Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with filmmaking

How much should I offer to pay a location for my student film shoot?

saileyn — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:11:09 -0800

How much should I offer to pay a location for my student film shoot? Next February I'll be shooting a short film as my major project for my masters degree at university. While I'd really like to have a decent amount of money to put into the production, it's not realistic for me at this point. I have saved around $1,000 for the project so far.

As such, I have volunteer actors and crew and all the film equipment and insurance is provided by my university. Everyone is providing their own transport and I'll be providing them with meals. I'm borrowing costumes and props from everyone I've ever spoken to :)

I found a location that would be perfect, but it is rented out to holidaymakers for $1800, per 3 days, the duration of my shoot. At that price, the location was definitely out of my league, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask while I kept looking. I figured that it might be a bit forward asking to use the location for free, so I decided to contact the property manager to see if they would let me use the property for my film for a token fee.

I explained that it was a student film, that it was not a commercial project, is not likely to make any revenue and explained my budgetary constraints. In return, I offered them a credit, copy of the film on dvd, high quality stills if they would like them for their advertising, and a link to their website, if I place the film online or build it a website.

The property manager has contacted the owner who seems agreeable to everything so far and mentioned that we'd be liable for breakages, damages etc. But they have now thrown the ball back into my court and asked me to propose an amount to them as my "token fee". The property manager will then see if the owner is agreeable with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should be offering? Is there a standard formula, like locations are typically $x of a film's budget?

Or if anyone could point me in the direction of some useful websites about film budgeting, so I can calculate it (and the rest of my expenses) out on my own, I'd be very appreciative.

Thanks for your help!

straight from the source.

the NATURAL — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:13:57 -0800

Just curious: What DVD commentaries absolutely enhance the movie they're attached to? Thanks for your concern, but I've already seen these two previouslys.

As an aspiring screenwriter (maybe, one day, filmmaker? -- but then, who isn't?), I'm particularly interested in the craft of storytelling and the art of filming (how shots are composed, chosen, etc.). So, while I can't lie that it's funny that X and Y tell hilarious jokes in Z's commentary, I'm more curious from a technical standpoint.

Since this was last done in 2004, maybe skewing this towards DVDs released since then would make this a more timely question, as well.

Thanks, MeFi <4

Help me re-find this irreverent filmmaking tutorial site?

scrowdid — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:04:57 -0800

I'm trying to re-find an irreverent filmmaking tutorial-video site I never bookmarked. In one memorable video, to show how a camera captures photons, they dropped a hundred tennis balls and tried to catch them in a plastic bucket. Anyone seen this? Also, I seem to remember them having:

- a cool Day In The Life of a Location Scout video

- quite a few really helpful videos on lighting where they hung china balls in a bare white warehouse space and showed the effect of CTO on the windows

- a couple humorous tutorials where they recreated some famous movie scenes (comically badly) to illustrate some point of editing

- a video on editing where the often-silent comic foil of the presenter duo takes center stage with a well-written editing primer

- pretty irreverent spirit & design to the videos and site overall

I'm pretty bummed that I can't find it again and am having serious problems with my google fu here. "tennis balls photons bucket filmmaking video" just isn't doin' it. Help?

I'll have eight hours to write a screenplay from start to finish. Help!

Cantdosleepy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:23:12 -0800

Screenwriters - advice for coming up wirth effective short film scripts QUICKLY! I'm involved in a 48 Hour Film Challenge at the weekend. On Friday at 19:30 we will be given:

1) a genre
2) a prop
3) a line of dialogue that must appear in the film

(All teams have the same prop and dialogue line. Each team has a different genre, picked out of a hat.)

We have to submit an edited short film by 19:30 on Sunday evening.

The plan in the past has been: write on Friday, shoot on Saturday, edit on Sunday.

As you can imagine, going from a first concept to a shooting script in one evening, after a day at work, can be a challenge.

Any advice from people experienced in this would be gladly received. Length, drafting, idea creation, etc etc.

What can I do to prepare before the day? What things should I have at the front of my mind? There's obvious stuff - don't include expensive props that we don't have etc. What are other things that should be written on a piece of A4 and stuck above my monitor as I'm writing?

Good movie driving shots for chroma keying?

wavejumper — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:30:30 -0800

Here's a fun one: can you think of any films that have good, usable -moving background- shots / tracking shots, that I could use as a fake "driving" backdrop for a movie I'm making? I filmed a green-screen shot of my friends driving and dancing along in a convertible (which wasn't actually moving) for their music video...and now I'm chroma-keying in various exotic and ridiculous moving backgrounds. I'm looking for things like: driving along a beach highway, driving along a beach itself, driving through a nightclub district or New York / Las Vegas downtown at night, driving through a jungle, anything crazy even (like boating shots over water, etc.), anything that looks cool, i't supposed to be ridiculous and fake and fun, that's fine, but we're also trying to make it look -awesome- :-). So recent or high-res, non-jumpy clips would be best. One shot I have so far is them driving through outer space, which is pretty cool looking.

