Essential Filmmaking Tips 

In this article, we’ll describe the essential filmmaking tips and practices that are necessary for a successful film. While some of them can appear to be more complex than others, all of them are crucial for both newcomers and seasoned users. Any filmmaker can avoid common errors by using the filmmaking strategies listed below. 

By putting these essential filmmaking tips into practice, you can elevate your independent movie to stand out above the competition.

   

Show Don’t Tell – Essential Filmmaking Tips

Make sure you have a captivating plot with a beginning, middle, and end before you start concentrating on filmmaking skills. The lack of a distinct and organised story is a typical error made by filmmakers. Making a story that will be interesting to others requires thought and effort. Simply capturing your partner strolling along the beach is not a story; rather, it is a visual love letter.

A story needs the main character to be motivated to take action. The drama arises from the challenges they run into while pursuing that objective. People in the audience want to experience intense emotions. Make certain that the main character has that objective. Know how the story will finish, work toward it by presenting the main character with a number of challenges or conflicts, and keep it as straightforward as possible.

Make a story that fits your movie budget and emphasises action rather than conversation. That is not to suggest that conversation is not essential—it is. Exposition, or new information about the characters and the plot, is added through dialogue. However, showing rather than telling is generally preferable. For instance, a character might declare that they wish to visit the Taj Mahal before they pass away, but really portraying them doing so is far more compelling.

A line of conversation has much more power when the audience can see the expression on the character’s face when they first see it.

 

Experience Wins The Day

Using actors who ‘look the role’ but are poor actors won’t win you any awards! Use actors that have a history of success. You can easily destroy the illusion if you employ an actor who can’t act – even if they appear to look like a police detective! Hold auditions, then look for the best actor to play each part. Holding rehearsals to ensure that everyone is familiar with the plot and their character is one of the finest ways to ensure that the performers are contributing to the director’s vision.

Use knowledgeable crew workers rather than any old person who offers to lend a hand! If a camera operator doesn’t understand lighting, they will produce inadequate photos. The same applies to a sound person who holds the microphone too far away from the performers. It seems obvious to say, but cutting corners during production will ultimately hurt your production!

Only hire team members you are familiar with if their work is of high quality and it fits your production. Ask to see and hear samples of their work if you don’t already know them in order to determine whether they have the skills and experience your movie could need.

 

Everything Means Something In Design

Not taking into account a film’s ‘look‘ is a common error. The visual appeal of a movie will sell the film’s realism. Locations, settings, props, furniture, vehicles, clothing, and makeup all contribute to a harmonious design. All of the colours and design choices reveal details about the story’s characters and plot.

Having a ‘look book‘ with photographs and sketches of the look and feel for each scene is one filmmaking strategy for developing a production design. The team reads the book together so that everyone may better grasp the director’s intent.

Unfortunately, it’s often too easy to disregard the importance of production design in filmmaking. Design must be taken into consideration in order to sell a story, depict realistic settings, or provide information about a character. When a character walks slumped over, dishevelled, and is dressed entirely in black, viewers might automatically assume that they are depressed. Likewise, a big entryway with marble floors and a chandelier might reveal the value of a home to an audience. 

Production design elements are just as significant as the story’s characters.

 

 

The Story Comes First – Essential Filmmaking Tips

Getting fixated on the cinematography and cinematic techniques is a common error made by many directors, whether they are just starting out or have a long history in the business. They often give priority to the camera and lighting to the detriment of the narrative and the actors.

The secret is to concentrate on the acting and the plot while leaving the rest to the crew. Provide the crew with storyboards. Storyboards provide a visual representation of your intent for shooting. Then they will have fewer questions. Although crucial, the technical aspects of filmmaking are secondary to the performance and storytelling.

 

Camera Technique Mastery

Always use traditional shot framing and camera angles when filming each scene to ensure that the entire scene is captured for editing. This way, the fundamentals will have been addressed, but if you have time, you can also take more original photos.

When it makes sense, use a tripod for the basic shots and pan and tilt motions to follow the action. To effectively express the story, feel free to use camera movement such as gimbals and dolly views. Always check to see if the viewer’s eyes are being drawn to the crucial area of the frame by the shot composition and lighting.

The use of lighting and what the camera displays (or doesn’t) convey meaning. What do I want to see? is an excellent question to ask yourself while deciding where to position the camera. There’s a good probability that the audience shares your desire to see something. Follow your instincts, but don’t forget to get the fundamental shots as well.

 

Lighting Technique Mastery

Focusing the viewer’s attention on lighting is a useful strategy. Additionally, you can convey a character’s attitude or perspective on the world through lighting. An audience may infer that a character is withdrawing or concealing in a scene if there is dark illumination and deep shadows, for instance. Brighter, flat lighting is at the other end of the lighting spectrum. Comedy movies use this lighting style frequently.

