Filmmaking Basics

by Bob Gillen

  Collaboration

  It’s important for a costumer to work with the production designer and the lighting director. They’ll need to coordinate the overall look of lights, sets and costume colors. This is less critical in film than it is in a theater production, but still important.

  Brianne Gillen has designed costumes for over 50 theatrical productions, four short films, and a television pilot. She was also the resident costume designer for the Los Angeles-based Meh-Tropolis Dance Theatre from its founding in 2002 until 2008. Gillen graduated with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and a minor in History from Loyola Marymount University. Check out her blog, “Gowns by…”, about costume design past and present.

  Hair and Makeup

  Having a person or two dedicated to hair and makeup will help, if you can find the staff. Otherwise, each actor will be responsible for their own. A basic kit is easy to put together. When you have your subject on camera, watch the monitor for her appearance. Blot excess skin oil, arrange her hair appropriately for the character, apply a bit of makeup. A small amount of attention will make a big difference.

  The Ben Nye Company is renowned for theater and film makeup. Check their online catalog for a basic make-up kit.

  Tapping into Resources:

  View the clip from the Luhrmann series Set to Screen titled “Costumes”, labeled #7.

  You can get helpful makeup tips from the behind-the-scenes clips of movies on DVD. One good example for zombie makeup is on Disc Two of the first season DVD of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

  ENHANCING YOUR STORY

  Editing

  Your editors must retain the vision of the overall project, the vision that has been originally created by you and your team, brought to life by the director and camera crew, and enhanced by the sound engineer.

  But editors also bring a vision of their own. Given the large amount of footage on hand, they have to make sense of it all and find the story in all that footage.

  Most movie productions shoot at least ten times more footage than the resulting movie. A two-hour movie equates to about 10,000 feet of film. That means a minimum of 100,000 feet of film that needs to be edited. Some directors are known to produce as much as a million feet before they finish shooting. That’s a lot of film to edit!

  Your editors first of all need to be organized. They have to look at all of the footage, then log it so they can find what they need quickly.

  This is where their own vision kicks in. They must create pacing for the film. Some scenes will be drawn out, some trimmed. Some scenes must be moved through quickly. In a short ten-minute film project, pacing is just as critical as it is for a feature-length screen project.

  Determine if your edit software program is non-destructive. This means that while you edit, the program will pull files it needs from the original footage file and leave the original intact. Otherwise, ensure that you make copies of the clips as you pull them down into the timeline. That will keep the original clips intact in the event you make mistakes and need to start over. Of course, you can always re-import the footage, but that’s time consuming.

  If the director and crew have done their jobs, continuity should not be an issue when you get to the edit process. Pay attention to scenes to ensure that a costume piece or a prop is not missing or out of place from one shot to another.

  The Grammar of Editing

  Film editing has its own grammar: a frame is similar to a letter, a shot is a word, a scene is a sentence, and a sequence (a group of scenes) is a paragraph. Transitions function as punctuation.

  Words are separated by a space. Sentences end with a simple period. Shots and scenes end with a cut.

  Groups of sentences are organized into a paragraph. Groups of scenes make up a sequence, and sequences transition from one to another with cuts or with dissolves. A new thought means a new paragraph/sequence.

  Fading in or out from black usually means a major transition. On the written page it could mean a new chapter in a report. In film it marks an entirely new sequence of scenes. Fading in and out also indicates, of course, the beginning and the end of the story.

  Now, a word before more talk of the grammar of edit. Follow your own instincts and creativity first, then apply grammatical structure to your edit. As in writing, you don’t want to lay down a pattern of grammar, and try to impose creative imagery over it. Early in this book, we talked about Gabriela Rico’s clustering process as a way to open your creative mind. Follow those instincts here with editing. Then go back and see what kind of editing structure you’ve demonstrated in your work. Do your transitions (cuts, dissolves) contribute to the flow of your story? Do your shots and sequences move the pacing along?

  This is similar to writing. You access your creative mind first, then ensure that the grammar of writing lays down an effective flow of words, sentences, paragraphs.

  One film writer, Pamela Cole, refers to film as a nonverbal language of images. See her discussion of the grammar of film editing for more detail.

  The point with all of this comparison to literary grammar is simple: you can use film grammar to edit your film effectively. Just as a good writer uses grammar and literary technique to tell a good story, so the film editor uses his own grammatical constructions to tell a good visual story. In a written story, short words and sentences, small paragraphs, crisp dialogue all translate to a brisk, even breathless reading experience. In film, short shots, scenes and sequences can create the same breathless experience for a film viewer. Cole says:

  When you write, you select words from your vocabulary and string them together in a particular fashion to construct sentences that will inform, entertain, or evoke emotional responses within the reader. When you edit a motion picture, there is a similar process. You have to select shots and string them together in edited scenes to inform, entertain, or evoke emotional responses within the viewer. For your written sentences to make sense to readers you must follow the known and accepted rules of grammar for your written language – spelling, word order, phrase structure, tense, etc. There is also a similar visual grammar for the language of motion pictures – how they are shot and how they are edited together.