Can you think of any films (or other sources) that have tracking shots like what I'm thinking of? I need two angles: one looking directly backwards out the rear of a moving vehicle, and one looking sideways off the side of the road as things go by. "Empty," purely background-only shots would be best of course, though with a certain amount of finess, I could remove another car in the shot and replace it with the one we filmed. I can also reverse shots that show forward-motion, so those are possibly usable as well. Thanks a lot!

How does one drive a fake cop car around?

ambulance blues — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:08:31 -0800

I'm looking to rent a fake cop car for a quick, no-budget film shoot. My question is, how the hell do I transport it without getting pulled over for impersonating an officer or getting similar attention from law enforcement? Weird question I know, but calls to the Police Station (Wilcox Ave, Hollywood, no less) went nowhere. They had no idea and gave us no firm answer. Ideas/experiences/better places to ask?

Film Scheduling Resources?

Bobby Bittman — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:44:49 -0800

Anyone know of some good freeware film scheduling software or templates? I'm producing a short film in the next few months and I've lost the templates I usually use. They were old anyway, more for student filmmaking. Now I'm looking for software or paper templates that will help me keep things on track and make sure that, week by week, I'm getting done what needs to get done as we inch closer to the shoot dates.

Thanks!

How do I get into filmmaking?

fishtacos — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:17:08 -0800

I want to get into filmmaking as a hobby, but I'm not sure where to start. I've long been interested in filmmaking, and played around with camcorders a lot when I was younger. But unfortunately I didn't really pursue this interest much in college, and now (a few years graduated) I'm trying not to regret this. I'm not asking how to hit it big in Hollywood - obviously no one can answer that. But I do want to get seriously involved in filmmaking as a hobby, and given that digital filmmaking and distribution is so accessible these days I think it's a great time to do so.

I've been doing a bit of writing for a while now, though nothing close to a complete script. What I'm really hungry for is to get my hands on a camera though. Unfortunately none of my friends are similarly minded, and I'm not sure where to go from here. I checked out meetup (I'm in Chicago) but didn't find anything that seemed active, and I know there's some filmmaking group that offers classes somewhere in the north side, but they were pretty expensive. Basically I want to find people with my same level of interest and potential commitment - people who want to get together and just make movies. I would easily commit 10+ hours/week of free time to such a project, and even a bit of cash, and while I admit I'm most interested in writing and directing, I have no problem collaborating - I know I have a lot to learn.

Is Chicago just not the right city for me to indulge this wannabe passion? Or is there some underground group of auteurs waiting for me somewhere?

Using copyrighted music in a student film?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:40:05 -0800

Submitting a student film for a local festival. Unlicensed music used. How should I clear this? I've produced a short movie for an introductory class at University and a friend recommended I submit it for a local film festival. However, I delved into my own collection of (legally-owned) CDs for its soundtrack.

The budget for this film was $0, and I have no intention of profitting from it in any way. Assuming it may be chosen (which is admittedly unlikely), what should I do to prevent the copyright police from knocking my door down?

I'm in Michigan, if it matters.

Looking for ultra short films

ilike — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:11:51 -0800

Looking for short films with a narrative structure and extremely short running time, no more than 90 seconds that I can watch online on vimeo or some other video site. I have tried to look at the big video sharing sites but most shorts I have find are more like a moving picture of something without a story or animations that while often beutiful doesn't tell a story either.

The reason is that i got myself a super 8 camera and a roll of film and need some inspiratation on how to handle the ultra short format. The film is only enough for roughly three minutes of filming and I might want to do a retake so I aim for the final product to be about a minute.

Thank you in advance!

How to rent out my video equipment?

JMB1138 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:45:19 -0800

Where to list my video equipment for rental? I've accumulated what I think would be a great equipment package for no-budget indie filmmakers to rent in the New York area. Canon HV20 and HV30 HDV video cameras, plus a dual-channel wireless lav microphone system that I used to shoot a big project recently. I was thinking of trying to rent it all out as a package at a competitive rate to earn some extra cash while it's just sitting around collecting dust. Where's the best place to list something like this?

Am I crazy to try shooting a motion picture on a still camera?

drjimmy11 — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:35:48 -0800

Am I crazy to try shooting a motion picture on a still camera? So i was reading this thread and what people said about the Nikon D90, and it started me to ponderin'...

Why couldn't I make a near-professional quality film on this thing? It's got all the things I want: HD, 24fps, ability to control depth of field, and changeable lenses.

