.

That said, you need to make sure your scene has all the important elements of drama to make it effective and not simply a filler scene.

The dinner scene

This scene is deceptively simple. The mistake I made when I got started as a filmmaker was thinking that having a ‘normal’ dinner scene showed that my main character was a family man (or something like that). Just by having it in there.

Instead, the scene felt fake, because there was no conflict within the scene–what family never has conflict at the dinner table?

By having no conflict, my characters revealed nothing about themselves, and the story was not advanced. It was essentially a waste of time.

A dinner scene (or any meal, really) is a great opportunity for storytelling. You are taking your audience and inserting them into one of the most private moments anyone has; eating a meal at home, away from the prying eyes of the public.

They are probably at their most relaxed and vulnerable and may reveal something about themselves.

What if they are eating with family, but are totally clammed up and uneasy? Or, perhaps your character is eating all alone in a small apartment littered with cigarette butts and empty bottles.

See what I mean?

Quick Tip: think about the setting of the meal, the people present, and what their goals are during the meal in order to reveal more about your characters in this scene. This breakdown by YouTube channel “Now You See It” goes into depth on how powerful dining scenes are.


The foot chase scene

This type of scene is both fun to shoot but also challenging to pull off. Using the right kinds of shots, lenses/focal lengths, and editing to make the scene feel energetic and intense is not as simple as it might seem.

While you might not do very well on your first try, practicing and reviewing your work afterward is key to mastering this scene. If you can nail it down, it becomes a great tool for advancing the plot and injecting a little excitement into your film.

Remember, though, that the scene should reveal things about your character and your character should be doing it to achieve a specific goal.

If we don’t have a reason to care about the outcome of the chase, it won’t be interesting. Is he lazy, an overachiever, overconfident? Perhaps he is chasing a criminal but intentionally lets him get away, revealing he may be hiding something?

Quick Tip: use long lenses to shoot characters moving side to side, and use wider lenses to shoot characters moving toward or away from the camera – that will make them seem to move more quickly than they are. You can also get great results by tracking behind or in front of a character.


The fist-fight scene

If you go ahead and practice this, you don’t have to do anything too crazy. However, knowing how to shoot a fight is good to know how to do in a pinch. Ever needed to just have a character punch someone in the face?

Beginner filmmakers can have a hard time selling this single, straightforward action on camera.

It certainly confused me at first!

Like the foot chase, a fist fight comes with a variety of technical challenges, since you have to ‘cheat’ the position of your actors and camera to simulate that they are actually striking each other.

As far as storytelling goes, a fist fight or physical struggle is a legitimate method for a character to attempt resolving a conflict or issue.

Your character may even be making a bad decision, but it’s a strong choice that reveals much about your him, nonetheless.

You just have to make sure that physical altercations advance the story and aren’t there just for their own sake.

Quick Tip: the actor’s arm/fist should always hide the gap between their fist and the other actors face, like Ryan Connolly demonstrates in the below video breakdown.

Oh, and for a good laugh, check this out.


The travelling scene

Travelling scenes aren’t just for cookie-cutter transitions!

This is a multi-purpose scene in that it can really tell your audience a lot–if you use it well.

A traveling scene can range from a montage of your character going on an epic journey, to traveling from one city to the next, or even just walking a few blocks.

However, in that rather short span of time, the audience sees many things.

Environment. World-building. Tone. Character attitude. How the character interacts with his world. How they fit into the world.

Do they ignore their surroundings? Do people avoid them? Do they take the back alleys, looking around cautiously? Do people spit insults at them?

Is their world busy and full of stimulus? Is it a slow country town?

Give your audience a sense of the world your character inhabits, and tell them a bit about who they are and what they do.

Travel scenes are often used as a transition, such as going from one city to the next as a matter of plot progression, but you should always try to use that time to show your audience something about your character.

Quick Tip: take a look at a scene where your character is traveling. Think about the layers of information you can convey through this scene–who, what, when, where, and why–and try to communicate more than the obvious through your travel scene.

The exposition scene

Exposition: “the insertion of important background information within a story; for example, information about the setting, characters’ backstories, prior plot events, historical context, etc.” (Wikipedia)

The rule of thumb for filmmakers is ‘show, don’t tell’. This is incredibly important. You should always look for ways to build vital information into your story through characters’ actions and their world.

Exposition, if done badly, tends to tell, not show. So, only once you have built as much information into the scene as possible through non-dialogue means should you use dialogue.

At that point, dialogue can be a good way to communicate information (like in this great breakdown of how to use dialogue), but you need to get to the point, and you need to make it interesting!

Don’t have your characters sitting and doing nothing but chatting, pandering to the audience. Not only is that boring, but… well, that’s actually a great reason not to do it.

