Q: Can treatments be sold to film studios or production companies to adapt them into screenplays?

The short anwser is yes, but you better be an “A” list screenwriter or director. It is not unheard of for a director or screenwriter to come to a studio, pitch the idea, and then sell it to that studio, but it is rare. This usually come with a little compensation. For instance, lets say you have this great idea, but dont have any time to work on the script because of your nine to five job. With this method, instead of buying your script, they usually pay you a small fee, so you can quit that day job and work on your script twenty-four seven and get its on its feet. Then when you have it completed, you get your set amount that you have negotiated. It’s as easy as that…if you’re Spielberg.

Q: How can I clean up grainy digital footage shot in low-light conditions?

Short answer: you cant’t. Long answer: with a lot of work in a program like Motion or After Effects and some complex masks and filters like gaussian blur and unsharp mask, you might be able to SLIGHTLY improve your image quality. Generally, however, it’s not worth the effort and you should either reshoot the footage or settle for what you got.

Q: How do I check whether my movie name is available?

It isn’t possible to copyright a movie name, so from a legal perspective there is no need to check whether it’s available or not. In most instances you can call your movie whatever you want, regardless of how many other movies have the same title. The only area where this might be murky is in the instance where your title is or contains a registered trademark. If you suspect this is the case, then you will either need to find another title, or consult a lawyer to get a better understanding of your position (just because it is a registered trademark doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use it, but you should get professional advice to be sure). In saying all of this, it may still be worth checking which other movies have the same or similar titles to your own, particularly those which have been made recently. If your film is about to enter distribution the last thing you want is for another film with the same title to also be out in the marketplace causing confusion in minds of the audience. Probably the easiest and best place to check is the Internet Movie Database.

Question 1

Are those &#8216;2 day&#8217; film schools any good?

Accepted Answer

The recent explosion of interest in the indie film sector has brought with it a small but increasing posse of filmmaking evangelists, offering crash courses that suggest you could be the next Tarantino. Whilst in theory there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea, it might be worth considering several things before parting with your hard-earned dosh for one of these seminars.
Firstly, do you need it? Most of these courses lean more towards the motivational than the material. Obviously you can&#8217;t teach skills in two days &#8211; they are honed over years of practice. So the important question to ask yourself is: do I want to pay to be motivated? Or more importantly, do I need to be motivated by someone else? If you do, you may be looking at the wrong career path anyway.
Secondly, just who is &#8216;teaching&#8217; this course and what is their experience? Sadly, the boom in this film training cottage industry has attracted a few less-than-honest operators. It&#8217;s not uncommon for these &#8220;insider&#8221; courses to be run by people who have yet to produce a feature film or sell a script (whilst this may not necessarily discount the value of the course, you&#8217;ve got to wonder&#8230;), and more worryingly, one or two instances of courses which are outright financial scams.
So should you sign up for one of these courses? It&#8217;s perhaps best to think of the whole idea in this way: are you going to come out of a two day course in law, medicine or nuclear physics as an absolute guru? Of course not. Filmmaking is a complicated and time-consuming craft; and like any field, it takes more than just a quick course to make you an expert. It will be a very rare situation indeed, that you leave such a course with all of the necessary skills to be a successful filmmaker.
Good advice would be instead of spending the hundreds (sometimes thousands) on fees for these courses, channel some of this money into purchasing yourself some camera gear (DV&#8230; 16mm&#8230; video&#8230; ANYTHING), and a couple of introductory books on the subject. You will probably find that this is a much more valuable (and cheaper) exercise. If you are serious about film school, get yourself into at least a one year course at a reputable institution. Remember, there&#8217;s no substitute for experience, and experience doesn&#8217;t come from spending a couple of days basking in the glory of a filmmaking evangelist.
As a final note, the answer to this question does not, of course, relate to specialised short courses which can be invaluable in honing your existing skills.

Question 2

Can HDV be shown on ordinary televisions, DVD players etc?

Accepted Answer

HDV is a highly compressed high definition format. As a result, it is not naturally compatible with standard definition televisions or DVD players as such. However, both the camera and the VTR have a &#8220;down converted&#8221; output that can be used to play into a standard definition TV. This output will provide a standard definition (lower detail) version of the HDV original recording.
If however you are going to edit with your HDV footage, it can be captured into an editing system either via the cameras / players firewire connection or alternatively through a firewire to serial digital video converter. From then on, your editing system will be editing a high-definition master and at the end of this process, HD masters or downconverted SD masters can be created to play on TV systems or create DVDs.

