Films that a great to learn off of

I don't mean this in attacking way just curious. I remember you doing a re-edit of Terminator 3 I think it was. Why do you feel the need to fix other peoples movies? I get scrutinizing and picking apart movies that didn't quite work or totally failed, and speculating what you would have done to make it better, but you seem take it that extra step and actually work on it. I mean to each his own, but it always seems to me like the creative energy spent on these sort of endeavors would be better spent on an original project.

Most of the stuff I've shot has been black comedy, revolving mainly around people talking a lot, with bits of action or horror spread through, so if I'm trying to figure out a pacing problem or something similar I'll likely throw on Blues Brothers or Chasing Amy. I used to use Very Bad Things a lot, but the more I watched it the less I liked it. Texas Chainsaw massacre I've used a bit.

I think they key is to use as varied a number of sources as possible, you don't want to just ape off of one thing.

For a slow burn type horror, other than Carpenters flicks I'd probably recommend that first batch of Japanese Horror that came out before it all got tired and old. Ring and Dark water etc. Not sure how you'd translate that type of thing into a masked killer movie though.

"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." You can set your watch to it like an episode of television. Prologue, set-up, launch, end of first act - second act complication #1, #2, #3, second act resolutions, #1, #2, #3, second act downfall - third act, third act reversal, conclusion, denouement. Once you know the basics of structure, you can fuck with them at will, but if you're looking for a baseline of a studio picture, this is pretty much it. Also, "The Rock."

Scorcese inspires me. As does Hitchcock. Any director that can wield the camera like it's a character in the story.

Or BLOW OUT with the sound way up.

Just Finished watching "Drag Me to Hell" for the second time, just to watch it, but it ended up solving some major tonal issues I was having with a story idea.

A bit off-topic, but you asked: the Canon 5D performs very well in low-light scenarios. Problem is, it'll probably cost your entire budget to rent it for a weekend.

Here's a low light test: http://www.vimeo.com/7001815

The camera itself won't give you that exposure. That video is using a specific lens with specific settings in a specific environment. But it is a good example of what the camera is capable of.

Good luck!

Edit: Corrected a redundancy.

Tremors if you're after doing a genre flick. Great act structure, hardly any wasted dialogue, good character archetypes without becoming cliche and a fun climax.

Can someone get a paper bag for Ryan? Take it easy big guy, nice deep breaths, in and out.

I'm not too familiar with rock band mics, but at a guess I would think the cameras in built mic would probably be better suited for the job than that. I wouldn't think the rockband mics would be that great at picking up sound beyond a few meters and if you're not getting someone to hold it closer, then I'd use the cameras mic and then adr anything that doesn't make the grade.

If you have the mic already, may was well just test that theory out yourself and see which gives better results.

I was just trying to ignore it, horrid, but now that it's out there...use the camera mic at the very least and be sure to use a wind sock no matter the weather. Rock Band mics don't have the frequency response that is needed for getting good clean dialogue. They also don't have the pick up pattern to allow you to get truly clean words.

Or, alternatively, get a nice shotgun mic (rentals are cheap) and rig it to the camera somehow (without wrecking either of them) and run it through the mic inputs on the camera. You can record directly to your laptop if you want but the inputs on most laptops are mini pin and that sucks for recording.

Here's the thing, sound is what separates amateurs from pros. If you are serious about wanting to show this to people and maybe have it shown publically be sure to not skimp on sound. There are always work arounds for getting good sound without adding much cost.

Yeah if like you said, your only plans with it are to chuck on youtube, and show your friends, then the camera mic, even if it's just a consumer level handy cam will be ok as long as all the actors speak loudly and clearly. I'd almost go so far as to recommend this approach over having a microphone because it does simplify shooting a great deal. And if it's mostly you and some friends goofing around and seeing what you can come up with, then that's fine. It's how I started back in the day, and each project you get a little more confidence and a little better equipment.

If you intend to show this in some kind of a short film festival or even if you're thinking about renting a small movie theater and having a private screening, then you really should consider a better sound recording set up. If it's presented in a place with halfway decent speakers, you're going to hear every flutter of wind, and every time you shift your grip on the camera. And people are going to sound muffled.

Just rent an ME66/K6 kit for the weekend. It'll cost like nothing and improve everything tremendously. It sounds like your production values are terrible, so invest in sound first--it's the cheapest and easiest way to make something cheap at least borderline watchable. The ME66 is appropriate for basically any space except a really enclosed, reverberant interior, but you can sound dress that a little just by hanging blankets up off-camera and then use it for everything. If your camera lacks XLR inputs you can rent a beachtek or or an external recorder, neither of which are too expensive. Bring in at least one crew member to work as a grip/sound recorder; that way if you're director and cameraman you can have that person tweak lights while you watch the monitor before you roll and record sound after you roll.

