From my past posts on here, I was wondering what others thought, cause a filmmaker I worked with says I way overthink everything.

However, in past shorts I posted for input, I was told I didn't think of several things while shooting, so I thought therefore, I was underthinking things, and needed to really think about a lot of thing more.

Or perhaps not?

You have asked this question so many times, within other topics and everyone tells you you overthink so many trivial elements to a ridiculous degree yet fail to even consider at all vital things.

You worry about some things to an almost obsessive degree, refusing to even consider people's advice, while wiping to one side things we think you need to real concentrate on.

You do it repetitively and continually. You also suffer from memory loss, if you don't remember this. Look at your topics and see how many last just a few pages because you got and answer and moved on? Most run for HUNDREDS of pages. Have you seriously not noticed?

Oh sorry, perhaps I was talking about so many things with filmmaking, perhaps it's just become information overload. However, when people point ou things that bother them, which seem like the smallest things, how am I overthinking, if I keep neglecting those things I wonder though?

Every post that starts "I've been told ......" starts a catastrophic chain of events with you going off and trying, often fruitlessly, to analyse the process and try to make a decision - which you rarely do.

Look at the topics you've started recently?
The aspect ratio
The star filter
film maker money
Multiple Mics

All this ran to pages and pages proving your question without any doubt at all.

Yes.

Which raises the question, "Do people tend to over-post to Ryan's filmmaking threads"? ;-)

Yes I think I for one do - but I'm on a quest. Most people post a question and loads of people jump in with hello and suggestions. Sadly, but understandably, most people run a mile with Ryan's post, thinking, I guess - Oh no, here we go again. I've made an effort to stop posting back, but I can't seem to let him shout to an empty house. With Ryans topics - look at the post count, but the view count is amazingly high compared to other topics.

To Ryan:
Planning is good. Experimenting is better. Doing is best. That’s how we figure things out.

Asking for opinions on the internet... well, it can be super helpful. But not always.

Many of the threads you post I refrain from answering, because my answer would be: “Maybe. It depends. What are you going for? There is no right or wrong, there’s only how a method or decision supports the storytelling. What story are you trying to tell? Does it further it? Does it distract?”

Let’s see. “Should the pitch of a voice be changed when the clip is slowed in post?”

My answer, which I did not post to the thread in the audio subforum:
Maybe. It depends. Does non-pitch-accurate dialog distract from or support your storytelling? What are you going for? It seems to me that pitch shifting is for effect. Is it an effect that you want to call attention to? If viewers recognize it as an effect is that good or bad for your story? It could be either. Not knowing the story and context, I don’t know how to do anything other than to speculate.

Should the (pitched) sound represent the subjective pov of one of the characters? Should it reflect in some way the style of cinematography for that scene? Is the action isolated or embedded in the experience of other characters? If the scene is standard coverage of an ensemble, say WS, OS(OTS), CU, CU, OS, etc., what would be the motivation to pitch the dialog? Would that motivation read to viewers? Would they find the dialog treatment credible?

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. It seems that you don’t either, but I can’t answer them for you. If it were me, I’d shoot a simple! test, try some pitch shifting, try some not, and try to experience the result as a viewer would. If it wasn’t clear from that I might share the test with others. Maybe I”d post it to dvinfo.net and ask how people there find it.

A really good question to ask yourself is: “Would my grandmother understand this?”

One test is worth a thousand internet opinions. And, you learn so much more!

Ryan, often there is not set answer. Other filmmakers may point out things, but that's what they tend to do, you have to make a judgment call on the relative importance.to the film.

It could be you do know, but you'd no other option at the time or you didn't notice it. For the latter it could be lack of knowledge on your part, but now you know. However, it may be so small that the audience may be unaware of it or you may deluding yourself that it's going to work. You have to decide which, that's the director's job.

The questions you often ask are ones that you should be working out in your own head or by testing, not on a forum.

