Ouachita Baptist University Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita Honors Theses Carl Goodson Honors Program 2010 Making the Student Film Rance Collins Ouachita Baptist University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Rance, "Making the Student Film" (2010). Honors Theses. 32. https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses/32 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Carl Goodson Honors Program at Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Making the Student Fi lm By Rance Collins Every filmmaker creates their own unique path to producing motion pictures. Some start out at the bottom of the chain, getting cups of water for the director while learning the craft. Steven Spielberg started as a boy by filming a nine-minute feature with a 8mm camera that earned him a merit badge in Boy Scouts (Steven). I started learning the craft at the early age of eleven, and have since completed seven films, a dozen episodes of a sitcom, and countless news stori es, wedding ceremonies, senior videos, and recruiting films. When I enrolled at Ouachita four years ago I knew I wanted to continue to pursue this craft. Three of those completed films were made while I was a student at Ouachita. I also worked as the director of photography on an additional film, and directed an incomplete movie project for a motion picture production course. Through the making of each of these projects I' ve learned something unique about filmmaking, and specifically, student filmmaking. So when it came time for me to choose a topic for my honor' s thesis, there was really only one logical choice. Through my experiences I have learned much about the "dos" and "don'ts" of making a movie. I've had successes that have Jed to splashy, IIollywood-style premieres. And, in the case of the incomplete student film I directed, I've had disappointments. In short, it has been a learning process with a plethora of ups and downs. Every filmmaker will fail. Alfred Hitchcock didn't make his money back on some of his later films like Topaz, and The Deer Hunter director Michael Ciminio almost ruined his career with the expensive Heaven 's Gate (Internet Movie), which became one of the most notorious flops in film history. With the aide of my own experiences, this paper will present a guide to avoiding many of the basic problems that plague aspiring student filmmakers. First, there are items and knowledge a filmmaker will need in pre-production, such as how to write an efficient script that will take into account your limitations. Second, what to do to most effectively utilize the production time when filming. Third, how to survive the editing process, and finally, how to properly market a film. Getting Started There are several basic items the student filmmaker needs before beginning a project. There is first a certain amount of knowledge necessary to be properly prepared to produce a film. Having a passion for the craft is key for creating cinematic art. When I was ten years old I saw the classic film Gone with the Wind and found my passion for movies. Subsequently, I bought a '·behind the scenes'' photograph book about the film and began wishing I was there with the directors, cinematographers, script supervisors, and grips. A filmmaker has to have that internal need to be involved in every aspect of a production. If being involved in film production is not an ultimately enjoyable overall experience, then there is probably a better career choice on the horizon. The first physical item needed is a camera. It does not need to be a top-of-the-line camcorder. Recently, an excellent student film consisted entirely of stop-motion photography. Why did the student choose to use stop-motion? The student did not have access to a high-quality motion camera, and the film ended up being more effective and more artistic because of the unique fi lming technique. As a result, the central love story came off as a heartbreaking series of ''moments" in time. The quick, frozen frames stuck in the mind of the viewer and stayed in their consciousness long after the credits had rolled. Even a small Flip video camera or an old home video recorder can suffice when 2 attempting to capture screen magic. Low-quality can end up being a stylistic choice. Mainstream cinema features like the low-budget The Blair Witch Project made a fortune off of shooting with lower-quality cameras (Internet Movie). It is important to know as a filmmaker that the tools do not matter. llow the tools are utilized is the key. The first camera I used was an old JVC camcorder that was quite inconvenient and bulky when compared to the equipment sold today. The camcorder was outdated by several years when I started using it, but I didn't care. I found ways to use lighting and camera angels to my advantage so to increase the quality of the frames. And while I did not make anything that came close to qualifying as "art," 1 was certainly excited about what I was making. Even today, working with a high definition-quality camera, there are some shots I framed from the old JVC that are still impressive, even by comparison. In I Ierbert Zettl's "Video Basics," he concedes that "you will not see much difference in how the pictures look" when comparing a smaller camcorder to a larger one (Zettl 59-60). The most tedious part about movie-making to master is audio recording. Ironically, it is also the most important part. One of the first lessons Dr. David Ozmun taught in my Advanced Television Production class was the importance of audio­ recording. If the audience can't understand what the performer is saying, then they won't care about what they're seeing. It is very easy to forget about audio. A filmmaker can get lost in setting-up that great shot or thinking up the most creative way to splice together a set of images, causing the spoken word to slip the mind. But without it, there is nothing. Voice-overs and dubbing can sometimes look very obvious or even cheesy, but they are preferable to muffled audio. If there is absolutely no way to produce a film with solid audio, then a filmmaker should look into making a silent film. Silent film was 3 an art in itself, and working to communicate messages without dialogue can be a learning experience. That is just how important audio is. Zettl points out that even professional films suffer from bad audio, and most low-budget films are hit the hardest in the audio department. "Most amateur video is characterized not just by the madly moving camera and the fast zooms but also by the bad audio (115).'' As far as microphones go, the student filmmaker should look and see what type of microphone will work with their camcorder. If they can't buy an external microphone, they should see to it that all dialogue is spoken close to the camera's internal microphone. That way, there is at least a track of the lines to splice in later during editing. Elements such as lighting are also essential to research before setting out to film a production. One basic tip for shooting outdoors, for instance, is to try and film on cloudy days. When the sun is behind the clouds, it is easier to avoid obtrusive shadows. For shooting indoors, inexpensive lighting equipment can be found at online retailers and auction sights, and often time's natural lighting will suffice if a filmmaker is especially in tune with their camera settings. Specific equipment, such as tripods, can typically be found for low prices at mass retailers, where almost all forms of tapes can also be found. A starter studio can be easily and inexpensively created from supplies carried by stores like Wai-Mart and Target. Movie-making has come to the point of being that close to an aspiring filmmaker's fingertips. Writing the Story There are several basic points of writing a story. whether feature-length or sixty seconds, that should be learned before ever shooting a second of video. Stories are all around. There is no need to conjure up a plot out of thin air if not particularly inspired. 4 By reading the paper, watching the news, and paying attention in history class a screenwriter can find a variety of stories. There are real-life stories begging to become movies everywhere. After all, film is a slice of life. I Iitchcock's masterpiece Psycho was based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein, who shared many common qualities with Norman Bates. For instance, like Gein, Norman was mother-fixated, killed young girls, dressed up like a woman, and lived alone in his mother's former home (Bardsley). Reading is also a way to find a story. Inspiration can come from an article in a newspaper, as was the case with Dog Day Afternoon and Chinatown, or perhaps even out of well-known historical events like Bonnie and Clyde ( 19-20). A few years ago, I made a movie called Room for Rent, which was a about a young woman who rents a room from a disturbing older couple. She later discovers that she bares a striking resemblance to their deceased daughter.