If you're going to be editing your own footage, you'll spend hundreds or thousands of hours going over it and each time you hear bad audio you'll just wish it were better--until you just keep hearing like the same two seconds of 60hz hum or an airplane over your head over and over and then go mad like Blow Up or the Conversation or some shit. It's like the script or dunkin donuts cup in frame of the headphones world--only you can rotoscope that cup out if you're that OCD but audio is harder to work with... ADR can kill the life of a performance and is hard to match up, both in terms of EQ and lip sync (how I wish I knew this years ago!) so just spend the $100 or whatever and know you're starting strong.

P.S. The Coens are the best directors to watch for shot choice, not because they're terribly inventive (though they are), but because they're the best remaining Classicists. A Serious Man, for instance, has little else but shot/reverse and the occasional dolly move or POV shot but it's such an incredible movie in terms of essentially all elements of construction. Just consider which characters are given dream sequences and which characters are given POV shots and how Deakins lights each person and how this pays off w/r/t your sympathies and even whether you experience it as a dark comedy or drama (or both) and--it's just incredible. Second to the Coens, early Spielberg is fine and so is most Raimi and mid-era Hitchcock, though a Hitchcock film is a very different thing from most anything else and really no one else can do what he does. Cameron handles action very well and pay particular attention to cutting patterns and focal length with him; Bay does action extraordinarily well, too, but he works intuitively and is hard or impossible to emulate. Nolan is shitty at picking shots, but it's obvious from the dumb and pedantic themes in his movies that he views film as a medium as nothing more than a cheap trick so if you like cheap tricks, emulate away! Cronenberg and Lynch are great but both of them are working at fairly basic levels in terms of how scenes are pieced together and their real talents are with less concrete devices (with Lynch, sound is big; Cronenberg is trickier...). Don't try to emulate Tarantino; his films are too-often the cinematic equivalent of mixtapes (and even Inglourious Basterds, a real and very good movie, has mixtape tendencies) and he's seen better movies (and heard better music) than you have so please never try. Scorsese and Kubrick are real talents, but nightmares to learn from and generally if you're copying their technique without the broader and personal context their own movies have...it won't go well. Watching dogme95 films can be worthwhile just because those directors are working with a self-imposed limited formal palette, but as those movies (even the excellent film the Celebration) are academic exercises foremost and actual movies only after that, it's important to watch them (and apply their techniques) only as such... I don't think Bigelow commands the same kind of rigor the best directors (the Coens) maintain, but there's a lot to learn from Hurt Locker (peep the multi-camera set ups, the use of omniscient edits during suspense sequences and particularly the sniper shootout) and even Point Break is superbly directed. Don't even think of copying Malick, though a photographer or DP could learn a lot from Days of Heaven (namely, shoot up north where magic hour lasts longer).

Don't feel bad if this doesn't come out well. I have the footage locked away from the first non film school short I made. No one shall see it...ever.

Use it as a learning experience! A fun one at that.

As far as films...I like to use Hot Fuzz as an occasional wake up call. It pretty much deconstructs the technical and story based elements of filmmaking in wonderful ways.

Yeah, the basic problem with amateur filmmaking is that audiences have become fairly competent at watching and understanding movies, but much less so at making them. There's tremendous film literacy w/r/t "reading" movies (even among the otherwise dumb--except maybe A.O. Scott--critical community), but very few people can "write" them.

Never mind good lighting, sets, and sound work, which money can in fact buy--many student films and "for fun" videos (and even a lot of indie films) try to emulate showy techniques (crazy reveals, shock cuts, crash zooms, lighting shifts, etc.) without the director really knowing what the hell he's doing in the first place. I recently saw the trailer for Dead Snow and the guy's doing crash zooms like crazy, but he doesn't know why he's doing them and it's pretty weak stuff.

If you're serious about making movies for more than fun, read a few books on them until you at least know how to frame a decent shot, edit to build tension/emotion/intensity, and how to work your way around the axis of action (PM me for suggestions!). And then rent a great traditional or seminal film in the genre you're shooting. Sit down with it, pick a few key scenes, and write up a shot list of the type of shots you see, the duration, and any important sound cues, etc. Important criteria to list include shot scale, focal length (if you have the eyes to determine it), any interesting effects (filtration/shallow or deep focus, high/low key light), camera movement, placement of audience (POV, OTS, single, dirty single, two-shot, etc.), etc. Pay attention to who's being followed when and who gets POV shots, over the shoulder shots, the most close ups, etc. Better yet, storyboard and draw where the camera would be for each shot in the sequence you're watching. For instance, the dinner table scene in Drag Me to Hell may seem effortless, but the number of tricky hinge shots and advanced cutting patterns used to cover the action and then effectively modulate between the traditionally shot conversation and Christine's experience of the Lamia taunting her is remarkable. Very few directors can do that. The scene functions great as both horror and comedy and while it looks effortless, it's an incredible work of craft. The fact that it even cuts together coherently is remarkable.