Well I guess I just feel I am doing a lot of things wrong based on what other filmmakers tell me and I am not sure what is acceptable and unnacceptable. I am planning a feature film shoot again, now that covid is starting to die down more around where I live, but I feel that because of money mostly, I have to shoot it, in a very unconventional way, and I have tried coming up with new ways of doing so, but not sure if they are acceptable or unnaceptable, and feel like there must be some way of finding out beforehand, rather than finding out the hard way, of what works and what doesn't.

This is where it gets worrying. You are going to spend money doing things unconventionally. If you had the courage, the skills, the experience and the ability to take a sensible gut reaction approach it could work, but you've shown that you cannot make decisions with inout from as many people as possible, which you usually ignore, and then try to find repair fixes.

You say acceptable or unacceptable - but to whom? You have to live with it, not us. There is a way to find out - it's your experience. Your list of things not to do, because they failed is huge. Your list of things that work is more undeveloped.

You're really talking like a junior doctor, convinced he can be ready next week for brain surgery. I'd suggest that you adjust your project to ONLY use techniques and processes you have mastered well. Anything your friends suggest, or tell you to do should make you very uncomfortable, because most of your problems arise from the absolute rubbish some of your friends suggest, while ignoring the advice of the ones who seem to be experienced. Doing anything unconventionally normally means you are experienced in the conventional way, and want to experiment. You choose unconventional because convention - tried and tested processes - are too hard, too expensive, too intensive, too skills dependant or too equipment dependent.

I bet you haven't even cast it yet? Will it be the same group of terrible actors, with a terrible script, in terrible locations? Please confirm you've got this sorted first, or it will be a train wreck again.

I suspect what you call unconventional has been done many times before, it just has to be used in an a manner that is appropriate for the film that you're trying to make.

Okay but if I do not recall some of the things I have to do, done before, how do you know if they have been done before?

Given the vast number of films made under different circumstances, the odds are against you coming up with something original.

Oh okay, it's just in the past I am told I do things unconventionally, as if it's a bad thing, but how do I make it good then?

Doing things unconventionally isn't necessarily a bad thing, that only applies if it doesn't work. There are directors who use unconventional methods, but they work.

Yeah that's true. I am just wondering which ones work and which ones do not work, or what is acceptable compared to unnaceptable. How do other directors' know what works and what to avoid?

They make mistakes and learn from them, experience and their own sensibilities usually teaches them how far they can go and prevent disasters. However, that doesn't always work and audiences do walk out if the film doesn't work, although some art house directors are also good at clearing audiences.

Oh okay, but there are directors who keep trying new things and it works, but they seem to know though. They dont't try to see if it is a mistake, they seem to know, even though they haven't done it before. How do they know in that case, when you are making a movie, and there isn't time to try to test things with an audience, when trying new things, out of compromise? Directors do not have time to make a test film to see if it works beforehand. They are in the middle of making the movie, so how do they know in the moment when trying something new?

These directors have the talent and a personal "voice" that resonants with their audience.

However, it doesn't always work, which is why parts of some major feature films have to be re-shot because some aspect of a film doesn't play well with the preview audience. They do the same thing with stage plays, they get changed after previews and over time, even Shakespeare did this.

Yep - previews are very useful. I did one when I was teaching at college - a writer/director asked me if I could do his sequel with the college people. He came to see it, made loads of notes and told everyone how great they were (an exaggeration I think) then he invited every one of them to a city three hundred miles away, and paid for all their expenses so they could watch the first ever professional version of it. They were amazed. Two scenes were missing, a new one inserted that did the same job, and one character was completely cut, and another had his character readjusted to be much stronger and not a supporting role. Fascinating how he changed things just by watching the audiences reactions to each scene and noting what worked and what didn't.

Ive done that with short films...had several screenings and noticed audiences react favorably/not react favorably to the same parts fairly consistently, cut material out (and in one animated film altered shots) in response. Never reshot anything though. Thats for fancy people with budgets.