Shadows cast by flat illumination are quite faint. The dark and light regions of the frame have relatively little contrast with one another. A common and obvious error is to light the wide shot one way while lighting the close-ups and other perspectives differently. The audience may become distracted by this. It is better to light the establishing shot first, then base all of the coverage shots on that lighting configuration.

 

Editing Technique Mastery

Being too busy with production and having insufficient time for post-production is a common error in the filmmaking process. It will take time to edit the image, the dialogue, the sound effects, the foley, the backgrounds, and the music. Make sure there is sufficient time before the deadline to ensure that the music and images flow seamlessly.

Having enough coverage so that there is a wide variety of shots to choose from is the ideal filmmaking strategy for seamless editing. Use close-ups and cutaways to hide continuity issues. Effective ways to demonstrate the passage of time include dissolves and fades.

You can make more transitions during the production process. For instance, the 1968 film 2001 A Space Odyssey depicts a famous hard cut between a bone thrown in the air by a primate and a space station somewhere in our galaxy. Planning for this kind of transition during preproduction is necessary in order to obtain the required shots during postproduction.

Clean up the conversation by employing brief crossfades between the character’s words so the background changes are less obvious. This will help you avoid the amateur filmmaking audio problem of background changes between dialogue lines. Use alternate takes of lines for dialogue that was badly recorded if there is time to remove undesired production sounds. This is known as ADR or Automated Dialogue Replacement.

Only when they are appropriate, sound effects are the best way to give a scene realism. Foley is the body sounds, footfalls, and prop handling noises that add to the realism. Foley is rarely used in low-budget movies, hence the soundtrack is usually lighter as a result.

Environmental sounds in the background give a scene a sense of place. These are the common non-sync noises, including wind, rain, traffic, birds, and others.

 

The Intelligent Use of Music – Essential Filmmaking Tips

Some movies make the error of playing music nonstop from start to finish. The majority of movies require a break in between music cues. The entire movie may have music, but it might end up sounding like a music video. There is no need for music in all settings. When it matters, use it. The impact of music can be diminished through overuse. Ensure that the music you choose suits the situation, is emotively suitable, and reflects the performers’ emotions for the viewer.

Use music without singing or voices unless it is necessary. Singing-accompanied music can overpower an actor’s speech. Popular music selections might be effective for montages and credit sequences, but rarely for the score. Additionally, the director would need to obtain the legal authority to use any well-known song in their production.

Remember, the majority of scored music is not radio-friendly. This is called an underscore. An underscore is music that plays underneath dialogue. However, the best type of music is a film score because it was written to go along with the movie.

Auditioning music from movies that are comparable to the one you are developing is one filmmaking strategy that aids in choosing the greatest music for a movie. If you’re developing a war movie, for example, try inserting music from a movie like Saving Private Ryan at appropriate points in your movie to see if the melody, tempo, and instrumentation fit the mood.

Then you can locate related music, buy the rights, and include it in the movie. You can make your own soundtrack if you have a musical bent.

If film music has piqued your interest, and you want to explore more essential filmmaking tips, take a look at our recent article: 7 Top Tips For Working With A Film Composer!

 

Sound Quality And Success

 

It’s important to consider how your movie sounds and deal with any issues before presenting it to your audience. An audience will overlook a camera view that is slightly out of focus, poorly lit, or shaken, but they will not put up with poor audio.

The most crucial sound in the mix is the dialogue. Dialogue must be noticeable for it to be understood. Precedence should be given to dialogue over music and sound effects. Sound effects can sometimes overshadow music and vice versa! It depends on the events taken on in the scene. Never should they overpower conversation. 

Finding the actor’s vocal frequencies and then using EQ (equalisation) to slightly lower or cut those same frequencies in the music and sound effects are two sound techniques for making speech stand out in a mix. 

Additionally, the use of compression is also an option if you want dialogue to appear above the music and sound effects.

 

Advancing Your Craft

Making an attempt to use special effects like CGI and green screen whilst studying the fundamentals of filmmaking is a common error made by aspiring filmmakers. Often, the excitement of spending more time on special effects is preferable to telling a story that speaks the truth!

After developing strong production skills, you can branch out into the special effects industry. 

Shooting a scene in front of a green screen and then adding the background in post-production, for instance, may seem straightforward, but if the green screen is poorly lit or there is a lot of green light reflecting back onto the character in front of the screen, it will be challenging to pull a clean chroma key and the composited image may not turn out as well as desired.