Protocol to Filmmaking

rizien

rizien

I film all my stuff, from start of the script, to the end, in order. And i never understood why feature films film things out of order.

And while I'm editing, i gotta go through all the clips while "recording" to the harddrive, and that sucks, Because im lazy. And i hate editing...


But, what's the "general" or basic or normal or whatever protocol to how things get done. And how do you do them, and why?
 
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Well, the standard logic, is shoot out of order to save time and money. If you need to go on location to France for scenes in Act 1 and Act 3, why pay to make the trip twice? In a script with a lot scene changes, having to keep going back to a location simply isn't time or cost effective. Or, why bring the same actor on set 3 different days for a bunch of one-liners, when you can just do them all at once? Most actors work on 1/2 day and day rates. If they work for 5 minutes or 4 hours, that's a "half-day", 4 hours 5 mnutes to 8 hours, that's a "full-day". Bringing an actor back three times to do three short scene can cost you 3 or 4 times more than doing them all at once.

In my own experiences, I find it is just a simple matter of convenience and scheduling. On my last short, I only had access to 2 of my talents for a single afternoon, so I had to shoot all of their scenes during that time period regardless of order. Sometimes it is also a matter of priority. I usually shoot the scenes I "must-have" to make the movie or video, putting off the "nice-to-have" scenes to the end. That way if I run out of time/money/patience, I can skip the "nice-to-have" stuff.
 
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Ah yea, i understand most of the Filming part. I guess what i really want to know, is how you guys edit, because that is what gets me. I hate it... Well, i hate doing it. If i could just say "Yea, put this scene here, with this effect adn this song" then it'd be great, but when i gotta do it all myself, i hate it.

And i've never paid for an actor, just my friends, and they're all as dedicated as me, so that works out :)
 
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hmmm. editing...

I'm with you, I don't really dig all the minutia of editing. I do like doing the first cut, but beyond that, I'm way too impatient. I usually edit with my co-producer/writer who loves all the detail stuff. I rough, he polishes.

In terms of technique, I usually have an idea of how its gonna cut in my head already from the shoot. But I don't log takes in the field, and I don't selectively capture. I just bring it all in to the computer and go from there. I usually work on one scene at at time, till I've got the narrative I want for that scene and then move on. I always start with a cuts-only edit, foregoing transitions, sound, till later. I've never really thought about it, but I basically follow this order most of the time.

1. Digitize everything low res. -- For some reason I kind of like this one tedious aspect, I don't trust other people to set the levels.
2. Edit one scene at a time. Usually starting with what I consider the key or pivotal scene of the film.
3. Once all scenes are roughed, put them all together.
4. Add transitions.
5. Do any FX work
6. Add music/sound fx/color correction
7. Add titles
8. Tweak, tweak, tweak
9. Sound mix (I almost never do my own sound mix - because I stink at it)
10. Batch capture and up res if needed
 
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see, with color correction and gamma correction with adobe premiere you have to do every single clip individually, and thats a giant hassle. Especially sincie i cut things a lot and have way too many little clips and whatnot to individually correct. Is there a way to do everyclip at once?

And when you're transferring to the computer, do you "record" it scene by scene, or clip by clip? or just record all of the footage at once?
 
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rizien said:
see, with color correction and gamma correction with adobe premiere you have to do every single clip individually, and thats a giant hassle. Especially sincie i cut things a lot and have way too many little clips and whatnot to individually correct. Is there a way to do everyclip at once?
Click to expand...


I usually do color correction one clip at a time when I'm almost done editing. If I have a whole reel/tape that needs to be done the same way, I'll sometimes change the levels during capture (if the setup allows that), though I usually prefer to set everything to bars even if the color is off (I can always go back and redigitize an indivdual clip later with different settings). Sometimes, I'll also take an entire raw DV file and process it in something like Cleaner. I just did this for some old 8mm film that I only had on VHS. I converted it to DV with my camcorder, cropped and color corrected it in Cleaner, and then brought that footage into FC.

rizien said:
And when you're transferring to the computer, do you "record" it scene by scene, or clip by clip? or just record all of the footage at once?
Click to expand...

As far as transferring to the computer, I usually bring in all the footage at once (if I have space!). For a 5-10 minute short that usually works fine for me. After I get it all in there, I find it is quicker to scan and decide what I'm going to use. I then usually make a sequence for each scene. I dump all the footage for that scene on the sequence and then start cutting it down. Then I pull the scenes together in another master sequence. For big edits, I sometimes have no choice but to be selective while capturing.
 
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rizien said:
And when you're transferring to the computer, do you "record" it scene by scene, or clip by clip? or just record all of the footage at once?
Click to expand...

I digitize clip by clip. Not only will you save drive space, but you'll make it easier to find your clips since you can name them individually.
 
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