Part of your job is to entertain the audience.

A way to handle exposition is ‘the walk and talk’.

Sometimes the walk and talk can double as a traveling scene (from one location to another) and way to deliver exposition. It can show a lot about the character’s world, their busy life, and deliver information that will be important for later in the story.

The video below hints at some ways you might effectively use text and dialogue to communicate information without pandering to your audience.

You can also use a traveling scene as an opportunity to have characters deliver important information while also getting to a critical next step for the story. This might be traveling on a plane, bus, in a car, or another mode of transportation.

Quick Tip: try to communicate as much information as possible with action, tone, and world-building. Whatever you need to tell the audience through dialogue, have your characters say it while doing something relevant or interesting. Traveling, Building something, cooking, cracking jokes, struggling to get the kids to the dinner table, hiking to their hunting blind… anything–just keep it entertaining.

Oh, and then there’s this:


Try these and many more

Like I said, the key is to practice. This is obviously not an exhaustive list of the types of scenes, the ways you can execute them, or what you should try. Regardless, I’d encourage you to bust out a camera, call a couple of friends, and go try out these scenes. Good luck!





1
Filmmaking, Self-Development

10 Vital Life-Skills Filmmaking Will Teach You (Part 1/4)

By on

August 18, 2018

- Filmmaking, Self-Development

Doing the stuff you don’t feel like doing

Fear. Laziness. Discomfort. Weariness.

Filmmakers often face these obstacles.

I’m no exception. Especially when it’s not just a day or two, but a long form project that seems to stretch on forever, never-ending…

Ultimately, these are human weaknesses, though creatives often face unusual challenges due to the function of our minds. Creative, but scattered. Enjoy starting something new, but lack follow-through. Being introverted, yet being in a position that demands interaction.

These things can pile up and overwhelm you. But if you want your film to be the best it can be, you have to fight it. You will learn to, and I’ll share how I was faced with these issues, encouraged to overcome them, and learned (by necessity or by choice) to grow from them.

I hope that you can do the same – maybe before you get on set again!

This week’s specific topics:

1. Don’t ask? Don’t expect anything to happen.

2. Throw your hands up – if you want to fail.

3. Sloths don’t shoot feature films.

Each time you fail to ask someone for help out of fear of rejection, are tired and make a dozen excuses to not push forward… your film will reflect these things. Poor lighting. An ineffective scene. A nonsensical line of dialogue. You can often trace them back to one of three things: inexperience, lack of resources, or ‘letting it go’.

These sit, more or less, within the ‘letting it go’ category.

As filmmakers, we know when that’s the case. And it’s more often than we’d like to admit.

This is one of the beautiful challenges that filmmaking forces us to face – facing those inadequacies and strengthening them, or continuing to create poor quality work.

Don’t ask? Don’t expect anything to happen

My producing partner and I sit outside a mom-and-pop restaurant. The concrete is starting to get hot. It’s 10:30am in Phoenix, in the Summer, and the location owner is nowhere to be found.

We text. We call and leave voicemails. But there’s not a peep.

We’d done everything by the book. We had locked the location weeks earlier, followed up with him a week, several days, and the day before our shoot to make sure everything was good to go. He promised it was.

Our actors were showing up at noon.

It’s nearing 11am. My initial reaction is one of defeat. We might as well call it quits today. Try again another day.

“Well, this sucks. What the heck is that guy’s deal? He promises to be here and just doesn’t show up?” I bet he’s sleeping, I think. It’s hard enough to lock down a restaurant for 2 whole days of shooting, much less for free.

My partner, Joseph, replies.

“Yeah.”

Joe is a man who never uses many words when fewer will suffice.


He thinks for a moment, while I stew unproductively, expecting us to go home and tell our actors we will reschedule.

Nope. Joe insists that we need to make it happen. We can’t just put it off. He’s right, of course, and I grudgingly agree. I’m being lazy (we’ll get to that later). I don’t feel like it’s realistic that we will somehow be able to find a location so last-minute.

So, in the most impromptu manner possible, we decided to drive around a bit and hopefully find a similar location nearby. We turned left onto the road in our mini-convoy, traveling about a half-mile before we hit a sparsely populated strip mall. There weren’t very many vehicles in the parking lot on a Sunday morning.

‘Cafe’, said a poorly designed, but newly placed banner above the building.


Joe and I shrug our shoulders. Might as well give it a shot, I suppose. It was open.


I fully expect to get a ‘no’. After all, we are asking to shoot basically right now for four hours or so, and arrange another shoot day of about 6-8 hours – an action scene, no less – for no compensation at all and no insurance.


Ironically enough, Joe has me do the talking. He spurs me to action, despite my protests. He tells me I’d do a better job talking to the staff. I nervously agreed to try. I wasn’t terribly confident in this arena.

