Get Started in Film Making

The Definitive Film Maker's Handbook

Tom Holden

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781473678545
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Arti performative

Get Started in Film Making is the essential guide for all budding film makers, empowering and inspiring anyone to unleash their creative side. Completely revised and updated, it is the perfect manual for smartphone Spielbergs, Go-Pro adrenaline junkies, drone-warriors, and wannabe vloggers. It covers every aspect of making films, showing you what's involved from start to finish. You won't get bogged down with technical jargon or confusing proprietary expressions. Instead it breaks things down into easy, step-by-step stages, emphasising that creativity, enthusiasm and drive are just as important as cool kit and funky editing apps. From scriptwriting, casting and cameras to lighting, financing, filming and editing, this is the most comprehensive, user-friendly guide on the market. So whether you're using a smart phone, a drone or a state of the art camera, get ready to step up from shooting clips to making films. ABOUT THE SERIES
People have been learning with Teach Yourself since 1938. With a vast range of practical how-to guides covering language learning, lifestyle, hobbies, business, psychology, and self-help, there's a Teach Yourself book for everything you want to do. Join more than 60 million people who have reached their goals with Teach Yourself, and never stop learning.

1

Getting ready

In this chapter you will learn:

• what administrative tools you need to obtain

• the qualities you need to exercise

• what general attributes you need to consider

What do you need to make a film?

No, you don’t need several attaché cases stuffed full of used notes, or the phone numbers of your favourite actors (although it would help). The things you need in order to set out on your quest to make a film are much more rudimentary, and a mixture of personal qualities and physical bits and pieces.

1 A script

This is very important as it will be a great help if you have a story or finished script that you wish to film. It is the key way in which you can show people what you want to do, what the plot is and who the characters are. You can highlight parts in the script that you are exceptionally proud of and bore people to death with them. Basically, it’s the first building block in the arduous task of making a film. If there’s no script, there are no characters and no story. You’ve got nothing to film. A script is the source of your film. It is the plan for the whole venture. Even if you haven’t a clue about anything else, you will at least be able to show others what your ‘blueprint’ looks like.

Key ideas

Scripts can often take years to develop, so don’t feel despair if yours isn’t quick to come by. In some extreme cases, scripts have been lifelong struggles of hardship and painstaking research before they were ready to be made into a film.

2 A telephone and/or mobile phone

You will have to contact a large number of people and organizations as you get things moving. These may range from friends who will take part in the film, to camera hire organizations and places where you want to film. A phone will therefore be your front line of communication. A fax machine would be helpful as well. Did you know that some production companies for TV shows and films are nothing more than a producer and a secretary in a crummy office? And guess what – they’ve all got phones!

Key ideas

Amazingly, some films can start life from something as innocuous as a brief conversation. Communication, and communications are key to film making.

3 Audacity and ingenuity

When making a film, depending on its complexity and your ambition, you will probably have to call up complete strangers in various organizations and businesses to ask for some outrageous and cheeky favours and assistance.

I once produced a film set in 1987 Czechoslovakia where several scenes in my script were set in a Czech pub. I had to find out whether there was a Czech beer company operating nearby, so I went to my local supermarket and looked for some Czech beer. When I found that they stocked some, I went to the customer service desk and asked for the number of the supermarket’s head office. I called up the number and asked for the department that dealt with purchasing alcohol. When I was connected I asked them if they could give me the number of the company that marketed the Czech beer, and then called that number. I got through to the head honcho, explained to him that I was making a film set in Czechoslovakia and asked if he could help. To cut a long story short, I was given beer, props and technical assistance worth thousands. Film sponsorship from the aisles of the local supermarket! Although I didn’t actually get any cash, the support I was given put me in good stead for when I approached funding bodies – about which I’ll talk later. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

4 Motivation and determination

No one is forcing you to make your first film and if you want to achieve something it’s up to you how hard you try. Things won’t always go to plan, and it’s your call whether you want to go on or quit when things get tough. It’s by no means easy, but the more you put into something, the more you get out of it.

5 Confidence

This is a personal quality you need if you are to get anywhere. There’s no point trying to get a project as large as a feature film, or perhaps a five- or ten-minute short, off the ground with a negative attitude. Keep your chin up and go for it! Even when you seem to be facing a string of disasters, carry on and keep trying!

6 A filing system

Despite the apparent glamour of working in the film and television industry, a huge percentage of the job is given over to the rather dull task of administration. A film is a very fiddly exercise in managing various pieces of information required to make the project. If you can’t keep track of things (how many will depend on the size of the project), you will not go far.

As the project progresses, you will be receiving, sending out and otherwise dealing with some fairly large amounts of information. This might include replies to your enquiries, the contact details of places and organizations that could assist you, camera rental services, drama groups and so on ad infinitum. If you are not careful, you could soon be lost under a pile of little bits of paper and yellow stickies with phone numbers and people’s names written all over them. Likewise, important emails could be lost in the depths of your inbox. Sooner or later, you are going to have to get in contact with these people again and call them up to arrange a meeting or send them further details. I’ve been in film production offices which looked like ransacked stationery retailers – this is what happens when people aren’t organized.

I’m not saying that you have to rush out and buy the latest office equipment or enrol on a management course at the local night school, but it is important to sort out a system that allows you to know exactly where a piece of information is when you need it.

A simple system is to use boxes: place copies of letters asking for assistance in one, the contact details of all the places you wish to call eventually in another, and copies of the script in another. Just make sure you keep the subjects separate before you are overwhelmed by a heap of paper. For example, don’t just have one stack of details, or soon you will discover that the phone number of the guy who said he could lend you the cameras free of charge is lost somewhere under the monster pile on your desk or floor.

A lever arch file with coloured paper separator sheets seems to...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents 
• Foreword
• Introduction: The film making process
• 1 Getting ready
• 2 Scriptwriting
• 3 Casting and rehearsals
• 4 Cameras
• 5 Using your camera
• 6 Lights and lighting
• 7 Sound
• 8 Locations and obtaining support
• 9 Financing your film
• 10 Fine-tuning your vision
• 11 Silence on set … and action!
• 12 Completing the moving ‘jigsaw’
• 13 Special effects filming and editing
• 14 Showing your film
• 15 Presenting and filming logs
• 16 Confessions of a first-time film maker
• Glossary
• Taking it further
• Copyright