Oh okay, I didn't think that I would be able to reshoot anything, especially if I am doing a lot of the post myself and it takes a long time to finish. One time for a short film I reshot a scene later, but the actor had lost 20 pounds for example.

Re shoots can become necessary, you may discover this when viewing the rushes, rather than waiting for final edit. Problems can arise with them, but that goes with the territory.

Oh it's just with a test audience, they have to see a whole movie in context to see if anything needs reshooting though. I haven't been able to judge with test audiences just viewing dailies on their own so far as much, because they said they need to see it as a whole movie. But of course some things can be caught in the dailies, just not everything I thought.

You've said before that people keep telling you're doing something wrong. Based on the frequency and because it's coming from multiple sources that must mean you lack the proper aptitude, vision, judgement, whatever you want to call it.

Reminds me of college. I would get frustrated that my art professors wouldn't tell me if what I had done was good. The reason I fully understand now, is being able to make you're own decision and to be able to properly evaluate your own work is paramount. While in the short term if they gave me all the answers it would have made me happy, in the long term when I graduated and didn't have access to their counsel I'd be lost without the ability to think for myself.

Undoubtedly you'll keep trying to do what you don't have an aptitude for and keep asking other people's option what you should do.

Well I could do things my own way, and be my own judge, and decide for mysel if something works or not, without so much of other's input, it's just I am afraid that if I do that, I will have be wrong again, or get in over my head. Another thing is though, I feel that my instincts are actually better than I make myself believe. It's just I often let things go, because of lack of money, and tell myself it's okay, and it's not. So I feel I would do a better job with more money for sure, because then I wouldn't compromise my own judgment so much.

Everyone has opinions and ideas. So, the fact that you have them is a moot point. Even the worst director still thinks his ideas are special. The import thing in film making that others have touched on is your ability to connected and interest an audience. Do you have a compelling vision and can you execute it? In order to rise above the doldrums of amateurism there is a higher standard. If it doesn't come natural and you're not that good...

Yeah I think if I have the cast and crew to pull it off I can, yes. I just need to get really good actors and a really good DP, and perhaps better locations, than I think I can.

The trouble ryan, is that if the only basis for judging success is other people’s opinions, and you are unable to pre-assess what they will be, you are never going to be able to know you are right. You want something so bad, but just don’t have the guts or the courage to say “I am certain I am right” or even “I know I am right, even though they say I am wrong” you want advice to change the chance of failure but you seem incapable of learning and growing. Your progress is at snails pace, your mistakes repeat and when you ask for advice you ignore it if it doesn’t agree with something you’ve set your mind on. Tell me this is not true. If you get told something once it could be something not correct. Gulf you get told the same thing over and over again many months apart and people often are unaware we did it before, perhaps they are right. Search this forum for your posts with the phrase “I’ve been told”. The results are scary!

It's just I often let things go, because of lack of money, and tell myself it's okay, and it's not. So I feel I would do a better job with more money for sure, because then I wouldn't compromise my own judgment so much.

This is the real world, you don't always get to make a film the way you want, there are practical issues that get in the way. On one of my short films, which had a bigger budget than your feature film (it was shot on 35mm film and the crew were paid) there was one shot that I wanted done with with a wide view from a forest on a hill.

When location hunting I couldn't find it, so I used the location that was logistically the best one, but didn't have the view. This was picked because it was the most suitable because we needed to shoot a film at night, in a forest, during the spring when there was only roughly 5 to 6 hours of darkness,

While working on an other film I found the ideal location for the shot. It was 45 miles away, in an area that had been termed "bandit country" because of IRA activity. There would've been increased travel time which would've added to the costs plus the fuel or mileage for the lighting truck and the generator truck. We were using 12k HMI lights, so it was a generator you'd see on feature films.