The small cafe-style restaurant is minimally staffed, and I walk up to a middle-aged woman who looks busy and in-charge. I awkwardly approach and tell her that we are shooting an indie film and our location dropped out on us last minute. Their restaurant is ‘perfect’ for our scene and we wonder if we could shoot there. I give her all the details on what we needed.


“Sounds good to me. My boss is right over there, I’ll talk to him about it.”


Whoa, that’s a convenient twist.


She walks over to her boss, chatted for a minute.


“Yeah, he said it’s fine. And you can come on another day too, when we aren’t too busy.”


Incredible.

I mean, the chances of everything working out like that seem fairly slim, right? Sure.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that there are opportunities, possibilities, and alternate options out there, waiting for you. When things go wrong, when you can’t find what you need or the rug gets pulled out from beneath you, if you don’t pursue new solutions, nothing will happen.


You must go out and courageously pursue solutions. If you ask, you will receive. Or you might–and I don’t know about you, but I think those odds are way better than no chance at all.

If you ask, as they say, ‘the worst that can happen is they tell you no’.

More importantly, if you don’t ask, they never get the chance to say yes.

The lesson:

One thing that is important to note is that in this circumstance, my natural inclination on a long-term project (without any real external pressures to stick to timelines and such) was not ‘the show must go on!’. Instead, I would have simply called things off.

When I started out as a filmmaker, sometimes I’d rather avoid confrontation and feared being denied, turned down, and rejected.

It was also laziness and lack of follow-through.

The biggest problem for me in this situation is that I would’ve rather stayed comfortable, in my little bubble, interacting with the few people I needed to, just enough to get by. I wouldn’t have gone out and talked to random people if Joe hadn’t encouraged me to do so, even though it would’ve meant delaying the film’s completion, inconveniencing crew and cast, and getting a worse location down the road.


I still have these issues, but they aren’t as pronounced as they used to be.

This story highlights a couple of things. Firstly, it’s important to intentionally force yourself to leave your bubble of comfort. Face some discomfort. You’ll adapt and grow, and your film will be better as a result. It will become less difficult. It will allow you to do things like approach people you never would otherwise. You’ll be pleasantly surprised who might be willing to help you out and give you a chance.

Secondly, the fact that my partner, Joe, kept me accountable to getting results for our film is what made our film possible. This is why I advocate for first-time feature filmmakers to find someone you can trust and make a film together. Having that angel on your shoulder (and you being the shoulder on theirs) is invaluable.

On the other hand, that means that if you are going it alone, you will have to be your own ‘rock’. You need to hold yourself to a standard. Set concrete goals and make yourself stick to them. Build in accountability for yourself by setting expectations for people around you (like cast and crew) that depend on you getting results.

If you have something you feel you have to live up to, you’ll be more willing to go out and ask the difficult questions.

Throw your hands up – if you want to fail

1 month of preparation. Not enough time to cast. Last minute pickup and assembly of equipment. Unexpected rental car fees. A 3 hour drive to a location night-shoot. In summary: multiple near heart-attacks (at least for me) leading up to the shoot.

I meet with the crew at a predetermined point in Phoenix, ensuring we have all our ducks in a row to convoy to the shoot.

We trek to the location, and the crew arrives as I survey the location, reminding myself of all its details, deciding for good where I’ll shoot this or that bit of the film. I mentally prepare for a long night of shooting.


I’m excited. Focused. Anxious.


We get settled in, staging the equipment and having a safety meeting. Now it’s time to get to work…

Setting up the DIY, PVC rain rig. By the way, the entire shoot hinges on this rig working.

All the scenes take place in the rain.

That’s one heck of a piece of equipment to put so much faith in, but since I had tested it prior to the shoot, I didn’t have a lot of concerns.

This is the video where we tested the rain rig.


 

I ask my key grip and PAs to go set up the rig on this little beam on the side of the building so it can cover our scene. It’s still daylight and we have plenty of time. So far, so good, right?

They get it set up, more or less, and turn it on, but it’s another half hour before it works properly. I think we are making good time.


Murphy’s law strikes: the glue on a fitting fails and the pressure of the rain rig drops to nothing as water floods out of the breached connection.

We fix it with gaff tape (of course). It’s a temporary solution at best.

Rinse and repeat – we wrap the same connection several times before it functions. When we start shooting, things go smoothly, except for every couple of hours when we have to repair the gaff connection since the hot tap water is melting the adhesive.

Hurdle 1 completed.

I could go on ad nauseum, so suffice it to say that these and other normal on-set surprises occurred throughout the night. Our actress was freezing from the rain, our rain rig kept falling into further disrepair, and our location building started leaking and taking on water from the rig.