Question 3

Can HDV be shown on ordinary televisions, DVD players etc?

Accepted Answer

HDV is a highly compressed high definition format. As a result, it is not naturally compatible with standard definition televisions or DVD players as such. However, both the camera and the VTR have a &#8220;down converted&#8221; output that can be used to play into a standard definition TV. This output will provide a standard definition (lower detail) version of the HDV original recording.
If however you are going to edit with your HDV footage, it can be captured into an editing system either via the cameras / players firewire connection or alternatively through a firewire to serial digital video converter. From then on, your editing system will be editing a high-definition master and at the end of this process, HD masters or downconverted SD masters can be created to play on TV systems or create DVDs.

Question 4

Can I record sync sound on a laptop?

Accepted Answer

Laptop technology has been moving forward at an exponential rate in recent years, but for some reason, the technology driving the sound cards in these machines has lagged way behind. Whilst, manufacturers have packed their products with CPUs that have blistering clock-speeds and amazing display technologies, they more than often than not include a very basic sound card. And although this is changing, a good deal of laptops still ship with rather inferior sound playback and recording technology. That said, there are now plenty of products at the upper end of the price range in both PC and Macintosh flavours which offer you a viable sound recording platform for your filmmaking endeavours.
Some things to consider before making a decision to record sound for your film on a laptop:
Sync
Perhaps the most important consideration is how you are going to sync your images with the audio once you get to the edit suite. Most people opt for the traditional clapper route, however if you have a little more money available (or good connections), you may wish to consider picking up a timecode slate. Either way, you need something which you can use as a sync reference point when it comes to getting your audio and video synced up in post.
Battery Life
You would have though it pretty obvious, but you&#8217;d be surprised at how many filmmakers forget how a laptop&#8217;s battery life is important to the decision. Recording sound on a laptop can be quite power-hungry, particularly if your mic is sucking phantom power from the machine as well. Most standard laptop batteries only give you 4-5 hours of run-time, yet many location shoots can run up to 12-13 hours. Make sure you have enough battery power available to cover you (obviously anywhere you shoot where there is mains power isn&#8217;t an issue).
Sound Card Quality
As mentioned in the introduction to this answer, sound card quality in your laptop is an important consideration. Do not record your sound on an old or entry-level machine. Select a laptop which has a quality sound card inside. Otherwise you&#8217;ll be much better off recording sound to your camera, than you will be recording sound on a laptop with a sub-standard sound card.
Recording Software
In addition to the hardware, you&#8217;ll also need a half-decent sound recording application which gives you enough control to do the job, but isn&#8217;t so complicated that it adds to the difficulty of making the recording (particularly when you a jammed into a tiny corner of the set to avoid being in shot).
Microphone Interface
Virtually no off-the-shelf laptops come with proper mic inputs. Most simply have a 1/8th inch jacks for line-in, mic-in and so on, but most decent mics will use standard XLR inputs. A load of manufactures produce Firewire and USB-powered external mic interfaces, so do your research and decide what best suits your needs and available equipment.
Editing Time
A final consideration is of course the additional editing time. When you record your sound in camera, you obviously don’t have to worry about syncing it all up in post-production. When you record sound on a separate device (such as a laptop), there will be a significant amount of time required to go through and sync your audio to your images before you can start editing. In some cases, particularly if your production is under time-pressure, it may be simpler to just record the audio in-camera and save the editing time.

Question 5

Can I record sync sound on Mini-Disc?

Accepted Answer

MiniDisc is an excellent low-cost high-quality format on which to record your sound. Aside from it&#8217;s obvious advantages of being a compact, editable digital format, MiniDisc has a remarkably constant speed which should prevent many sync problems experienced with other tape-based audio recording formats.  
However, while MiniDisc might generally maintain a constant speed, the same can&#8217;t be said for your camera equipment. If you are planning on using MiniDisc as your sound recording format, make sure you have some kind of device to keep your camera running at a constant speed (i.e. crystal motor, pilot tone generator etc) otherwise you will lose sync. To get the low down on the best MiniDisc models, visit the Sony or Panasonic websites.

