/fmg/- Filmmaking General

I've been wondering recently about how we have a world of resources at our disposal, a wealth of information and years of film to look back on, and yet teenagers still use that shallow depth-of-field meme, and make unoriginal melodramatic bullshit involving suicide or car crashes or love or some shit like that.

It really fucking bugs me, how you can go through the entirety of production and not a single person says "Hey, guys, does it feel like this has been done before?" This complete lack of creative/artistic vision, anything even remotely resembling an original thought.

Anyway, that's a conversation starter. Post your work and discuss upcoming projects, and all that. I'm still working on the script for my John Carpenter-inspired piece.

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videocopilot.net/tutorials/
provideocoalition.com/?s=art of the cut
youtu.be/K-XIm_r6EQs
drive.google.com/open?id=0B6uwaxNQt5HRaXlPUnItSG43YVU
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

A lot of people at the indie level are elevating those melodramatic themes, if there's a nice twist on them which make them somewhat unconventional yet still plausible, coherent, and well done I dont see a problem with using those themes as a skeleton

Of course, using the old plots in new and inventive ways is a great idea.

I'm just concerned at how many DON'T try to do anything interesting. Primarily in the student filmmaking market.

I think a lot of teens do that theory "tell what you know". And they know suicide, drinking, bad relationships/early love and family bullshit.

That or they rip off Tarantino and make dumb down shit that looks embarrassing. Something like what the Nostalgia Critic would make (a crime thriller with bad lighting and family photos on the wall).

firing up the Avid right now to edit some short film scene I bought off editstock, gonna run some after effects tutorials after

I think it's natural for teenagers to rip off Tarantino, like for me it happened almost unconsciously.

I think a lot of what I'm complaining about boils down to planning your shit. If you have a vision, and it's well thought out and well-planned and you take every possible measure to make it look good, I couldn't give less of a shit what it's about.

That's exactly it. Students. They're learning still.

>Avid
warflashbacks.gif

drop avid man, seriously best decision i ever made. but in more into commeical stuff so i need AE

well, i work on it 10 hours a day already, just sticking with what i know

That's fair.

i work in reality, Avid's the only game in town. i'll pick up Premiere at some point, i do have it installed. more focused on just getting better at editing, software's the easy part.

Ah, okay.

My experiences with it weren't great.

oh i know it inside and out, including the bugs.

the dynamic link stuff is revolutionary man. its so easy to bring all the apects of post together i was able to expand my skillset without even realising i was doing it.

Now that PremierePro is a subscription based format, is there any windows based editing software out there that can replace it?

also when ur learning AE look into cinema 4d. u get a lite version with AE its a easy to use but still powerful 3d software and ovb works easily with AE

Who cares if it's been done before? Let kids make what they want. They'll either learn to do other stuff or they won't, but there's no point in berating them for doing it.

What's wrong with avid? I like it a lot more than premiere. Granted, I've only ever used avid on two screens, and premiere on 1, but once I got over the learning curve I could do a lot of shit faster than with premiere

I mean I know it's just learning stuff; hell, I'm in the same boat, I'm a shitty teenage student filmmaker that's just sorta stumbling through as well.

It just bugs me, I guess. Same problem I have with teenage writers: don't you have the drive to make something new or interesting, or anything that isn't another post apocalypse/vampire/teenage romance?

Make what you want, I guess, there's nothing stopping you, but don't get comfortable in an area that's already way too overstuffed with books of that ilk already.

a lot of people don't like how it prioritizes key binds over mouse controls, i dunno i'm used to PC games so it just seemed like a natural fit to me

The curve is what turns me off. Premiere's a babby's software but it allows you to toss shit together nice and quick-like.

Sometimes thats a benefit to them. It's the studio mentality: if something is popular, quickly churn out something with easy marketability and franchise potential.

As for trying to break out of cliches and stereotypes and all that shit, i don't know. Teens are naturally dumb. They like awful shit but usually learn that later on.

