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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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..
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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?
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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...
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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? |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
It's something that magicians do, you have to learn how much you need to show and much you can mislead the audience into thinking they've seen it. You need experience to learn how to do that.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
No they got confused because there was a hole. We explained that you don't always need to show things, you can hear them happen or you can hear the cast talk about it - the classic telephone call and the one ended reaction shots. You don't need to see a head get chopped off on a guillotine to know it happened. For years Directors, had restrictions and just had to work around them.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Oh ok. Like for one short film for example I wanted a character to get handcuffed but didn't have the cuffs. So I thought well I will just imply it and add in a handcuff sound effect later. But the audience couldn't tell the character was being cuffed without seeing the cuffs though.
Well I talked to my film school professor and he says as far as confidence goes, I should just make my own feature like I wanted to before and every filmmaker has to eventually put their mouth where there money is so to speak, if he has a point? |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
With no handcuffs you shoot the character from the front with his arms clearly awkwardly 'cuffed' being him, and he ACTS like he his cuffed. The audience do not need to see the cuffs, they know he is cuffed because of the acting. You probably don't need the overt sound effect, to be honest, it's classic magicianship, we know he's cuffed because we saw it. We just didn't, that's all.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
With the handcuffs, you didn't show the handcuffs..You were missing the set up of seeing the cuffs. the sound effect would then work if the actors only mimed putting on the cuffs without actually seeing them in shot. They would know what the sound effect is, without seeing the cuffs before they can't make the connection.
You could've made a prop that vaguely looks like cuffs, to set up the scene. It doesn't have to work. Although, good acting would probably allow you to get away without seeing them, there are a few scenes in films where you don't see the cuffs. They could've mined taking them out of their pocket or from their belt (the set up) and slipped them on the restrained suspect, their bodies hiding the nonexistent cuffs. A line like "turn around" or "don't struggle" or "I have to do this" would cover it. With the guillotine, seeing that is the set up, so you cut to a cutaway giving the reaction, without seeing the head being chopped off. You only have the sound effect. That's what magicians do, they set things up, However, there may be a deliberate misdirection in there, so that they do a slip of the hand for the trick to work.. There is a point where a filmmaker has to put his money where is mouth is. However, you have to decide if you've got the available resources to make a particular film and if you've got the skills (or members of your crew have) to make it. That's why some filmmakers don''t proceed with a project, but make another one instead. If you've got a broad range of skills and are good a persuading people to lend or offer facilities/locutions/props for a very short period, you can do a lot more than if you don't. On one of my short films we manged to get a joint police and army patrol driving in their armoured Land Rovers for half an hour. On the same film we got to use the local international airport's arrivals area as a location for a morning. You'd probably have a harder time getting that today with all the post 9/11 security rules. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Once again, sounds like it could have been done, but you did it poorly and left a gap without the proper cues needed for the audience to understand what happened. The larger point is as a film maker you should be good at visual story telling and making the right decisions. Instead, other people have to tell you something is wrong because you don't recognize it, and how to fix it. In essence, we are having to do your job for you. This doesn't bode well not for only for this specific example but in general going forward as a film maker, who can't recognize these issues or know how to fix them.
I was watching a Columbo episode last night. He pulls out the cuffs, cuts to cu of suspect expression as you hear the sound of the cuffs going, then wide shot of her being led away. The reason here to not show the cuffing is an artistic one. The point of the scene is the interaction between the suspect and Columbo so the filming of the actual cuffing is unnecessary. This is an example of showing only what’s important not hiding the fact you didn’t take the time to get an important prop. The other reason to not show something and is what other posters here are talking about is that you don’t have the budget for stunt or action like a car crash, suspect jumping off building and hitting the ground. Rather than show something poorly, you would show the reaction and the sound. But in the example you gave, the cuffs seem to be an essential prop for a cop movie. Sounds like you’re lazy or cheap not to get the prop whether they were real or not. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Oh ok, but if you say the audience doesn't need to see everything though, and I can just imply, then why is there an exception when it comes to needing a shot of the. cuffs? Why is it an essential prop when everyone knows what it is without needing to see it?
Saying that I need a shot of cuffs seems to contradict that. So where does not needing to see something begin and where does it end? |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
You have to provide enough information so that the the audience, from their experience of the world, know that the person is being handcuffed. You don't need an insert shot of the handcuffs, unless you're making a film that has a bondage scene.
A wider shot with something (even if unseen) in the cop's hand that looks like cuffs and the suspect with their hands restrained behind their back with cops is all you need. The action will say it all, very few cop films have a close up of the cuffs, unless there's something psychological about them for the suspect. The closing of a Columbo, is a dramatic closure to the TV show, a bit of theatre - he's got his man again. The body language will imply a lot. You as the director have to decide when things need to be shown. If you set up scenes properly, the audience is subconsciouslt prepared for what is about to happen, however, you don't want to let them get ahead of you, so they guess it before it happens. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
It's an exception if you, the creative person in charge , make it one. If the key feature is the character secretly putting a knife in his pocket we need to see it. Or maybe we see something put in the pocket but it's in shadow, so we know something went in, but not what, but not seeing anything wouldn't work. It's plot features. The script says "We see John surreptitiously hiding a knife in his pocket" So you shoot it. The Columbo one is a common trick - we want to see the face of the guilty, we want to see if Columbo is pleased the cuffs are on or if he's disappointed? This is just one example when your rules setting obsession is getting in the way and preventing you seeing the real goal - the story telling.
You've dropped straight back into the formula based approach, and you're handcuffing yourself! |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Oh okay, but it seems to be the audience that cares about formula more than the storytelling, if these little things bother them, or no?