Question 6

Can treatments be sold to film studios or production companies to adapt them into screenplays?

Accepted Answer

The short anwser is yes, but you better be an &#8220;A&#8221; list screenwriter or director. It is not unheard of for a director or screenwriter to come to a studio, pitch the idea, and then sell it to that studio, but it is rare. This usually come with a little compensation. For instance, lets say you have this great idea, but dont have any time to work on the script because of your nine to five job. With this method, instead of buying your script, they usually pay you a small fee, so you can quit that day job and work on your script twenty-four seven and get its on its feet. Then when you have it completed, you get your set amount that you have negotiated. It&#8217;s as easy as that&#8230;if you&#8217;re Spielberg.

Question 7

Do I need a light meter and which one should I buy?

Accepted Answer

Understanding and controlling exposure on your camera is one of the most important factors in enhancing the production values of your film.  Although most modern cameras, particularly video cameras, come with automatic exposure functions, most filmmakers find it extremely useful to have a light meter on set.  And if you&#8217;re shooting on film, a decent light meter is essential.
The components which are used to build today&#8217;s light meters are fairly expensive, and this is reflected in their price.  The good news however is that for most independent filmmakers, it isn&#8217;t necessary to fork out for the latest piece of kit.  Basic light meter technology hasn&#8217;t changed in many decades, so as long as you don&#8217;t need flashy additional features, you can get just as good an exposure using an older model.  And as many of these meters don&#8217;t have electronic components, they don&#8217;t need batteries either.
Hidden in many DPs&#8217; kit bags is a trusty Weston 5 and even older meters, such as the Russian Leningrad IV, are still just as useful today.  More modern meters such as those made by Seconic (particularly L508) and Minolta (Spotmeter F Spot) can still be picked up for a reasonable price, particularly second hand.  If you&#8217;re considering buying a newer light meter, there is an interesting thread on cinematography.com about this very issue.
A useful trick is also to have a decent SLR stills camera handy on set at all times.  Apart from taking stills for your film, you can also use it to check your light readings with its built-in spot meter.  This is particularly useful if you can&#8217;t get close to the subject, but you can also use it to check the calibration of your standard exposure meter as well.
Of course, having a light meter with you is only part of the equation &#8211; you also need to become well-versed in its use.  Any decent book on cinematography should give you the grounding you need, and from there it&#8217;s all about experimentation and experience.

Question 8

Do I need permission to use my actor&#8217;s image in my own films?

Accepted Answer

The short answer is yes. You must get each person who is identifiable in your film to sign a release allowing you to use their image in the film and associated activities (such as marketing materials for the film). This applies equally to narrative films and documentaries. Regardless of how you are planning to use the film or whether you intend to charge people to see it or not, you must be able to prove that you hold all of the underlying rights, including script, music, and the right to use your actors&#8217; images.
If you&#8217;ve gone ahead a shot your film without getting your actors to sign releases, you should try and get them signed retrospectively as soon as possible. This is probably not going to be a problem if the actors are your friends, but if your relationship with them deteriorated on set you might find it harder to secure agreement after the event (hence the reason why it&#8217;s essential to get them signed ahead of time). It&#8217;s certainly far to risky to use an actor&#8217;s image without their consent, particularly if you film ends up earning any money.
The upshot is, always always always get your releases signed in advance!

Question 9

Do I need to get my film rated before I can show it to an audience?