Oh, well now that I think about it, I've only ever used avid with one of those color-coded special keyboards, so that makes sense.

>Avid

Mein nigger

Editor for 10 years now.
The only thing I use for serious gigs.

>As for trying to break out of cliches and stereotypes and all that shit, i don't know. Teens are naturally dumb. They like awful shit but usually learn that later on.

I guess that's true, we are naturally pretty stupid, but sometimes we notice it more if we move into a certain field.

Think of it sort of as like how Goth shit and hipster shit was really popular for a while. It doesn't seem like any of them have any self-awareness of the popularity of their style, let alone the desire to push against it, until the style gets memed into oblivion.

still just an assistant, only been at it 2 years though, editing (in my off time) for less than that.

>teenagers still use that shallow depth-of-field meme
Expensive = good, obviously. They want to show off their f/1.2 lens their parents bought them.
>and make unoriginal melodramatic bullshit involving suicide or car crashes or love or some shit like that.
I feel that. I remember I wrote a feature in high school that started with a suicide attempt and ended in someone dying of cancer. It's pretty embarrassing to look back on now, but I'm glad I wrote it, got all that shit out of my system.

Very nice set-up, incredibly jealous. I should get a second monitor, but I'm trying to save up for more production related equipment that I'm lacking.

Also, just finished my last final ever, and I'm sitting down to crank out some pages. I just hit 60, and feel that for the most part, it's coming together well. I have trouble with stating the conflict in the first ten pages though, tried it with this one, and felt that I was just dumping exposition.

Anyone have suggestions for screenplays I could check out that do this technique well? I think Jaws establishes everything perfectly in the first fifteen minutes, and I really dig the way The Searchers introduced the characters and main conflict.

It's time.

2 years is what most of the assistants in my area can handle before stepping up.

Nowadays, you can edit on whatever you want, but the best editors can do motion graphics (I don't)

Good luck, friend.

>but the best editors can do motion graphics
This. After Effects is so crucial, I'm pretty sure every job I've gotten is because I'm a wizard at it, thanks to spending hours on it in high school. I'd recommend everyone learn it to some extent. I mainly use it for titles and basic animations on jobs, but it's a piece of software with so much potential.

videocopilot.net/tutorials/

been learning off these

Smart, I forgot to post that link. VC was my bible when I started out. It's great they're still posting tutorials, a slight disappointment that most of their recent ones utilize their plug-ins that I can't afford. Lynda also has some good shit on AE, shame it's so pricey for personal use.

yeah i've used lynda before, but i'll hold off on that until i've exhausted VC

What do you use for coloring edit bros?

davinci lite is always an option

provideocoalition.com/?s=art of the cut

these interviews are ridiculously good

They offered an open subscription at where I used to work. Once I left, I used to log-in with the credentials, but they changed them a couple weeks ago.

Which is a shame, because I really want to improve at color correction, and from what I've seen, youtube's offering is much weaker than Lynda's, for obvious reasons.

I irrationally want one of these, even though I'd have nowhere to put it, and I'd criminally underutilize it. It reminds me of the Ableton Push and similar music hardware. Sure, you can just do everything with a KB+M, but it just looks like a smoother, more intuitive workflow.

bunch on what.cd, but they're mostly music oriented

Nothing is wrong with Avid. If you want to compare it to Premiere, well there's the learning curve. Premiere is much easier to start with but much harder to do advanced stuff, Avid is much harder to start but much easier to do advanced stuff. There's a reason Avid is the industry standard.

Lynda was free for a time with your linkin account
didn't use it so I don't know if it still works

Media Composer levels.

>There's a reason Avid is the industry standard.

that and because of Avid's ability to have multiple editors in one project.

All of y'all talking about editors and I'm sat here worrying about how I'm gonna do lighting.

i've been meaning to read a book on lighting, just out of curosity

dude, like, turn on the lights lol

low key lighting on everything

Still, that's fucking neat.
>friend of a friend in high school offers me a what.cd invite
>give him a lecture about how people should pay for music
I was such a bitch back then.

