I made a list of things that I need to learn in becoming a great filmmaker.

L

littleturtle

What makes a great movie?

A good script/story is more important than anything else. A good story can make a shitty director look good. A shitty story can’t make a director look good.

GOOD ACTING. Bad acting completely ruins the movie. Learn what good acting is, and what is not.

Learn how to communicate with the actors in giving them a detailed description of what you want from them. You still need to give them freedom though and let them express themselves.

Character Development – Viewers need to care about the characters. Characters should be properly introduced to the audience. Show their personalities through their actions and give some background on them.

Keep the story moving forward – Don’t get caught up on trying too hard to make the movie look “good”.

Substance > Style. At the same time, do make the movie look good.

Good Dialogue – Conversations between characters are important, even unnecessary ones that don’t exactly have anything to do with the plot. Again, they’re key in introducing the characters to the audience.

Close-ups – Close-ups help better show a character’s emotions.

Shooting from weird angles – Adds originality and helps to keep scenes more entertaining. Boring angles = audience is not as interested. Do not overdo. Learn when and when not to use it. Used often when introducing a scene to the audience. Use to help create suspense. Do NOT use during important dialogues between characters, and ESPECIALLY during scenes when trying to show characters’ emotion.

Keep the cameras moving. Keeping the cameras in motion adds to the movie. It shows the audience that you’re not afraid as a director. Learn how to move the camera during a scene. In a lot of scenes, the camera moves with the action. Someone reaches over to grab something, the camera pans to the hands grabbing the item then back to the person.

Quick shots of things completely unrelated to the scene/plot. It looks good.

Good ending. A bad ending ruins a good movie. You want the audience feeling like everything was perfect and nothing else could have been changed to make it a better movie.

Make the audience “feel” when watching the movie. Make them feel happy, sad, sympathetic, etc..

Good movies leaves an impression on the audience.

THE STORY IS SHOWN AND NOT TOLD.
 
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Great list; you're off to a good start. It's great that you are making your own list of goals and elements of what make a movie good to you personally. Don't rely solely on what someone else says...take it, learn from it, and make it your own.

The only thing I'd add are addenda to your points about moving camera, weird camera angles, random shots: specifically, knowing when to use them and (more importantly) when NOT to use them. Filmmaking is the art of solving problems and making choices. Make the right choices to serve your story.
 
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Being a bit of a simplification kind of person...

What you NEED to make a movie.
A Video Camera

Now go out an shoot, get some experience (Because that is what everyone needs more of, including me).
 
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littleturtle said:
explain your signature
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It should be self explanatory. The whole idea of filmmaking is to immerse the audience in a believable artificial world; if the audience thinks "what a terrible actor!", "I can't understand what they're saying!", "why is there an iPhone in Victorian England?" you have pulled them out of the story, which means that you have failed to do your job of maintaining the audiences suspense of disbelief.
 
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If you've got a track, and/or a jib, I'm all for camera movement, at SELECT times. Or, if you've got a steadicam, that's cool too. But just panning and/or tilting -- I suppose it can work, but usually, it's lame.

Otherwise, nice list. Now, the trick is to learn how to accomplish the goals on this list, and that's a whole other thing. Gamae is right - just start making movies. Studying the craft is super important, but learning by trial and error is just as much.
 
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You're missing something more than just "great sound"...


You can write, produce, edit, and then give the movie to Randy Thom and he's going to be like "are you f'ing crazy?"

You have to WRITE THE SCRIPT WITH GREAT SOUND IN MIND. and then SHOOT THE MOVIE WITH GREAT SOUND IN MIND. and then EDIT THE MOVIE WITH GREAT SOUND IN MIND.


An example of this is the Editor from Avatar. Speaking with him he said that he and James were constantly leaving blank spots after explosions and after the big tree fell and etc. etc. for sound which otherwise looked lame in the Avid without the explosions there but once sound was there it definitely worked and would have been lame if there wasn't enough time to hear the echoing explosion/tree fall...