You have to make decisions which aren't your ideal. At least you're not shooting on film, which would add another pressure on you. On that film I had 30 seconds of film left and that was trying to do the minium number of takes, but two shots had 7 takes, one of a key performance moment and the other was caused by the blanks in a pistol not firing,

Those two shots limited the number of other shots that could be done. The editor wasn't too pleased that his options were limited, however, the story got told and it mostly worked, even though it wasn't exactly how I wanted it. That's the real world.

Oh okay for sure. I understand how you can't make the movie you want to make and you are forced to make decisions because of budget. Howver, how does a filmmaker get the audience to accept the limitations?

In my experience, the audience is actually much less forgiving of the limitations than the filmmaker, so how do you sell the audience then on the shortcomings? I can live with not getting what I want, but how do you get the audience to accept it?

You make the film so that they don't appear to be limitations. In that short film there's a scene where a solder is picked up by a military helicopter, but we didn't have a helicopter, so we faked it. This was relatively easy because it was night, but it still cost an investment in building a section of the helicopter door and hiring a cherry picker. With the sound effects, this sold it to the audience.

It becomes easier if the audience has emotionally invested in the characters, If they're not, they've only got your flaws to look at. Also, don't put more production values than you can reasonably access or create on your budget.

The skill and talent is being able to create that emotional engagement, there's no easy answer. You're making the film for the audience, so you need to be focused on if you would accept what's on screen if you were a disinterested audience member.

For interest maybe - I recorded this with a handicam, very unofficially in my Anglia Television days when shooting an episode of a popular drama - shot on real film! The scene was supposed to be a house on a beach in a big storm and the people in it were rescued by helicopter. The house was built in a dry dock and then the sluice gates were opened letting in the water - the windows were blown in with buckets of water and the helicopter was a cable from crane and the helicopter just briefly seen in the edit. The problems here were huge, ignoring the safety ones. The actors and crew had to wear wet suits - so we had safety boats and first aid people - the cameras needed waterproofing, and one actor's wig needed gluing on with waterproof glue. One chance to get it right, and shooting in the middle of the night!

80s Anglia TV Location Shoot - PD James on Vimeo

From the days when regional ITV companies made programmes for the network. They also did natural history with "Survival" for many years.

You make the film so that they don't appear to be limitations. In that short film there's a scene where a solder is picked up by a military helicopter, but we didn't have a helicopter, so we faked it. This was relatively easy because it was night, but it still cost an investment in building a section of the helicopter door and hiring a cherry picker. With the sound effects, this sold it to the audience.

It becomes easier if the audience has emotionally invested in the characters, If they're not, they've only got your flaws to look at. Also, don't put more production values than you can reasonably access or create on your budget.

The skill and talent is being able to create that emotional engagement, there's no easy answer. You're making the film for the audience, so you need to be focused on if you would accept what's on screen if you were a disinterested audience member.

Oh okay. Well one example is I have a scene where a truck is flipped over. I suppose I could use a 3D model for the flip, but I want two passengers to actually get out, after the truck is flipped on it's side. I could shoot it so a real truck is not actually flipped, but I shoot it with a green screen in the background and the actors are climbing out of a truck that is not actually flipped. Then we make it look flipped on it's side after the green screen is removed and thus making the actors look like they climbed out of a flipped truck, rather than one that was right side up the the whole time.

But would a green screen sell it? I could ask some other special FX experts if it can be pulled off perhaps.

Or like before when I wanted to do a crash zoom and it was recommended to me on here, that I just move the camera and do a speed ramp in post, instead to make the movement faster. If I do that though, I am worried that the audience will think this means I am speeding ahead in time, and that they will misread this. Will the audience missread it as speeding in time?

For a very low budget film you seem to be pushing the boat out, plus trying to do something that requires extremely high skill levels to pull off convincingly with CGI..

I worked on a short film that had a crashed car, they borrowed a car that had been in an accident from a scrap merchant and used that.

For the flip show the occupants during this action and let the camera do the flip and cut to the the vehicle from the scrap yard on its side or roof. Of course, it has to match the action vehicle, but don't get too obsessive about it being a Mack or a some other large vehicle. They tend not to roll or flip unless going off the road down an embankment.