  ProFile – Christopher J. Bowen

  On Editing

  "When you write, you select words from your vocabulary and string them together in a particular fashion to construct sentences that will inform, entertain, or evoke emotional responses within the reader. When you edit a motion picture, there is a similar process. You have to select shots and string them together in edited scenes to inform, entertain, or evoke emotional responses within the viewer. For your written sentences to make sense to readers you must follow the known and accepted rules of grammar for your written language – spelling, word order, phrase structure, tense, etc. There is also a similar visual grammar for the language of motion pictures – how they are shot and how they are edited together."

  Christopher J. Bowen authored Grammar of the Edit with Roy Thompson, published by Focal Press. This quote was published in Grammar of the Edit, Second Edition, copyright Focal Press, 2009.

  Edit Pacing - the Art of the Edit

  Film editing creates the flow and energy of both individual scenes and the overall film. It’s all about rhythm, intensity, movement. In setting a pace for a scene, the editor can create a sense of excitement with faster cuts, making each shot maybe two to five seconds long. On a slower-paced scene, cuts may occur every five to ten seconds.

  For strategies on pacing and momentum in a documentary film, see the New Doc Editing blog.

  Titles and Credits

  Spell check! At least three times, with different sets of eyes. Check the spelling of cast and crew names in credits or onscreen reference. Don’t assume that one source – the school yearbook, for example – is 100% accurate. Double check against other sources: the school administration’s class lists, for example. Failing to do this not only embarrasses you; it also diminishes your subjects and crew.

  Advice from an Expert Editor
– Walter Murch

  If you would like to take your crew to a higher level of editing, we can’t do any better than to refer you to Walter Murch. Murch is a well-known film editor and sound designer. His films include Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II and Part III, and American Graffiti. Many consider Murch’s work to be the Zen of film editing.

  Murch starts any edit with the question – how do you want the audience to feel? He will often do the first edit cuts without listening to the audio. He tries to get a sense of the movement, the visual emotion. Then he turns on the sound. Sometimes he’s got the movement and the emotion right, sometimes he has to go back to re-cut after hearing the audio track.

  Murch uses “the rule of six” in his edit work. (We’ll quote just the first three; see his book In the Blink of an Eye for more detail.)

  The ideal cut is all about emotion, story, rhythm. It will:

  Be true to the emotion of the moment

  Advance the story

  Occur at a moment that is rhythmically interesting

  Murch likens the cut in a film to the physiological blink of an eye. Each “interrupts the apparent visual continuity of our perceptions.” In watching raw footage, Murch will look for the instant when an actor blinks. More often than not, that’s the right moment to insert a cut. This works especially well with good actors who can capture a moment with emotion and drama.

  Tapping into Resources:

  View the clip from the Luhrmann series Set to Screen titled “Editing”, labeled #1. View also the clip titled “Music”, labeled # 2.

  Also check out the behind-the-scenes features on some of Robert Rodriguez’s movie DVDs, for example, Spy Kids. You may not care for the movies or the graphic violence in some of his films, but you will get a strong sense of how a director/editor works.

  Sound

  External Microphones

  To capture good sound, you’ll need to use an external microphone (mic). Almost any camera, no matter how expensive and professional, will not be suitable enough for audio capture. They may work fairly well when the subject is close to the camera, but at some distance, only an external mic will capture the level of sound you need.

  A “shotgun” mic is always a good choice for most camera recording situations. These normally require a battery or two, and contain an on/off switch. Setup and troubleshooting when recording will always include a check that the mic is turned on. Replace batteries often and carry a few extra when recording in the field.

  Lavaliere (lapel) mikes work well for interviews and some dialogue situations. They will prove invaluable when a number of subjects are talking on camera, as in a group discussion. Wireless mikes work best in this category, but any mic cable can be hidden from view.

  Most prosumer cameras will have switches to move between on-camera and external mikes. Be sure they’re set for whatever mic setup you’re using.

  A professional camera, and some prosumer cameras, will have connectors for XLR cables. These are professional cables with a third internal cable for grounding, which helps eliminate buzz and noise in the audio signal. If you have a basic camcorder, you can purchase audio adapters, such as BeachTek, that attach to the base of your camera and take XLR cables.

