Working on an Action Series, any tips?

G

garychencool

Hi, my name is Gary and I'm one of those young, high school aspiring film makers that has a bunch of visions and can't put it on film without cast and crew. I have a few years of general camera operating and video editing experience but this is the first full on project. Right now, I'm looking for cast and crew, I've been getting a few since I posted an ad on mandy.com. Soon to post more on other sites to get more applicants. I've been providing this production for the fun and experience and of course, the money is non-existant and no one is really getting paid. The nature of this production is pure, full on, war style action with guns and everything. Like any film makers like me, we have nothing, we are basicallly starting off with nothing.

What I actually have: a few episode ideas, their general layout, half of a screenplay.script of the first episode, a crappy SD camcorder that I'll not use for filming this, a tripod, a cheap relecter, basically stuff that beginners have, almost nothing. Right now, I'm in the process of hring cast, crew and getting props, cameras, production equipment. Of course, I'm still trying my best to get the most out of anything I have. I am still light years of actually making this action series happen in Summer 2012. But of course, that's 10 months away. Right now, I'm still looking for cast, crew, stuff and writing the scripts and coordinating this production

What I'm asking is, do you have any tips or anything when it comes to a production such as this. Instead of asking, "I'm making an action series, any tips" and leaving it at that, I'm writing about what I have so you wouldn't ask the same questions. I'm continuing to read up and understand film making as I've done so for the last few years, I understand the concepts and I'm working on the directing and cinematography aspects of it. Of course, I can't just go to a bunch of courses when I can get them all on YouTube, the Internet and tuts from such YouTube users such as freddiew, corridordigital and filmriot.

I'm still looking for resources and stuff like that. I'm not trying to sound professional because I'm not, remember that I'm still in high school and I want to make my idea, put it on film and share it on YouTube.

TL;DR: I'm working on an action series with guns, don't have much, wanna help, any tips?
 
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network! find people that are interested in your project that would be willing to help and be a part of your project. ask around. you would be surprised. I was in Lowe's last night buying parts for a shoulder support, the guy who helped me out was a professional photographer who has traveled the world and has had pictures in national geographic. His big fish tale had me skeptical but he gave me his business card and told me to get in touch with him and he would teach me about photography.
 
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Sweet man! Sounds like a fun project.

Considering it's your first project, I wouldn't aim for a series. Aim for a single short. A short film is a massive undertaking, especially as a rookie. A series is that massive x 12 (or however many episodes there are.

Write the first episode where it can stand on it's own. If all goes well and the crew is great and you get along with every actor and everyone is on board for more, write the sequel (or episode 2) and shoot it. It would be a bummer to shoot the opening episode of a series and have one of the leads back out or the location become unavailable, etc.

For your first project, aim for a little smaller cast & crew. Chances if you're young that you don't have a ton of leadership experience. If you even manage to put together a 12 person crew and 8 member cast for free, without experience you'll have a hard time keeping everyone focused and working and what not, considering free almost always equals inexperienced. Like herding cats. Try For you and two or three crew. You the director, a camera op/DP, someone on sound and a general helper. Then stuck with a smaller cast too, two or three people.

That them be my recommendations.

Good luck man!
 
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Only write what you can shoot. If you want to do stunts and special effects, research them and only put them into your story if they are within your means.

Some people on this board were wondering last year why I was asking about how some special effects are done for my script. I amazed my crew guys Friday night, showing them those very effects were pulled off successfully. Thank you Ozhair, your help paid off.

Get someone with experience in filmmaking to work with you. They can help you over the hurdles. Their help will make your production better. Be leary about stunt coordinators. The ones who boast the most with no demo reels you should avoid like the plague.

The riskier the stunts you want to do, the higher your set insurance will be.

Make use of stunt dummies for risky stunts. They also lower the price of your set insurance. So, they pay for themselves.
 
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gooberman said:
network! find people that are interested in your project that would be willing to help and be a part of your project. ask around. you would be surprised. I was in Lowe's last night buying parts for a shoulder support, the guy who helped me out was a professional photographer who has traveled the world and has had pictures in national geographic. His big fish tale had me skeptical but he gave me his business card and told me to get in touch with him and he would teach me about photography.
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Funny enough, I went to the park and saw this guy with a mini steadicam, we had a nice chat for about 30 minutes, he had a Canon 60D. It was an interesting chat, he's a photography, does it has a hobbie, his camera setup is 4000 dollars
 
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PaulGriffith said:
Sweet man! Sounds like a fun project.

Considering it's your first project, I wouldn't aim for a series. Aim for a single short. A short film is a massive undertaking, especially as a rookie. A series is that massive x 12 (or however many episodes there are.

Write the first episode where it can stand on it's own. If all goes well and the crew is great and you get along with every actor and everyone is on board for more, write the sequel (or episode 2) and shoot it. It would be a bummer to shoot the opening episode of a series and have one of the leads back out or the location become unavailable, etc.

