MicroCinema Scene

Like so many of us with a desire to eventually make movies for a living, I like to view my little DV shorts (a.k.a. Microcinema) as a training ground. Even when making a five-minute camcorder short, the kind where you are the writer/ director/ producer/ cameraman/ editor, you can still prep for bigger shoots, and develop good habits. One of these habits is creating and maintaining a shot list.

A shot list is a list of all the camera angles for a shoot, including coverage and cutaways. This can be done from the script, on the fly during a shoot, or even AFTER the shoot, using the footage and just naming the shots that were obtained.

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What a world we live in today. Originating with the laserdisc, supplemental material riding shotgun with movies became standard when DVD’s made their way into virtually every home. Filmmakers benefit greatly from such special features, especially astute observers. Not a lot of us can afford film school, but you can make a curriculum from your own DVD collection and from discs available at public libraries for free. A lot can be learned from DVDs in the form of commentary tracks, documentaries, as well as the obvious: just viewing the movie for its own value. If there are commentary tracks and extras, they usually contain a lot of valuable information regarding how something was done. While some may get bogged down in tech speak, not every DVD has scarily meticulous FX people speaking at length on how they created a ten second sequence.

Commentary tracks have some of the best lessons available, although some can be rather hit or miss. Rob Reiner and Cameron Crowe commentaries are almost exclusively about performance, but say nothing about camera. Others are all about camera tricks, but leave out anything about directing actors. And yes, unfortunately, there’s an all new category of commentary tracks for people like Tim Burton who don’t talk for 20 minutes at a time and teach us nothing. As an assistant to building your own “curriculum,” I offer up a few of my favorite DVD Commentary tracks for moviemakers.

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As aspiring moviemakers, we are always burdened with finding actors to appear in our movies. Where do these elusive beings live? How do we get them to be in our movies? How will we know if they are right for a role? The answer is simple: hold auditions. This is very basic info, but also handy.

First things first: Set a dates for the actual shooting of the movie. What does this have to do with casting? It ensures that this movie is going to happen! Many people forget to make sure they have a camera and a way to edit their movie before they start involving actors. What good is an audition or even footage for a movie if you can’t finish it? And by setting the shoot dates, you can quickly whittle down your choices by making sure actors are even available for those dates to begin with.

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I couldn’t afford film school. That costs money. In some cases, USC, UCLA, and NYU – a LOT of money. There is a lot to be learned in film school. There is also a lot to be learned on your own. Going to film school does not guarantee you a job, but the networking, relationships, equipment, and the creative environment has a value that can’t be measured. The whole point of film school is to come out of it with a couple great demo reels. During my video and film career, no one ever asked me where I went to film school, what my degree was, or even if I went to school or finished college. All they want to know is if you can do the job. Shooting, lighting, directing, sound, whatever…

So what about us wannabe’s with no way in? Are we doomed? People like Kevin Smith (dropout), and Quentin Tarantino exist on the mythology of their not liking film schools. There is the famous quote of James Cameron’s (later ripped off in the movie Good Will Hunting) where he was quoted as saying “I got a $150,000 film school education for a $1.50 in late fee at the public library.”
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One of the most common stories in Indie Filmmaking, especially in the feature length genre is that of the “Promise of funding that turns out to be a dead end” scenario. How many of us have been approached by someone that claims to have access to investors and capital that will fund your movie, and after months of working, (for free I might add,) that it turns out to not be true? Or worse, someone has a unique way of raising money - that you come to find out via controversy - is either illegal or at the least, unethical.

Where to begin? In 3 years I’ve dealt with all kinds of delusions, lies, and cheats: I don’t know where to begin. I know! The annoying old man with delusions of grandeur! I shan’t use real names because it’s rude and it doesn’t help that it’s also legally libel, but these are all true stories.
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Would you like to know a trick that you’re probably overlooking that will save your expensive DV camera from editorial wear and tear?  I’m sure there are plenty of 3-chip digital video camera owners out there who use their cameras as their editing decks, and I’m also sure most of you want to try to make back the money you put into your gear rather than see it depreciate in value every time you fast-forward or rewind a tape in it.

So listen up.  After you’ve wrapped production, when you have all your footage and your tapes all numbered, most people log their footage as they edit while using the non-linear editing program du jour.  But a basic and really cool step many overlook is that you can mark in & out points for all of your takes, thus creating a log of your footage for each tape by only running your master tape ONE TIME. Why run a master tape in a deck or a camcorder - rewinding, fast-forwarding, and playing multiple times? That’s wear and tear on your expensive equipment, and it’s extra time.

So here’s a “not so secret” tip that most know about, but still don’t do: Make a VHS copy with the time code showing onscreen!
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Have you heard of success stories like Kevin Smith making Clerks, Edward Burns directing The Brother McMullen, or Spike Lee doing She’s Gotta Have It? Well, what if they forgot to cross a “T” or dot an “I?” We might not have ever heard of them. It would have been very easy for an actor or the owner of a convenience store to screw over their movies if the filmmakers had not gotten signed contracts. If you do not have a signed release form for the actor or a signed location agreement with the property owner, they might become the owner of your film, or at least ruin any chance you have of publicly playing your movie.

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Very rarely in the industry do filmmakers get to edit their own pieces. There are exceptions. The obvious ones are Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers - who use the pseudonym “Roderick Jaynes” when slicing and dicing. But then there are the directors who “co-edit” their movies with another editor, like Kevin Smith and his uber producer Scott Mosier, or James Cameron who always edits alongside other editors.

On the micro-budget level, where the funding for the DV short is in the tens of dollars and not the tens of millions of dollars, there is the mythology that you should edit your own movie. Hell anyone with a $10 firewire card and a home PC 5 years out of date can now edit, so obviously all you need to do is learn what button to push. And this is why most DV shorts suffer, especially in the editing.

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