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Don't fool yourself, it's about storytelling, even in the formula films.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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If you have limited budget, crew, cast, and personal experience, why not tackle films that can be made with the resources you have? It's as if you're trying to shoot Star Wars with a Bell & Howell 8mm camera. Wouldn't it be better to shoot a modest script really well, rather than shoot an overly ambitious script badly? |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
It would but we've had this discussion with him like 1000 times over the last two years and he is absolutely stuck on trying to make this one project.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
One of the first things I tell students in my workshops is that they shouldn't try to make their one big passion project of a lifetime as their first effort. Start with simpler and shorter pieces, maybe including one or two elements from their dream script to test out their ideas. Rinse and repeat until they're sure they know what they're doing before trying the film that's been trying to burst out from inside them for years.
In addition to this classic beginner's impatience, I think Ryan is so constrained by his limited resources that he's afraid he won't be able to afford the time, money and extra help he'll need to complete more than one big feature in his lifetime, so he wants to have every detail settled before ever rolling the camera. But then he spends so much time and energy planning that he never actually gets around to shooting anything. Many of his questions and lack of confidence can never be overcome by talking to others; he will have to get out there and shoot something to find out what works and what he is capable of. On a lighter note, if I needed a pair of handcuffs for a prop, I can think of several ex-girlfriends I could call to lend me theirs. If we're on good terms, they would even include the keys. - Greg |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Badump Tsh!
Yes we've had that discussion with him too. Like they say in Battlestar Galactica, "all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again" (cue "All Along the Watchtower") |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
To imagine someone fancying themselves a director/producer of a professional feature film with these type of questions and problems. Its so difficulty to not react to the absurdity, terrible decision making, and lack of understand. The best we could hope from this thread was a good laugh at a bad handcuff joke.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
How many pages will it take to decide whether Ryan tends to overthink things? Clearly, five is not enough.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Someone could do analytics based on the past two years’ worth of threads but offhand I’d guess between 27 and 70.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
We've reached a new nadir: now Ryan overthinks overthinking, and we respond. Do you ever wonder whether he's just spoofing us? In a way I hope he is; that would be less distressing than if he's serious.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
That also comes up frequently. I think we've all decided he's legit. This (development of his movie idea) has been going on on multiple forums for 4-6 years, and is incredibly consistent.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Yeah I am legit in my intentions and I do want to make a good movie.
It's just that it's hard to believe I overthink things, when others say I missed all these things in past projects, so I always think that I underthink things as a result. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
It sounds as if he needs a miracle.
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Unfortunately, I'm not compelled by the story from what I've heard so far, For an limited budget it should be going for the psychological, which costs less that truck crash .To date, all I've heard so far are concerns about recreating big movie cliches.. Some Canadian noir would be more interesting.
How about two strangers trapped together in s house: Small cast, limited locations. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Writing a script that matches your budget! If only Ryan talked to you sooner (6 years ago). I’m afraid there’s no turning back from this awful crime thriller. Do you think I over think! good lord
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
I was just about to post then read Josh's comment on what I would say and it was exactly what I was going to say. Scary!
I think thought this weighting really is the weak area - in one post we accidentally shot one bit soft, and it generated a topic I've ignored. I've messed up loads of times in my focus prediction. With my kind of stuff I have to pick a focus position without any actors, and I usually use the floor and my eye to gauge distance I'm pretty good at it but sometimes I'll get it wrong, or worse, knock the focus ring. Every time I have had to fall back to my wide shot, I have never been happy. It's really not a solution for the rubbish shot, but we have to use it as such. Unless every shot has a proper purpose, trying to fill with the wrong shot is rarely successful. I am doing projects at the moment with locked of cameras and it's the same problem. Covid means I cannot have the people, so I am running around on multiple takes operating each camera in turn. It sort of gives me angles but I'm editing constantly annoyed by every shot - which would have been so much better with a cameraman on the end of! For me, this concept of a wide angle safety means emergency compromise, and if you have to use them, it's bacause mistakes were made - either in planning or production. One I did last week had a faulty camera - well actually an ok camera just on the wrong setting - so with the HMI I was using as a distant key, it flickered. In the end, I just couldn't live with it, and as the setting was symmetrical, and the actor had a symmetrical hairstyle, I used the camera on the other side, cropped and panned a little and flipped the image and use this shot when I needed to, and I think I got away with it. This use the safety conversation we've done before, more than once. Ryan's problem isn't unique - but maybe he needs to try to formulate a flexible plan for dealing with mistakes. Proactive and reactive problem solving is an essential skill. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Oh okay. Well as far as scripts go I picked what I thought was the best one I had access to. There is a couple of other filmmakers were more enthusiastic about but that one involved a submarine setting and thought that would just be more challenging and cost more. So I thought I would go with a story which may have a darker and more dramatic impact, but could be done in realistic locations.
But should I look for a different script perhaps? |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Yessssssssssssssssss
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Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Oh okay, but what is the problem with the script I wanted to do, just so I know what avoid perhaps, when looking for other ones?
But it's not like I concentrate on just the physical part of filmmaking only. I went over the script with other writers and readers, and they helped improve it a lot. I just didn't talk about the script on here hardly, because I thought that the site was more about the physical filmmaking process, rather than the script writing. So I get that feedback and collaboration from other sources, but I can talk about the script on here, if that's good.. |
Re: Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?
Writing a script is entirely different to turning it into a film. You can have a good script, but unless you've got resources and skills to turn it into good film, the results are going to be disappointing. Unless you're using this a learning exercise, you've got lots of areas that will probably fall short.
If you had the range of skills to overcome them it would less concerning, but, from your messages, you don't appear to have these for this particular project. You can do a lot if you that rework things to fit in with what you have available and can think on your feet. However, flexibility doesn't appear to be one of your strengths and it's a key one on extremely low budget films,. |
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