Toward the end of the night and after a few re-rigging sessions, the rain rig is totally busted. It sputters water every which way, the spray isn’t consistent, and it didn’t look good (in my opinion). I’m not happy. My crew is exhausted and impatient, understandably. The rain rig needs repair every 15 minutes, then 10, then 5…


We rush to get our last shots, as our actress freezes from the wind and water and cold, and we desperately attempt to fix our failing rain rig, while sticking to the schedule.

But finally, we wrapped.

The lesson:


We persevered. We got it done. The footage looked great. In this scenario, it was clear to me that we didn’t have the option of rescheduling or finishing the second half of the shoot another day.

There was no way the budget could accommodate that, and so the decision was simple.

However, my first instinct was still that we should resume another day. So, when circumstances make it incredibly difficult for you to throw your hands up and decide to figure it out another day, that’s convenient.

But what about when the stakes are lower? When you have flexibility? When it doesn’t seem like ‘that big a deal’ to reschedule?

For example, I did a short film where the night before, we learned it would probably rain. In my mind, that meant the shoot would be ruined. I actually used this particular film shoot to explain why visual planning is incredibly important for directors and will make or break your film.



 

I argue that you should decide beforehand to push through whatever challenges you face leading up to the shoot. Dedicate yourself to an attitude of perseverance and problem-solving.

While you may think things can’t possibly work out, you’d be surprised what you can accomplish with some ingenuity and a stick-to-it attitude.

The bottom line is this:

Murphy’s law is very real. What can go wrong, will, and if you want your film to succeed, you must learn to persevere and push through those circumstances. You must commit to getting things done, despite your circumstances.

The moment you give up is the moment you truly fail.

After all, you can’t tell the future, and if you decide ahead of time that you won’t succeed, you’re right.

Sloths don’t shoot feature films

The day had finally come.

The last day of shooting for me and Joe’s first feature film. One last sprint to the finish.

One last painful reach for our wallets to pay for our film, and one last long day of shooting.

Our last scene was set on the roof of a warehouse, which was probably the most inhospitable place we could have selected for a night shoot in December.

It was a bitterly cold and windy night and we were on set from about 5pm to sunup the next day. Frankly, it wasn’t a terribly exciting scene to film either, in my opinion, despite its importance to the film. One crew member, who is also a good friend of mine, came to me privately and complained. ‘Why do we have to do this scene up here?’

Could we have picked an easier time, place, or method to do the finale shoot?

Yes.


 

At the time, we thought that using this location would have the best dramatic effect and make the most sense. Aside from whether it was ultimately effective or not, we thought it was important to give it our best shot.

While my friend’s complaints were understandable, they were also very demoralizing for me. His comments affected me because my natural response was the same as his. His comments drew attention to something I was already aware of but was trying to ignore. Of course I would have preferred ease to difficulty. But sometimes, you just have to slug through the shoot.

Sometimes, there’s no substitute for hard work. Even something we enjoy doing can become quite un-fun.


The lesson:


Learn to combat the lazy instinct we all have. Laziness is the root of many excuses to not do things we need to do. It gives us reasons to evade anything.

Don’t be tricked by this instinct. We all have it, and there’s no shame in admitting as much, but you should learn to counter it.


Identify whether there are any other legitimate reasons for not doing something, but don’t allow your lazy instinct to dictate how you plan or what you shoot.


Learn to do the things you don’t want to

All of this lesson stuff is easier said than done. You’re going to fail, repeatedly. That’s okay.

What’s important is that you continue to struggle. If you find yourself complacent, never questioning yourself, and never kicking yourself for falling short, there’s a good chance you’ve fallen into the comfortable track of the person who does hard things only when they want to. The selectively hard worker. An evader of discomfort.

I’ve born these titles before (and still do from time-to-time) and I’m not alone.

Keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Your films will improve, and you will be a better person. Remember:


1. Don’t ask? Don’t expect anything to happen. When your way forward to success involves asking people for help or talking to random people, get out and give it a try. In the end, you will only have yourself to blame for not stepping up to the challenge and breaking out of your bubble.


It helps to have a friend or partner who challenges you and provides encouragement.


2. Throw your hands up – if you want to fail. Take a wall in your way as a challenge to overcome. Commit prior to your shoot that you will be a problem-solver and find a way forward.

You may find ways to tackle those problems in the future that you would have otherwise not discovered.


You will be more committed if others are relying on you to come through.


3. Sloths don’t shoot feature films. Identify whether there are real reasons for not doing something, but don’t allow your laziness to dictate your plans.


As always, I wish you the best. Get out there, challenge yourself, and make some great films.