  Sound Levels

  As you monitor sound when recording, pay attention to the audio levels on the camera. You want consistent sound levels, without low spots and without high end clipping. This simply means a strong signal, not too low, not too high. Watch the gain levels in your viewfinder, if your camera has them, or listen carefully with your headphones.

  The person who is monitoring sound has the authority to stop the shoot if sound levels are not good. Otherwise, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. You don’t want to get back to the edit desk, look at your daily work, and find out audio levels were poor.

  ADR

  Actor dialogue will sometimes be difficult to capture. No matter how hard the sound person tries, the environment just isn’t right for strong audio quality. You may find that traffic noise, or an airplane overhead, or shouting crews in the background have impacted the sound on an otherwise good shoot. In these situations, the actors will go to ADR (automated dialogue replacement) to re-do their dialogue in a sound studio. This is also called dubbing.

  With your limited budget, ADR won’t be easy, but it can be done. Record the actors re-doing their dialogue in a studio or a quiet place while watching themselves on the video track, put it on a separate audio track, and import it to the edit program. Use your previously recorded “room sound” to lay down with the dubbed dialogue, to ensure it doesn’t sound like it was recorded elsewhere. With some focused effort, your crew should be able to do this so that the audience won’t notice the difference.

  Room Sound

  If you have any taping situations that you think may require ADR, be sure to record ambient or room sound before you leave the location. This simply means that you silence your actors and crew, and then let the camera run for a few minutes to capture the “sound” of the space. Note this in your script notes so you can find it later for the log book. Then add the room sound to another audio track that will run parallel to the ADR you record. The ADR will sound like it was part of the original recording.

  Foley

  Foley reproduces everyday sounds for a film’s audio track. Sounds include footsteps, doors opening and closing, the ring of a cellphone. Some edit programs, such as Apple’s iMovie, have a collection of such sounds. Your crews can create some of their own if they wish.

  Sound Effects

  Sound effects are used to enhance a moment in a movie’s story with something other than dialogue. With a bit of imagination your crews can collect and create sound effects that will fit your story.

  Build your own digital sound effects library. Carry your digital camcorder if only to pick up audio. If you have the budget, try an audio recorder. Samson’s ZOOM is a good digital recorder priced at about $200.

  In late spring, head for a pond or creek at twilight to pick up the sound of frogs. Walk the edge of a beach or lake to get the sounds of birds, the surf, the lapping waves of a freshwater lake.

  Capture the rush and roar of traffic on a busy street. Tape the clink of glasses and silverware in a kitchen or restaurant.

  The next time you visit family or friends, record crying babies, laughing kids, even the murmur of background conversations.

  On a breezy fall day, watch for a couple of large fallen leaves scuttling down the street on the wind. Record the dry scratch across the asphalt surface.

  Music

  Using music under your picture will add emotional depth. General rule – don’t use a song with lyrics under a scene that has character dialogue. The lyrics will distract from the dialogue.

  This rule is broken at times, especially on TV dramas. It can perhaps be effective when the volume of the song and lyrics is brought up gradually as the scene comes to a climax. But watch this carefully. Music is great, but your story comes first. Don’t let your dialogue be diluted.

  Case in point: You can see this in action in the ending moments of many Grey’s Anatomy episodes, where the music/lyrics build in volume as the last scene reaches a climax. Dramatic and emotional, yes, but the volume of music and lyrics can sometimes obscure the impact of the dialogue.

  Creating Your Own Music

  Several crew members on your team will probably have some musical capability. They don’t necessarily have to play an instrument. Having a good musical ear is enough. Let them play with a music software program, for example, Apple’s GarageBand. “Play” is the operative word. Give them some time with the program and someone will almost inevitably come up with a few seconds of music that will fit your movie. Even if the music only runs under the opening title, it’s enough to add interest to the movie and maybe spark further creativity.

  See the articles on the Apple site about how Patrick Stump, lead singer of the band Fall Out Boy, uses GarageBand to create his own
music. And acoustic artist Greg Laswell relies largely on GarageBand, even though he has a fully equipped studio at his disposal.

  Someone you know will have musical talent. Check out PlayThisRiff.com for in-depth video lessons from well-known artists. This may help in composing your own music.

  Unsigned Bands

  You and your friends may know someone – a friend or relative – who has a band. If the band is unsigned, unencumbered by agents and contracts, they may be willing to allow the use of their music in your movie. Ask for a release, and include the band’s name in the credits. The band will no doubt be happy for the publicity, and you get copyright-free music.

  Copyrights

  Don’t use copyrighted material without written permission.

  You want your crew to show respect for other people’s property. This includes copying images, sampling music, grabbing clips from a DVD, and “scraping” information from Internet sites.