My advice would be to read some books, look at some basic youtube tutorials, all as groundwork, then apply it to your needs and equipment limitations.

What's your lighting situation like? What are you trying to shoot, what is your equipment situation?

I'm literally just a shitty DSLR-and-Tripod filmmaker.

My only attempt at lighting ended up looking like this, which looked better than I thought it would considering all we had was a flashlight: youtu.be/K-XIm_r6EQs (forgive the sound, acting, color grading, etc.)

What I want to do for my next short is the vibe I got from Escape From New York and The Warriors (see pic). I'm planning on shooting in my dad's old dent repair shop. How I'm gonna get power I have no clue.

Escape from NY/Warriors guy, I know that's you.

You already fuckin' know, nigga.

If y'all wanna see what I got so far on my script, I'd be happy to share. About 85% finished, just gotta write out the fight and the ending.

>How I'm gonna get power I have no clue.
The fucking worst. Most lights I've used in the past do have battery options, but non-LEDs eat through batteries like crazy.

I'll check your shit out, give me a sec.

Post some pages user. Let's see that shit.

I will say though, you might want to look at other films more influence. To take directly from EfNY/Warriors in idea/story/tone/lighting/moves/music might come across as simply ripping it off.

I plan on tackling a similar idea, a female Warriors but I'll be tackling it with some lighting similar to giallo films and cinematography similar to 70s action movies. Bullitt has also been a huge influence.

Not stoping you from doing your thang, but it can't hurt to be absorbs by so many other movies out there. Why limit yourself?

Ayy, nevermind, I've seen this. I liked it the concept, it's pretty funny too. Don't worry too much about sound, acting, color grading, and etc. At this level, it's more important to dick around and practice shooting, then worrying over ever single unsolvable detail and not getting anything done. Trust me about that.

One thing I would point out is that someone says "camera" around the 1:55, but that's the anal editor in me.

Also, def post the script, I'd love to give it a go.

the shot where hes stood looking at walgreens was nice. id say use more tripod and yeah you're right the sound is fucking atrocious. that music at the beginning is horrendous.

upload the dialogue wavs and I'll spend an hour on the sound, I have a day off and I'm bored as fuck.

Yeah, I keep listing those as my main influences but what got me started on the whole thing was Hobo With A Shotgun, which I picked up on Sup Forums's recommendation and I absolutely fell in love with it. Since then I've been re-evaluating what I'd want an 80's revivalism movie to be, and those are the two movies I wanted to steal from.

Might toss in a little Drive, though I'll have to rewatch it.

Pages incoming in a few minutes.

drive.google.com/open?id=0B6uwaxNQt5HRaXlPUnItSG43YVU

Alright, here's the script, or what I have of it so far.

Seriously forgive the memes, I couldn't resist. Just imagine Bill as Aiden Gillen

Also I fucked up the names in the beginning, it shouldn't say Paul that first time without me actually introducing him.

Same boat user. I think the 80s neon films have come back in a big way. A friend told me to shot my feature idea as a 70s thing and I told fuck that (he mainly was trying to control my idea). I want those light blues and pinks, the snythwave score and the ultimate tone of the 80s but set it in a modern era. But i do plan on using 70s chase films as a framework for the chase scenes in my story.

Lighting is a bitch but I believe that that Hobo was done with coloured gels on reds and aiming them at actors or walls. Then maybe jack the contrast in post.

What kind of dslr are you using? And you mentioned before you're bad a t sound. How you fixing that?

Using a Canon 70D, and I'm planning on getting a Rode mic at some point and using a field recorder I can borrow.

I can find people to hold the boom poles.

>dialogue wavs
>implying we thought that far ahead

I really dropped the ball there, thought we could re-do it in post. Note to self: NEVER try doing ADR again.

Kind of cheesy and the dialogue is bad but I'm sure you'll make it work somehow. Editing is when something can change form. It also helps when you know how to direct and get all the necessary shots and film in a way to know how to fix the scene if shit hits the fan, in post.