0
Filmmaking, Self-Development

10 Educational Resources Filmmakers Need to Know About

By on

August 11, 2018

- Filmmaking, Self-Development

Become a life-long learner & stay on top of your game

You should be constantly educating yourself, then applying that knowledge. This is important if you want to stay on top of your game and remain competitive, or reach the heights of professionals you admire.

I thought I’d put together a few resources I’ve personally found helpful. Some of these are paid or offer paid options, but most offer free material or are completely free.

General Education

EdX. This site provides university-quality course content, completely free of charge. There are options, depending on the course, to pay for an official certificate, and some of the classes can be paid for and contribute to a professional certification. However, you are never required to pay in order to have access to the course and work through the material for your personal growth.

I think the trend of making educational resources more readily available for the public is a great one.

Personally, I took a course called “Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract” by a professor at Harvard Law School. It was an incredibly interesting course. Each section consisted of video lectures that were quite well put together.


Skillshare. This site offers a handful of select free courses but is mostly a paid, subscription-based site, priced at a reasonable $15.00 month-to-month for unlimited course access.

While I haven’t yet made time to make use of it myself, I have browsed courses related to business, marketing, and video production and there seems to be a solid selection of quality, highly rated material.

There are also less-viewed and lower rated courses on the site, but that could simply be due to lack of views or low-quality material. While such a large site is bound to have some poor quality material, there is plenty of good material to balance it out.


Navigating the Industry

Rob Hardy – Filmmaker Freedom. As a filmmaker, Rob has struggled with the dichotomy between doing your art and supporting yourself. He understands the challenge of trying to be a filmmaker in our changing times, as do we all.

His personal experience with this struggle and the mindsets needed to find financial freedom as a filmmaker culminated in his site Filmmaker Freedom, where he shares helpful content on improving craft, but even more useful information on the mindsets you need to apply in order to tackle this industry successfully – by creating your own definition of success and paving a realistic path to it. I highly recommend it.


Noam Kroll – Show Don’t Tell. Noam is a commercial and film director based in California who publishes the podcast Show Don’t Tell, where he mostly shares information on being a successful producer and director of feature films (not unlike myself).

Though he does focus more on technical craft (such as color grading, which seems to be a passion of his) than I care for, his weekly articles share useful insights exclusive to his subscribers, while his newsletters and podcast and informing for those interested in creating commercially viable feature films.


Technical Tutorials

Moviola. This comprehensive filmmaking education resource was created by the folks who created one of the old school, original film editing systems. Now, they own and operate companies like FilmTools.com, a popular site for filmmaking equipment of all sorts.

This site is, in my opinion, one of the most unknown but helpful resources out there, especially if you are lacking in technical knowledge.

It covers every topic, from ‘Gripology’ to introductory and advanced visual effects techniques. It’s a treasure-trove of learning and I urge you to check it out. The crazy thing is that this use to be a subscription site offering 90 day free trials, but is now completely free.

I’ve used it to learn about topics I was ignorant about as well as brush up on some skills I hadn’t used in quite a long time. Go check it out and share it with anyone you know looking to get started in filmmaking.


Film Riot. Widely known, loved, and one of the first popular DIY/Indie filmmaking YouTube channels, Film Riot has grown with its creators, Ryan and Josh Connolly. For beginner-level filmmakers, their first few years of online content will provide many hours of educational material, while more advanced filmmakers will enjoy their newer material.

As they’ve learned, the techniques they try out and share with the world lean more advanced.

They also make some great assets for filmmakers which I have personally purchased and used often (including on my first feature film), such as their gun Foley sound pack, fighting sound effects pack, and gunshots sound pack.


Filmmaker IQ. This website and YouTube channel has a variety of thoroughly researched, in-depth material on a variety of topics, from the science of lenses, to the history of Hollywood, to the practice of blocking actors.

This resource provides a great overview for filmmakers, especially beginners. However, it goes in-depth enough that moderately experienced filmmakers can find real value in the content that Filmmaker IQ’s host, John Hess, presents for your pleasure and education.


Shane’s Inner Circle. I met Shane Hurlbut at NAB once, and I thought he was a pretty nice dude. He’s also a family man and dedicated, talented professional who works on Hollywood-level projects such as Into the Badlands and Terminator Salvation as a cinematographer. His work is wonderful and he is constantly innovating with his crews.

Though his Inner Circle site is a paid membership resource, if you can’t afford it, his blog is also a wealth of knowledge, for those willing to take the time to browse. I also recommend following him on social media, particularly his Facebook page, where he frequently shares behind-the-scenes snippets of his sets, providing a quick explanation of what they are doing and how they’ve set up for the scene. It’s a nice glimpse into his work that can be enlightening.


Video Essays & Analysis

Every Frame a Painting. Now (unfortunately) no longer producing content, despite having almost 1.5 million subscribers, Tony Zhou and his partner used their editing experience to delve deep into a variety of topics, mostly pertaining to visual storytelling and the arrangement of images. Their insights were cutting and the presentation flowed smoothly.