The major drawbacks people mentioned were:

1) it can only shoot 6 minutes at a time before needing to cool off. As far as I'm concerned, that's no big deal. i would never want to shoot more than 6 minutes continuously anyway. Does anyone know how long it needs to cool off though? I assume 6 minutes also takes up a healthy chunk of memory card, but it wouldn't be a problem to have a laptop on-set and unload after each take.

2) Possibly only has mono sound. This isn't a big deal because any on-board sound from any camera isn't going to come close to professional standards. I'm assuming you CANT plug in an external mic, can anyone confirm or deny that? that's kind of a bummer, but not a dealbreaker- it just means having to record sound separately and sync up later.

I realize it's no Red One, but then i can buy a D90 and probably a decent lens for what I'd pay to rent a red one for a weekend.

Am I missing anything here, camera people? Thanks!

Easiest way to set up a 'fake' torrent tracker?

JMB1138 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:38:06 -0800

I need to create a website for a fake invite-only torrent community to feature in a short movie centering around said community. What's the easiest way to set up a customizable tracker? It's important to note that there will be no actual torrents shared, this is just for the purposes of the movie. I just need the colors and graphics to be customizable so it looks pretty on screen, and so I can 'update' it with fake accounts posting fake torrents as needed for the story. I already have a domain and a webhost with MySQL access. Do I need to go through all the trouble of setting up a real tracker script? Or you think I can just get away with a customizable BBS system?

Any thoughts appreciated!

How to teach film making to a teenager?

glasskey — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:38:25 -0800

I've been asked to teach a one time, one hour high school class on the fundamentals/elements of film making. What aspects of film making would be most exciting for them and with no film making gear how would one go about teaching it? I’m thinking that I could give them a crash course in the elements of film theory – screen 5-10 min of say “Psycho” and talk about each shot and how it imparts meaning through what’s in the frame (mise-en-scene). Then maybe hand out 3-4 pages of a film script that hopefully they don’t know like “Blade Runner?” and collectively come up with a shot list for this script. Then view the film of that script part and discuss the differences of our shooting script and what the director actually did. Does this sound like anything a teenager who has already shown interest in the field of drama and film be remotely interested in? I don’t want to bore them (there could be up to 20 students). Any thoughts on what else I could do? Maybe my film choices need updating? Maybe my approach sucks? I’ve never taught before but I’ve taken many film courses and have worked in the film industry for a number of years – I realize this does not necessarily qualify me for the job but I have been asked and I do want to help as best I can. Thanks hive mind.

Will granting permission for an amateur film of my story mean giving up my film rights forever?

webmutant — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:00:48 -0800

I've just found out second-hand that someone is planning on making a film out of one of my short stories. Which is fine, I suppose, presuming he actually does ask my permission, and presuming it's strictly an amateur not-for-profit film. My question is -- if I do give my permission, will that harm any rights I have to the story? Suppose I wanted to sell the rights to a "real" movie of the story someday -- will giving my permission here mean I've given up the film rights entirely?

Howdunit?

Bobby Bittman — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:44:00 -0800

[FilmmakingFilter] Can someone tell me how this music video was made? I understand that CGI was used extensively (at certain points, in fact, it's entirely CGI), but what I'm interested in is the fast-travelling-over-terrain effect. I'm pretty sure it's the same effect Dennis Muren and co. used for the speeder bike chases in Return of the Jedi, which was just walking through the terrain with a steadycam, shooting at 4fps or something similarly slow.

The question is, though: why aren't the clouds moving? Are they composited in afterwards?

I'd love to use this technique myself and am fiending for an explanation. Thank you.

Help me get the flim school education I missed.

nulledge — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:59:21 -0800

I want to make films. What equipment do I need, and what do I need to know? Nearly a decade ago I was accepted into an undergraduate film program, but for sundry reasons did not attend. I was accepted on the strength of my writing and had a rather meager portfolio of shorts shot on SuperVHS. Now I want to revive this dream. Specifically these are the questions I'm asking myself, also feel free to chime in with the questions that I should be asking myself.

What sort of camcorder should I start out with? I don't think I can justify buying a multi-thousand camcorder, such as a Canon GL or XL to learn on. Yet, I want a camera that would allow me to learn the same concepts and techniques I'd use with a professional camcorder.

What are some good books or resources to learn about digital video production, lighting and editing?

What will I edit on? I need a new computer anyway and I'm eyeing a MacBook Pro. Is this suitable, or should I look at something else and save my money for other equipment?

How do you make your indie films?

seeminglee — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:13:50 -0800

What are the challenges that independent filmmakers + people working in the industry (actors, crew, etc) face today? What tools do you use currently for the different stages of your production? What do you like about them, what do you wish for? I am currently conducting research to understand the landscape of independent filmmaking, and where solutions / hacks exist for filmmakers in dealing with the problems.