Use a separate audio source/device and record with a boom pole. If possible, you can try to use lavs, just hide them the best you can.

I like it. What happens?

Yeah, to be honest I've never been great at dialogue. I've never been able to write how people talk.

That's the autism in me, though.

Also the cheese was partially intentional.

That's a neat little concept you have there user, I'm intrigued. The characters have a nice back and forth that keeps things moving, and I thought the first shockcollar bit was pretty funny.

For suggestions, the VOICE, who's off-screen. Where is he? As I kept reading, I guessed he was in the car with Adam, but it wasn't entirely clear at first. Also, on a more personal, you might want to cut back on the swearing. I'm not saying it doesn't fit considering the situation, but I always grow tired of screenplays where everyone's dropping swears constantly. It makes everyone sound the same. That's not really a critique, more personal preference on my part.

Other than that, you're formatting and structure look fine, so you're on a good path with that front, which I couldn't say about so many people in classes I've taken. Keep at it, and keep us updated on your progress!

>Canon 70D+Rode mic
Great little starter kit, it's what I used before my shit got jacked FUCK I'm still mad at that.

Have you checked out the Magic Lantern firmware hack for the 70D? I'm not outright advocating it, because it might not be necessary for what you're doing, and also since it can brick your camera, while at the same time voiding your warranty. However, I got some really nice RAW footage for the week I had it installed.

Bill hits the button, Paul goes Winter Soldier Wreck-It Ralph on Jonas' goons, then before he kills Jonas he starts getting flashes of memory back and blacks out on the floor.

Bill finishes the job on Jonas, then helps Paul up, then explains that if Paul wants to know the truth about what happened to him, he would have to work for him as a personal bodyguard/hitman when necessary, and help him take out as many gangs in the city as possible. Every time he goes superweapon, he gains a little bit of his memory back.

Yeah, the swearing is a bit of a byproduct of my Tarantino Ripoff days. I'll try and tone that back after I finish up the draft.

And thanks man, I really appreciate that.

I've been rec'd Magic Lantern for a while, might just have to try it soon.

got my first paid gig in like 2 weeks
wish me luck boys

Kick ass, my man.

What're you working on, and how'd you get the gig?

Sound mixer on set
My school has paid jobs you can get if you get two recommendation letters from professors and join this group that acts as a hiring base for projects
My goal is to get a job in a post house doing sound mixing or re-recording mixing as a final career, hopefully i'll make enough networking contacts by the time i graduate to find more work

Sounds like a good realistic goal. They say most of the money's in editing anyways, so there's that.

Congrats, and good luck.

I'd like to take a crack at editing horror one day, madly in love with old creature features, Italian giallos and Hammer Horror.

Everyone i've talked to on set said sound is a good place to get dosh from, because it's one of those things no one wants to do but it needs to be done
I've done so many 2nd AC jobs, I'm looking forward to working more on sound

>sounds like

Heh

Ever read Walter Murch's the Conversations? It's primarily an editing book but he also loooooves to talk soundscapes

Yeah as well as Blink in an eye
good shit

Alright bros,

I'm copping a Panasonic GH3 at the end of the week. Looking to mainly shoot video so I can practice editing over the summer. Question is, go for the 25mm f/1.7 or spend the extra cash for the f/1.4?

Kek

Sigma 18 - 25mm f1.8 with speedbooster

not that user but do you mean the 18 - 35mm?

If so then I would second this, amazing lens.

bump

Finished my draft, I gotta sleep now. Glad I got it done though.

Night y'all, and happy filmmaking.

I'm planning on getting a GH4, and this sounds like a pretty good setup.

>checks speedboosters prices

Well fuck me I guess.

Final bump for the night owls.

What do you do when you have a story, but you can't figure out the plot?
Like, I have exposition and background information, but I don't know what should actually happen in the movie.

I'm also having a really difficult time solidifying my characters, I can't get an image of them.