Though I personally found videos such as Editing Space and Time helpful, prompting me to question how I craft my own stories, at the very least, this content will get you fired up to go out and tell more stories and to grow as a filmmaker.


Nerdwriter. This gentleman analyzes films from a variety of perspectives, sometimes looking at the visuals of a film, sometimes story structure, sometimes why the performance of an actor works so well.

He presents the material very well and clearly does his homework. A couple of my favorite videos include ‘how to film a battle scene’ and ‘how to film thoughts’. As someone who greatly enjoys and plans to shoot both battles and get inside my characters’ heads visually in future projects, I found them particularly helpful.


Learn, but don’t learn too much?

So, here’s a disclaimer. I am advocating you go out and watch and read things on the internet. Soak it all in. Take notes if you have to.

For example, I love to read and think there’s a lot to be gained from doing so. There are bundles of fantastic books that directors should read. There are also many other online resources that I didn’t name.

That said, don’t be that guy sitting and watching video essays all the time and lie to yourself that you are getting a lot done. Remember that at some point, you need to suck it up, go out there, and actually make some films. Don’t substitute book learning for hands-on practice.


Best of luck to you – now get learning!

3
Directing, Filmmaking

[Free Film Questionnaire Form] 3 Foolproof Steps to Apply Feedback to Your Film

By on

July 14, 2018

- Directing, Filmmaking

Clear feedback is key to pulling together an effective final cut of your film.

You just finished the cut of your recent film and are feeling oh-so-competent. Who among your peers have done what you have? You had gone with your genius instincts and can do no wrong. You declare, “it is complete!”. Cackling madly, you hit ‘export’ like the Dr. Frankenstein of auteur directors. You’ve just pieced together a monster.

Deep down in your soul, you shiver slightly. You know what you did is wrong.

A couple of days later, your inner fears are validated when someone comments on the film, which you posted on YouTube.

(Why did you put your feature film on YouTube? …Oh, it was a short? Okay. Well, this information still works for you, too.)

SpinKick74:

“Just really not worth watching. A strange and bad movie all around. 3/10.”


Brutal.

A visual representation of your hopes and dreams after reading the comment on your film.


If only you would have sought out honest, thorough feedback from filmmakers, friends, and strangers! Alas, you did not.

But since you’re reading this, you’ve either learned the error of your ways or know better and want some ideas on how to get great feedback.

Show off the most complete project possible

Before you get started on refining your project, it’s important that you bring it as close to something resembling the final product as possible. Why? Your filmmaking friends may largely understand your intention with the film, already have a general idea of the story, and distinguish from what will be improved and what is being presented in its final form.

These are people you can get feedback from while the film is still under construction or in early stages, and you should seek out their feedback if you can.

However, more ordinary viewers will not necessarily understand or react properly to a film that is not complete in its most important aspects.

Therefore, the closer your project is to being view-ready, the more accurate audience feedback will be.

Some things you can do to make sure feedback will be neutral include:

1. Add basic sound design.

2. Add a simple color grade and some atmospheric sound.

3. Add titles explaining absent visual effects

4. Ensure there are no black frames, missing shots, non-uniform scaling issues, or other distractions.

5. Add anything that is crucial to the viewer to understand the story.

Know your viewer and how to interpret feedback

Depending on the kind of person you get feedback from, you are going to receive different kinds of feedback. Some of it can sometimes be… less than helpful, let’s say.

Your grandma will probably just pat you on the back. “You did such a great job. You are amazing, dear.” You appreciate the affirmation, but it isn’t particularly useful for improving your project.


That’s okay. You love her anyway.

At different points in your film’s creation, you’ll need to reach out to different people depending on what you are looking for.

Audience types and the type of feedback

General viewer:

These are people that aren’t really huge movie-lovers and aren’t necessarily in your target audience. In other words, these might be people you don’t know all that well; maybe that friend on Facebook you don’t know. 34, female, legal clerk. Your film is a thriller. It may not be in her wheelhouse based on demographic trends, but she’s willing to provide feedback.

Target audience:

These viewers are almost identical to the general viewer. The difference is that their feedback will lack any strange reactions or anomalous feedback. They will understand the genre conventions of your film and appreciate the staples of it (ex. action sequences).

What kind of feedback. General feelings, like or dislike, whether it feels professional, what characters they like, whether the acting is good or not, and other general feedback.

What to look out for. For the general viewer, there can be bias in their feedback, such as dislike of genre conventions or an unusual response to scenes meant to elicit specific responses. Their feedback can have abnormalities because they don’t react the same way as the fan of your film’s genre. Your target audience will not have this problem. Always remember that this is ultimately the group of people for which your film is intended.