Editing allows you to cheat and the audience accepts it with the gratification of seeing the money shot of a real vehicle on its side.

Oh okay. I don't have to have it of course but it would be nice if I could. What if I showed the vehicle flip completely from the inside of the vehicle, without showing any flip on the outside much.

This scene in this movie shows the plane crash from the POV through the windshield, at 5:10 into the clip:

United 93 - Passengers revolt - Crash scene - YouTube

But would that work the same way for a truck, especially if we have seen the outside of it in previous shots, as well as wanting to show the passengers climb out, quickly afterwards?

There are loads of ways to cheat things.

Oh okay. It's just whenever I don't show something and just imply it more so, I get worried. There was that short film I posted on here, before where in the editing, I decided not to show an actress leave the room, because I felt that the audience could figure out that she left the room without actually having to show her go out the door.

But then when I posted it on here, some of the comments asked where did she go... So I wonder if the audience needs to see that, imagine what else they need to see in a lot of cases, to follow along. So I am not sure what can be implied without the audience becoming confused.

You'll be showing the action as it happens, but you're looking at the occupants at certain points and their reactions. That's not the same as having a women disappear for no apparent reason.

Yep, show the inside, roll (in this case rotate) the camera, not the vehicle. Ryan, if you could get hold of a copy of Stu Maschwitz's "The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap" I think that would be helpful..

Oh okay, thanks, I can check it out. Will the idea of having the actors get out of the car, while the car is right side up, but then trying to make it look flipped on it's side, with a green screen behind it, work do you think?

This is where you really are going to have to test it out in a practical and then see if it works. You're going to have to get creative. Turning the camera doesn't turn gravity, so all the loose items won't drop, people's long hair won't go the wrong way unless you turn the set. You need to experiment.

Gravity may work against you. The occupants will have difficulty getting out sideways, while tying to look like they're trying to to climb out vertically. You'd need to rig a support system if they're going to get more than a head out.

The vehicle doors usually dom';t stay open, so the occupants need to pretend that they're holding them open as they get out. Although, if the door windows are large enough they could use those to get out, but the gravity issue still applies.

All his topics revolve around the same question... How does one make a successful feature movie without basic funding, competent acting, decent script, director skills/experience/aptitude...

Gravity may work against you. The occupants will have difficulty getting out sideways, while tying to look like they're trying to to climb out vertically. You'd need to rig a support system if they're going to get more than a head out.

The vehicle doors usually dom';t stay open, so the occupants need to pretend that they're holding them open as they get out. Although, if the door windows are large enough they could use those to get out, but the gravity issue still applies.

Yeah that's what I was wondering about. They will of course have to have short hair, and try to act like they are climbing out as it if was vertical and not horizontal.

You'll either have to work it out with your team, change the concept or drop the idea and put something else in. It's a test to see how practical you are and if you can improvise something. You'll find the answers in the area where you live, not here.

Oh okay. Well I guess I would need a special FX expert to help with it as well.

But there are all sorts of other unconventional things I have to do as well, and just not sure what is acceptable and unacceptable to an audience. I cannot do tests for every little thing, so I am not sure how other filmmakers know what works and what does not, when they do not have to time or money to test everything, every time a challenge comes up in a project. Am I doing things wrong, that I do not have time or money to test every thing that comes up?

With what you're proposing, you need to things that don't require "exports". You seem to have been aware that would be difficulties in doing the shot and what they would be. You have to be aware of how far you can push things in order to create a passable shot.

You can do things that are acceptable for an audience being accepting that what they watching is amateur movie and get away with less than professional standard results. However, if you want a mainstream audience to accept them, you need to know how to use slight of hand to suggest things, rather than show them

If you don't have the resources to show things fully, don't do so.

Oh okay, it's just in the past, whenever I didn't show something, the audience got confused because they didn't see it. So I just wonder how do you do slight of hand, and the audience is even aware of it if they don't see it.