Aging makeup for film.

es_de_bah — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:34:09 -0800

How do I age someone for a film? Looking for something relatively cheap/easy. We don't have any proper makeup experience. Looking for supplies, techniques and tips. Thanks!

Filmmaker training, online?

pseudostrabismus — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:59:19 -0800

Suggest online or DVD resources for a new filmmaker to learn about lenses, film formats, shot composition, camera moves, dialogue staging, and other aspects of cinematography & directing? I'd like to get good at directing film, and learning how to do this using books seems old-fashioned.

I want so see examples of shots using different lenses, film formats, compositions, camera moves, camera angles, etc. I've read Film Directing Shot-by-Shot, which is pretty good, but I think that seeing this stuff as a moving visual would be even better.

Is there a website with video tutorials? Or a DVD course somewhere out there?
Other resources I should think about? And I'm open to more book suggestions, too.

Thanks in advance!

Scary Horror Scenes

markovich — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:32:14 -0800

What is the scariest horror movie scene - but taken out of context? I've watched a lot of horror movies, but a lot of them are not really scary if you just walk in the room, have no idea who the characters are or why, and what exactly is happening. A lot of horror movies depend on your empathy with the characters to be really scary. Those are arguably the better horror movies, but there are those other movies where scenes are shot that jangle all your primal flee instincts. You know any?

For example, walking into the scene where the birds are looking at the girl in "The Birds" is on its own, really not scary. The scaryness comes from the story telling.

However if you watch the japanese version of the grudge, and you are watching the scene where they drive a car, and suddenly that little boy appears with that screech at the gas pedal, then that is scary even when taken out of context.

Which other such good scenes are there?

Makeshift production monitor from a computer LCD?

UnnotciedTypo — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:12:52 -0800

Can I use my computer monitor as an HD production monitor? I'm putting together a camera package with a Sony PMW-EX1 camera and a 35mm lens adapter. My budget, however, cannot support a decent professional production monitor (yet). My interim solution (which will be used for focusing, not color/exposure evaluation) is to use my LCD computer monitor instead. Obviously not an ideal solution, but could this possibly work?

It's an older model with only VGA inputs, and I'm using a DVI-to-VGA adapter on it now, as I'm using a newer video card.
The camera (which has yet to arrive) has analog component outputs. The most detailed information I've found states the following:

The EX1 uses the same micro-D-shell connector used by most Sony HDV cameras for analog component outputs, and another micro connector carries stereo analog audio and composite video. Y/C is not provided.

The camera also has an HD-SDI output. My background is in film, so I don't have a good enough handle on video signals to figure this out. Can I convert an HD analog component signal to DVI somehow (which would then be adapted to VGA)? My fear is that this will take an expensive converter box that costs just as much as a real production monitor. Does anyone know if this is true?
Thanks so much, in advance.

Programs in digital filmmaking

nightengine — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:57:54 -0800

Looking for recommendations/opinions about programs in digital media, such as Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts (CDIA). I am in the process of applying to CDIA for their Fall 2008 session. However, I would like some more information on their reputation and success in placing graduates of the digital filmmaking program. Additionally, can anyone recommend similar certification programs elsewhere?

What do I buy a 15 year old kid who wants to make movies?

rocco — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:36:08 -0800

What do I buy a 15 year old kid who wants to make movies? He already has a camera, lenses and Final Cut. My 15 y.o. cousin in Florida is having his first career crisis. He can't decide if he wants to be a Producer or a Director when he moves to Los Angeles!

Before I hire him to make coffee in a few years, I'd like to buy him a book or send him something that he can get his teeth into and feel inspired. I'm just not sure what's appropriate for a passionate skater kid with a rather innocent outlook... Some kind of "Filmmakers Handbook" maybe? Or a documentary perhaps? I feel like all my ideas are too highbrow and boring.

THANK YOU!

Canis obliviosus

bonobo — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:53:58 -0800

Can anyone identify a specific documentary that details a film maker's work with wolves? In February or March of 2006 I watched a documentary that really captivated me and I've since lost the notes I took about it. I missed the beginning and never heard the title. It aired on KET2, a channel for Kentucky Education Television that carries prime-time PBS, repeats, state programs, and children's TV. I searched the episode archive for that time period and found no match. My Google-Fu failed me in this quest.

The documentary examined a group of wolves in a remote setting in Asia or Europe. While the animals were compelling, the film maker's process really captivated me. Much of what I saw of the movie/episode demonstrated how he set up remote, motion-activated cameras and tracked the wolves. The part I caught showed no direct interaction with the wolves.

If I recall correctly, he is also a researcher and, through his process, has offered the most details about this certain region's elusive wolves. It could possibly be another type of canid, but I would hope I can at least remember that part. The terrain was treacherous and rocky and I don't recall it as snowy. As far as the style of documentary, I don't know if it was self-filmed or if the narration was in first- or third-person.