When to ask for feedback. When trying to work on project pacing, flow, and the arrangement of scenes. Whether plot points make sense and are logical.


Cinephile:

These viewers are frequent moviegoers and have more discerning tastes. They know what they like, know what they dislike, and are usually not afraid of saying so. They are more likely to like a variety of films and genres, so they may be quite similar to your target audience.

What kind of feedback. This will vary greatly by how avid a moviegoer they are and how picky they are, but the cinephile will likely be able to provide more critical, specific feedback to you than the standard viewer, while also providing their general reaction to your film. Some of this feedback might include:

Moments of the film or elements that seem ‘off’ but they aren’t sure why, plot holes, inconsistencies, or character issues, basic structural problems, and critical evaluation of the quality of your special effects, action, or other elements requiring the audience to suspend disbelief.

What to look out for. While they can provide great feedback that is more detailed than the average viewer, they have the potential to be more critical than the average viewer and may not be a completely accurate representation of how your target audience will react.


When to ask for feedback. When trying to work on project pacing, flow, and the arrangement of scenes. Whether plot points make sense and are logical. Quality of music and sound design’s ability to enhance the story. Identifying plot holes and character issues.

Casual filmmaker:

These are those people you’ve met who’ve done some film work but aren’t rabid filmmakers. It’s not that they don’t know anything or have no ability, but they take more of a casual interest, making a little film here and there when they have some time.

What kind of feedback. They are more likely to provide feedback that’s a mix between a layman’s perspective and someone who knows what they are looking at. They aren’t so specialized that they can’t look past issues your film has or the technical aspect. They can provide some technical insight paired with the thoughts of a normal viewer.

What to look out for. They can focus on the technical achievements of your film, slick shots, and other aesthetic elements instead of providing substantive feedback on the crucial parts of your film. This likely won’t always be the case, but it is something worth keeping in mind.

When to ask for feedback. When you need a more discerning eye to take a look at your film, or need a set of fresh eyes to look at a certain shot or cut that hasn’t been tainted by viewing the material too much.

Family and friends:

Friends and family can give decent general feedback on your film, but there is a strong chance that they will not give you detailed or challenging feedback, but rather give you a nice pat on the back and a ‘good job, buddy’.

Their feedback will most likely be broad notes on what they thought was good about it while leaving out the negative. They aren’t looking to cause any trouble and don’t understand that you may be okay with them being brutally honest. This isn’t always the case, but it’s a good rule of thumb.

Professional filmmakers:

If you have any mentors within the industry, or people a couple steps ahead of you in different industry roles, especially writers, they can provide incredibly useful feedback.

What kind of feedback. If they are willing to take the time to give you detailed feedback, they will tell you exactly what they thought worked well and what has issues, and perhaps even offer potential solutions.

What to look out for. Similar to the casual filmmaker, not all professionals understand the essentials of story structure or other storytelling necessities. Instead, each professional tends to have a specific specialty and so they are likely to hone in on that area more than others.

When to ask for feedback. If you are trying to dial in your film and really get it fine-tuned for a competition or for distribution, that’s a good time to ask the opinion of any connections you might have.

Identify patterns of feedback and adjust accordingly

Two times is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern, as they say.

This is a decent standard by which to apply feedback to your film. A professional screenwriter once told me that if he hears the same feedback from three separate people, he almost always will make changes based on their feedback. It’s the smallest sample size from which you can predict what needs to change for the better, in most circumstances.


This standard has held well for me in all kind of projects, both creative and otherwise.


That said, there will be times when someone points something out that you didn’t see before, or their perspective allows you to see a glaring issue that clearly needs improvement. Give it a shot and change it up. No rule is absolute when it comes to implementing feedback to your project.

Free resource – film screening questionnaire

I’m including a link to download a questionnaire to help you collect feedback for your films.

Originally I designed it for viewers to fill out after our preliminary screenings, but I’ve repurposed and improved it for your purposes. I do hope you find it helpful as you work to make your project the best it can possibly be.

Click here to get the questionnaire. The link will take you to a signup form. After filling it, you will be able to download the questionnaire.

Page 1 of the questionnaire (with question 5 filled in completely as an example)

Recap: this is how you apply feedback to your film

1. Show off the most complete product realistically possible. Include non-visual elements that are important to getting the story across, such as particular sound design or sound effects, or a title card explaining a missing visual effect. Doing this will help you get the most neutral feedback possible.

2. Know your viewer and how to interpret their feedback. Understand what kind of feedback you are likely to receive based on who is viewing. From there, figure out how to implement that feedback appropriately without giving too little or too much weight to it.

3. Identify patterns of feedback and adjust accordingly. Remember this rule of thumb: two times might be a coincidence, but three is a pattern.