For your first project, aim for a little smaller cast & crew. Chances if you're young that you don't have a ton of leadership experience. If you even manage to put together a 12 person crew and 8 member cast for free, without experience you'll have a hard time keeping everyone focused and working and what not, considering free almost always equals inexperienced. Like herding cats. Try For you and two or three crew. You the director, a camera op/DP, someone on sound and a general helper. Then stuck with a smaller cast too, two or three people.

That them be my recommendations.

Good luck man!
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I agree with the do not expect it to be a series. I mean, I generally don't expect it to be a series, I mean it it becomes one with 3+ episodes, that would be pretty awesome. Show that to everyone. Still working on writing scrips/screenplays and stuff like that. I mean the first episode establishes the characters and their purpose, and their first mission. There will be some sort of long term plot, yet again still finding crew for that. I would so much call myself a full noob because it's not like I'm someone that just played some CoD and wanted to make a fan film or whatever. I've been watching filmriot and freddiew for over two years now and I've been understanding the whole thing. In the crew, everyone does more than one job. I think I have a producer/storyboard artist/writer, a camera operator/boom operator/sound recording director/lighting manager and I recently got an e-mail from someone who has a RED CAM (I know right :P)
 
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garychencool said:
I don't get that quote, please explain?
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You need to make sure that your dialog is captured cleanly and is intelligible. The sounds, especially in modern action films, have to have impact; your audience will be comparing it to big budget pictures whether you like it or not. We live our lives in a world full of sounds, and film should reflect a world that can inform our audience. Could you imagine "Saving Private Ryan" or "Raging Bull" or "Inception" with crappy sound?
 
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My sound engineer estimates that he will be laying down north of 200 audio tracks to get the fullness and realism that I'm looking for. He's running around at different times of the day and night to record background noises. When it gets closer to time to roll film, he'll be recording the noises that the engines of the different cars make as well as the sounds that the tires make rolling over different surfaces. We will be miking up seven different types of guns and an entire outdoor shooting range for the project. I haven't even begun casting, but I'm already two weeks into sound production. THAT'S how important sound is in a film.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
You need to make sure that your dialog is captured cleanly and is intelligible. The sounds, especially in modern action films, have to have impact; your audience will be comparing it to big budget pictures whether you like it or not. We live our lives in a world full of sounds, and film should reflect a world that can inform our audience. Could you imaging "Saving Private Ryan" or "Raging Bull" or "Inception" with crappy sound?
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I see now, I remember now from Freddiew when he said that the video is 90% while the sound does the rest.

hey, does anyone want to write a screenplay for this..?

Anyone wanna help out over the Internet?
 
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It seems like you're putting a ton of planning into a big undertaking, which is smart, but without a lot of experience.

Instead of waiting till next summer, use what you have and shoot something this month. 60 seconds long with a buddy or two. Do it again next month and the month after.

Get your feet wet before diving in.
 
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PaulGriffith said:
It seems like you're putting a ton of planning into a big undertaking, which is smart, but without a lot of experience.

Instead of waiting till next summer, use what you have and shoot something this month. 60 seconds long with a buddy or two. Do it again next month and the month after.

Get your feet wet before diving in.
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This isn't the first time I filmed something, rather the first as in action style in this large scale, where I went with one or two has become ten or twenty. I'll try to keep the whole thing as small as I can. This school year, there are more possible pojects to do where I can use the medium of film. There will be Romeo and Juliet short, how to survive a nuclear war, where it will be this futuristic, war style run and gun kind of thing. I dont know when I will do that but I think it will happen next year. By then I will have a cinematographer with 15 yrs exp to help out with it.
 
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garychencool said:
I see now, I remember now from Freddiew when he said that the video is 90% while the sound does the rest.
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I'd disagree with that completely. Sound is just as important as video. People will put up with a sub-par image if the piece has good sound. If you have an amazing picture but the sound is full of buzz or crackling, they'll tune out almost immediately.
 
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@Lucky - I wish I had your budget! :D

garychencool said:
By then I will have a cinematographer with 15 yrs exp to help out with it.
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Make sure that your production sound crew and audio post team have the same amount of experience. That's what "Sound is half of the experience" means - sound gets equal treatment. All those beautiful pictures won't be worth donkey dung if your sound sucks.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
@Lucky - I wish I had your budget! :D
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Believe it or not, that's the cheap part of this venture. I have free access to the range, I have access to almost any weapon ever made, I have connections at junkyards so a POS car is almost free, my sound engineer is a music guy who wants to make inroads to film and is doing the project gratis, and I have hundreds of people that I can call on to go shoot the hell out of stuff. The most expensive part of the shooting will be the ammunition.
 
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How much experience does your DP have shooting action? Every DP shoots dialogue, very few shoot action.

Again, make sure you get a stunt coordinator who can show you what they can do with a kickass demo reel. Don't have them tell you what they can do.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
@Lucky - I wish I had your budget! :D



Make sure that your production sound crew and audio post team have the same amount of experience. That's what "Sound is half of the experience" means - sound gets equal treatment. All those beautiful pictures won't be worth donkey dung if your sound sucks.
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Okay, I see now. Don't have crappy video or sound. Try to have both at the same level (as high as possible)
 
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