9 out of the last 10 blockbusters I bet you the sound supervisors were working on the project from day 1 and I'll actually give you an example:

Transformers 2: Erik Adahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn were hired to start making sound well before principal photography began,

Alice and Wonderland: They began early because they did an entirely separate mix for the 3D version of the film.

How to Train Your Dragon: Randy Thom got hired for the movie 3 years ago... It got released this moth...

The Hurt Locker: The sound designer/mixer was the first person the writer/director hired for the film...

Avatar: Christopher Boyes was hired before the movie started shooting to give James sound effects to edit with...

Inglorious Basterds: I've seen Quentin re-light a whole scene to capture good sound. He also met with the sound designers on a private jet to discuss his new screenplay and how he wanted it to sound years before he made it.

Wall-E: Ben Burtt was hired well before-hand to design the robots and things for a good soundtrack.

Ice Age 3: Randy began making sounds before animation began.


The list goes on and on... Sound should be part of the filmmaking process from day 0 and you can't argue with the results of that philosophy.
 
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ROC said:
9 out of the last 10 blockbusters

Transformers 2
Alice and Wonderland
How to Train Your Dragon
The Hurt Locker
Avatar
Inglorious Basterds
Wall-E
Ice Age 3

The list goes on and on... Sound should be part of the filmmaking process from day 0 and you can't argue with the results of that philosophy.
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I'm arguing with the results of that philosophy. You just named a bunch of movies that are light-years away from the scope of anything any truly independent filmmaker can produce.

I won't argue with your philosophy for big-budget blockbusters. If I've got a bunch of whiz-bang and explosions, it better be damn-well convincing.

But I don't have a bunch of whiz-bang explosions, nor does anyone else in my shoes. Audio is very important, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Here's the only list you need:

1. Tell a good story.
 
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I'm arguing with the results of that philosophy.
Click to expand...

I like to think people in the indie business hope to get themselves into a position to make that kind of an effect.

Or are there people who say "I'm going to be a low-budget filmmaker my whole life"?

If there are, then good on ya. I'm just trying to help by adding my 2 cents on what I do for a living.


Regardless,

Good audio like that of the blockbusters mentioned is not actually too far from reality to achieve with relatively lower budgets. Especially since there won't be huge 20 million dollar VFX shots to make sound effects for. Good dialogue recording can be achieved professionally with little to no money at all: Get a good micing, make sure there isn't random noises in the environment and shoot the scene. Good foley recording just requires a mic and something to edit it with. It's mainly just good sense.

Let's take The Hurt Locker from the list above.

That movie was mixed In the box, which means it didn't need a huge dubbing stage with all the bells and whistles that costs 2500$+ a day to rent out. You'll find in magazines that they did mix it somewhere at Sony or whatever, but the mixer used Pro Tools for volume automation etc. and didn't use much equipment in that room at all. Yet, it won the oscar for sound editing/mixing over Avatar which probably spent as much money on food services as Hurt Locker spent making their entire movie. Theoretically, you could do just as good a job on a Pro Tools Limited Edition station using a Mac Mini and a few necessary plug-ins. It's not the money you put in, it's mainly the people operating what you've got that gets the job done. Someone made the analogy of giving some highschool kid 300 million dollars and state of the art equipment and then giving Spielberg a handicam and the latter would be the better movie.

My point wasn't to list movies that are out of reach to those making indie films, but to give examples of the top of the business and what they do and encourage upcoming filmmakers to strive for good sound. I try to give advice in all my posts - because I've been there and made the mistakes. I'm actually kind of sick of hearing "dude that scene sounded like a b-rated film."
 
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Well said. I definitely don't want to be a low-budget filmmaker forever, nor do I think anybody does. But while at this level, you can't do everything, and you choose your battles as wisely as you can.

You give good advice on sound, as well as other issues. Cheers.
 
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