Just like prep and production, the process of collecting feedback and implementing it effectively is an important step in the filmmaking process.

Now get out there, and make your work the best it can be!

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Filmmaking, Leadership, Self-Development

10 Vital Life-Skills Filmmaking Will Teach You (Intro)

By on

June 30, 2018

- Filmmaking, Leadership, Self-Development

Making your very own movie: the holy grail of filmmakers.

Or at least, that’s how I felt (and do still, to an extent) about making a feature film. I saw it as this grand idea, a distant and unreachable star on the horizon. Producing a feature seemed somewhat unattainable, and getting it distributed even more so (that was a mystery of its own – one I covered in this article).

What I will not be covering in this series are the technical or filmmaking skills I learned during this process. Explaining that could take many thousands of additional words to explain, as the lessons were many.


I will be outlining, generally, how creating a feature film improved me as a person, including weaknesses I strengthened and life-skills (‘soft skills’) I learned. I will explain why these things are important generally, but also how they specifically apply to filmmakers.


I hope you will consider applying the lessons I learned in your own life. If nothing else, they will make you a better filmmaker. However, some of these lessons cannot be learned through any amount of reading, reflection, or video-watching.


I will be tackling many of the lessons learned during feature filmmaking, though not necessarily on any particular schedule.

Here are the topics, broken down by category:

Doing the stuff you don’t feel like doing

1. Don’t ask? Don’t expect anything to happen. When I started out as a filmmaker, sometimes I’d rather avoid confrontation and feared being denied, turned down, and rejected. However, I learned that the payoff for facing that discomfort can be great for your film and your personal development. You must learn to ask for things and not be afraid of the answer. As the saying goes, ‘the worst that can happen is they say no’.

2. Throw your hands up – if you want to fail. As anyone who’s made a film understands, you will face obstacle after obstacle. What can go wrong, will, and if you want your film to succeed, you must learn to persevere and push through those circumstances. The moment you give up is the moment you truly fail.

3. Sloths don’t shoot feature films. Learn to combat the lazy instinct we all have. Laziness is the root of many excuses to not do things we need to do. It gives us reasons to evade almost anything. Don’t be tricked by this instinct. We all have it, and there’s no shame in admitting as much, but you should learn to counter it.

Don’t be like this guy.

Walking tall while herding cats

1. Confidence is the pathway to results. The concept is pretty basic. Most people understand that a healthy amount of confidence is a good thing, and this applies equally for filmmakers. However, there are some specific elements to confidence that I’d like to cover – things that filmmaking has taught me.

2. Not being overwhelmed by the mob. Learning to effectively handle and be more comfortable working with large groups of people is a key element to success as a filmmaker and any team-oriented enterprise. In filmmaking, these skills are most often used for communication to groups, such as meetings and blocking extras, for example.


3. One-on-one communication. You will naturally improve at communicating with others the more you practice, but the more of a conscious effort you take to self-analyze your effectiveness and adjust, the better a filmmaker you will become.


4. Stubborn people, stubborn people everywhere! Dealing with difficult people is part of life. You know this, of course. So, logically, filmmaking is no exception. I’d argue that you are actually more likely to encounter many… interesting folks that you’ll have to work with, for one reason or another. This is something that we can all work at, and if we do, will make us better managers of people.

Reconciling blunders and avoiding perfectionism

1. Embrace mistakes and move forward. When something screws up and does not go according to plan, it’s frustrating, at least, and at most forces us to take another path altogether. Learn to think on your feet, and your circumstances won’t dictate your reaction. You can use the mistake to your advantage.

2. Expectations, meet real life. Okay, something went wrong, inevitably. How do you deal with that on set? You must learn to not become so attached to a particular outcome that you become bitter when things don’t turn out quite right. This is absolutely key for any artist. For filmmakers, the issue is compounded by the complexity of what we do and the potential for so many things to go wrong.

3. Perfect is the enemy of good. The old adage holds true: artists are their own harshest critics. We all desire to meet a standard of perfection. It’s one that is unattainable, and we know it. As a filmmaker, you must learn to move forward with an imperfect result when faced with real-world limitations. This will allow you to get things done and make concrete progress when your expectations and the reality go head-to-head.

Think of relationships, not transactions

This is very important. As an indie filmmaker, you will often be faced with the need to ‘beg, borrow, and steal’, by calling favors, asking for help, borrowing equipment, and so on. You don’t have to burn out your connections. In fact, you can ask for help while also building up your relationships by focusing on building and maintaining relationships.


Here’s my challenge to you: go out there and force yourself to do difficult things, make mistakes, and overcome challenges. Identify these weaknesses in your own life and tackle them. You will be better for it, and your films and sets will benefit greatly as well.

Good luck!


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