Directing 101

I've almost finished directing a short film in which I also star in. We need to shoot another two scenes within the next few days, but I don't think it'll turn out how I want it to be. The only experience I've had is acting on TV and short film shoots, so I'm essentially using what I learnt from them, and how the respective directors shot their material.

Thanks for the links as well. I'll probably get one of those books.

How did it go? I wouldn't sweat it, directing at this level (eg. Low/No-Budget) means that things will rarely (if ever) turn out the way you really want them to be. Thankfully my latest short went better than I expected, partly because I encouraged my lead actor to improv (had to reel him in once or twice though). Lots of planning required because we had to finish on schedule (only had the location for 2 days). I think we made it with about 15-20 mins of sunlight to spare! V. hard work but immensely fun/rewarding.

Just found this forum. If you're interested or currently filming with the RED Epic digital cameras, you'll find here a wealth of knowledge from experts in the field.

http://reduser.net/forum/forum.php

Keith Hodder (Agent OO7 from Mi6) just finished shooting a short with the RED Epic.

When I get my shit together, I'd like to shoot on one. Or the new Canon C300: http://vimeo.com/32067654

Satorious wrote:

How did it go? I wouldn't sweat it, directing at this level (eg. Low/No-Budget) means that things will rarely (if ever) turn out the way you really want them to be. Thankfully my latest short went better than I expected, partly because I encouraged my lead actor to improv (had to reel him in once or twice though). Lots of planning required because we had to finish on schedule (only had the location for 2 days). I think we made it with about 15-20 mins of sunlight to spare! V. hard work but immensely fun/rewarding.

I ended up getting some good shots, but the quality of the camera and microphone cheapened it. But it was a blast editing it (especially watching over the bloopers), but when my Media teacher had uploaded it, half of the footage was deleted so I sort of had to alter the original story to fit the footage I had. That was annoying, especially because I didn't have time to reshoot the scenes. The end product worked though. My brother scored part of it, which enhanced it and sort of masked the terrible audio.

For a first effort, I'm happy. Very far from festival quality though!

EDIT: Oh and directing while acting is bloody difficult. With the tight schedule I had, I couldn't be too picky with each shot, because the actors were getting shitty, and my cameraman had a limited capacity of patience, so I didn't want to piss her off. Most of the shots worked (thank god for storyboarding, despite my inability to draw well), but I think the cameraman was focussed on what was happening, and she didn't follow my movements (slightly off frame) so at points, my chin or nose may be out of frame (we didn't notice this when rewtahcing the footage after the take because the menu display masked the sides of the frame - I realised when I was editing). And you can sort of see the tip of a finger on one of the frames, which pissed me off a bit...

Are you going to post it online, FM?

No, sorry. It's not really that good.... :oops:

Neither is any of my stuff, but I subject people to it anyway.

Are you a film student, or was this just for fun?

High school student studying media, and for an assessment, I had to either make a short film, an animation or produce a small gallery of still images. I chose a short film because I want to become a [competent] film maker and I enjoy acting (though my performance in the film was atrocious )

I may just make another one over the Christmas holidays, because it was a lot of fun doing it, but I don't know, I sort of get discouraged when I know I can't get the quality I want...

Ah, Fields - you doing VCE Media as well? What fun is it.

Pity I fucked my short film - I made the stupid mistake of trying to be too D&M and smart for my own good - instead of just trying to make a technically good film, I tried to be ever so slightly pretentious. Big mistake. It backfired on me because I'm just not at that point to be doing something like that.

Still I got it done and learnt a hell of a lot through filming that - managed to cut down a 12 minute film into 5 minutes ... my Media teacher was so proud of me.