Another important trend to follow is subjectivity and range of narration. Pay attention during the course of a film to how much you know w/r/t other characters. Most comedies, for instance, are relatively omniscient, but they'll sometimes surprise you with an unexpected gag. A comedy that follows one character too closely will play more like a drama (like Foot Fist way, upon which I've expounded before....) and will not be funny to most non-jaded viewers. Watch the margin of safety and how it's maintained/undermined. Most horror movies (during scenes of horror) follow a single character and keep the camera physically close to that character most of the time (using wide angle lenses and an often-handheld camera) while also providing POV shots from that character's perspective to align you with his/her experience. But horror movies will often also include intercutting with shots of the killer or of an "ominous unclaimed POV" to hint at the killer's presence. Sometimes you'll see through the killer's point of view. Most Hitchcock movies are very subjective (you know about as much as the protagonist and, furthermore, experience POV shots primarily from the perspective of one character) but he will let you know about certain threats (a bomb, etc.) ahead of time to engender suspense or he'll use cutting patterns (such as in Strangers on a Train) to impose false timetables and associations. Consider what motivates camera placement. If you have a wide shot, why is it wide? If you have a close up, why is it close up and why is it shot with the focal length the director chose? What motivates a static camera versus a handheld one? (Watch Brokeback Mountain for effective use of limited handheld in an otherwise visually restrained film.)

There's a very basic language in film that's essentially transparent to 99.9% of viewers. So most of the cool techniques nascent filmmakers try to emulate are only those that are overt enough to draw attention to themselves--and also those that will look most amateurish when applied improperly and inelegantly. (Fading lights out w/o explicit diegetic motivation, for instance? Not recommended. Read a little Perkins--internal consistency trumps all.) When all else fails, think of your main character and follow him or her with the camera. Give him or her the majority of POVs and CUs. Shake the camera or use camera moves to indicate that person's subjective experience. Generally, only zoom in POV shots, if at all (that said: the Vertigo zooms in Jaws and Poltergeist are excellent; the zoom in the airplane plan shot in Knowing is very, very nice.)

If you are actually serious about trying to get a film into a festival step one is to make it ten times shorter than your current script is. Just shoot like one scene or something. Step two is to storyboard the entire thing and make sure it cuts together. Watch the axis of action and avoid intercutting between disjunctive camera movements. Follow the 20º rule (never cut between identical shot scales and never without turning the camera at least 20º--under normal circumstances, of course axial cuts can be used and used effectively but avoid them when they're unnecessary) and maintain clean exits and entrances--shoot them even when you think a match on action will cover the cut; you can always cut them out. Get enough coverage. Always have cut-aways; even though they'll sometimes weaken your scene because you lose focus a bit, a lack of cut-aways is the easiest way to ruin a scene completely. Then hire a talented crew to shoot it and make sure you have a good DP. Watch reels very carefully until you find someone who's done the kind of stuff you want to do, and communicate clearly: be on the same page about what you want and why. Shoot 2-3 pages a day at most. You can get people to work for free, but please feed them and pay for transportation. Never drink or smoke pot on set unless your crew is paid well; your crew will lose all respect for you, you asshole.

Lastly, 99% chance your movie will suck, but 100% chance you'll learn from it. The idea is to keep learning until it doesn't suck. And stop emulating these directors, damn it:

Nolan.
Scorsese.
Tarantino.
Antonioni.
Anyone French.
Michael Bay.
Kubrick. (Unless you're PTA.)
PTA. (Unless you're whatever PTA is to Kubrick.)
ESPECIALLY Malick.

Imo, this is like bar none the best intro to filmmaking book available, but I can't go posting it too much because I'm so obsessed with it in real life that someone will figure out who I am if they catch me talking it up. A lot of the other more "advanced" shots books are good, but the really fancy ones generally suck since they show cool techniques you'll use like once, but they don't provide context for where to use them or why they work. And then your films are like an ESL kid spouting twenty-dollar words: annoying and terrible. Remember, the Coens know how to do it all but their recent films are largely shot/reverse shot. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

Good vocal mics (condenser mics) have very bad off-axis rejection and are only appropriate for recording in sound booths. Cheaper live mics like the ubiquitous shure sm58 and sm57 have some off-axis rejection, but not really. You really need a hypercardoid or line plus gradient type mic (shotgun) (btw, someone can correct me if I'm wrong; I'm not usually a sound guy) for general purpose work and maybe lavalieres beyond that. I like the ME66 because it has a nice pickup pattern but it's not too harsh or ridiculously selective like some higher-end mics. It's like $20/day and you don't even need phantom power with it. This weekend I might get my hands on an MKH-416. That's the mic I wish I owned.

Don't get me started on lighting, though, except for this:

When in doubt, bounce.
If you have more than one visible shadow on a wall or face, you have too many. Generally, try to assume one primary motivating source per scene. Bounced light is effectively shadowless most of the time.
Insulation board at home depot (PM me for more info!) is the best reflector available and it's $10 for an 8'X4'. Always bring some sort of reflector with you when you shoot outside. Generally, avoid shooting between 10am and 3pm unless you're in shade or have a butterfly or are making a film called "High Noon" (I pity the DP of that movie and plan to write my own western called "About Twenty Minutes Before Sunset").