I am not a film buff. I am more of a film enthusiast. I've only seen 37 movies on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. That's a solid F-. As my housemate likes to say, "You are such a film minor."
The big reason I haven't seen nearly enough films is that I'm too busy. "Doing what?" asks the film buff. Well, film buff, I've been making my own film.
Makin' a movie, especially a student one, is much harder than most people are lead to believe. So, in the interest of movie science and the fact that I couldn't think of anything else to write (although I did have an idea to write about theoretical fights between famous movie characters, but it didn't really work). I present to you the trials and tribulations of making my 20-minute film.
Last semester, a three-man creative team was assembled. This consisted of me as writer/director, a cinematographer, and a head audio guy. We brainstormed premises starting with some of my awful ideas, but we were getting nowhere.
Then we decided on a genre: black comedy. This genre is a very scary place to work, because it relies on a very specific tone in order to be painful but still retain the humor. After that, a premise quickly followed: a college kid
accidentally kills his friends. But funny.
Winter break came and I spent it writing and revising a 20-page script. When I returned to school, we had our first problem: our cinematographer was not returning this semester. Some quick thinking and some persuasive convincing allowed us to get a fantastic replacement. A few more revisions of the script, some casting, a lot of storyboarding and recruiting people like a producer and art/costume designer, and we were ready to shoot.
Instead of explaining every shoot and the thousands of problems that occurred, I will give you a typical shoot day. I would wake up at 8:00 a.m., move loads of equipment with the cinematographer and audio guy to wherever we were shooting (basement, church, apartment...,) set up and wait for the actors to get ready.
We then would repeat the process of shooting and moving the camera until we finished every setup we had, or as many as we could. Just to clarify, we were using one camera, which is the same number of cameras that major motion pictures use.
We'd schlep to a different location and repeat. By the time 10:00 p.m. rolled around, the actors were bored, the crew was tired and people had to leave. We'd finally finish, pack up and I would spend until 1:00 in the morning with the cinematographer going over the next day's shoot. Rinse and repeat.
But we did it. After four weekends and a lot of luck, we finally finished shooting. Now the fun starts: postproduction.
I'm actually in the middle of this process right now, but I'll tell you what I've learned from it. I learned I could manipulate a performance into almost anything I want. I've learned that even the most minor movement can cause a continuity problem that ruins the scene. I've learned that music adds instant production value.
And I've learned that no matter what you say or do, people will always ask you when the movie is done or when they can see it.
An infinite amount of choices crop up whenever I edit. Where do I put the music? Is this section long enough for the visual effect? Of the five takes I have, which take of the one line I want is the best? Do I cut on the ends of dialogue or in the middle? What sort of effect does each produce and how does it help or hurt the scene? Is this rhetorical question one too many?
Makin' a movie has been difficult, rewarding and yes, even fun at times. I got to work with some stellar actors and extraordinarily talented crew. However, all the work and effort that goes into making a movie leads to some pretty high expectations, and it's my job to match them. Come find out if I succeed when I screen it on May 12.