Accepted Answer

Whether you need to get your film rated before you can screen it depends entirely on which country you are planning to conduct your screening in. The approach to regulating film screenings (and video/DVD distribution) varies dramatically across the world. 
In the USA, the movie rating system is administered by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and is voluntary. Because all of the Studios and major production companies are members of the organisation most will tow the line and respect the MPAA&#8217;s ratings decisions. 
When a film moves into the video/DVD market, it will normally retain its theatrical rating, however the MPAA does not force distributors to do this, hence the fact you will occasionally see a film listed as being &#8220;unrated&#8221;. You may run into problems with local governments if your film has content which might be controversial and it hasn&#8217;t been rated by the MPAA, but as far as we&#8217;re aware, there isn&#8217;t a legal requirement to have it rated. 
If you live in another country, the rules can be completely different. This is often because film ratings are administered by the government, rather than through an industry self-regulation model like in the US. For example, in the UK film ratings are managed by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). All films which are shown in cinemas must have a BBFC certificate if you intend to charge people to view them. The only exception to this is where you have received permission from the local council to screen the film in your borough. Interestingly, local councils have the power to change a BBFC rating or ignore it altogether, although instances of this happening are extremely rare. 
In the case of video/DVD releases in the UK, under the Video Recordings Act, virtually all films must have received a video certificate before they can be sold in the UK (including being sold over the Internet from a UK-based store). There are a few types of film which are exempt from this rule, such as some music, documentaries, and educational works, but you will need to get proper advice in order to determine whether your film falls into an exempt category (most will not). Trading Standards imposes stiff penalties on distributors and retailers who sell unrated films on video/DVD. 
In Australia, ratings are administered at a federal government level by the Office of Film &#038; Literature Classification (OFLC). Under the Commonwealth Classification Act, all films which are sold or publicly exhibited in Australia must have a certificate from the OFLC. There is however an exemption for films which are shown solely in a festival environment. In this case, an unrated film can be shown provided that the festival is restricted to people 18 years or older. Although the OFLC is responsible for assigning classifications, the federal and state attorney generals can overrule the OFLC&#8217;s decision and ban a film from being shown in their state (or refuse classification in the case of the federal attorney general). A very famous case of this happening occurred at the 2003 Sydney Film Festival where the federal attorney general stepped in to ban the festival&#8217;s screening of Larry Clarke&#8217;s Ken Park. 
In Canada, theatrical movie ratings are a provincial and territorial responsibility. There are a total of seven provincial film classification boards or offices, many of which use different rating systems and descriptors.
Negotiations have begun to create a standard film classification system for Canada (with the exception of Quebec). 
British Columbia classifies films for Saskatchewan and the Yukon. Alberta classifies films for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Nova Scotia classifies films for the Maritimes system which includes New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Newfoundland and Labrador does not follow a film classification system (although many cinemas and video stores follow the classifications laid down in Nova Scotia). 
In other countries, the rules can vary dramatically so it&#8217;s always best to contact the local ratings authority before screening your film.

Question 10

Do I need to get the rights to music used in my film if I&#8217;m not charging people to view it?

Accepted Answer

The short answer is yes. Copyright law prevents distribution and public performance of protected works, regardless of whether money changes hands or not. It&#8217;s the public performance aspect, not the money which causes problems with copyright.
If you do not hold the necessary rights for music (or any other copyright material) used in your film, then you cannot show it to anyone in a public environment. This includes standard types of exhibition (theatrical, television etc), and also includes public performance such as showing your film in festivals, schools, pubs, prisons, the town square, on airplanes, and of course on the Internet (e.g. YouTube, social media etc).
And you should note that there is virtually no &#8216;fair use&#8217; defense for using copyrighted music in your film without permission. The concept of fair use does exist in copyright, but varies from country to country, and does not relate to things like how much of a particular song you use, or whether you charge for the resulting work or not. And remember, in most cases it is on you to prove your usage of copyright material constitutes fair use, not the other way around (meaning you will need to engage lawyers to defend any claim made against you by a copyright holder).
More information on music copyright can be found in the Legal Issues section of the Internet Filmmaker&#8217;s FAQ.

Question 11

Do Studios finance their own films?

Accepted Answer

In years past, almost always it was the studios themselves putting up the money. Often, it still is. In many cases, the money is borrowed from a huge revolving line of credit set up with a bank that has a long-term relationship with the studio. In others, the studio simply ploughs the money made from films in release into films in production, just like any other business would finance future production from current sales. 
It&#8217;s becoming more common for large films to be financed in large part by pre-selling rights for foreign territories. For example, someone might pay $3 million up front for the German distribution rights to the next Brad Pitt movie. Enough up-front payments can equal the budget for the film, thus cutting the risk heavily. On the other hand, with foreign box office receipts becoming increasingly important in the overall gross, it also limits how much money you can make. Most of Carolco&#8217;s really big hits did not bring the company as much money as one might expect, because they&#8217;d pre-sold foreign rights. 
In some cases, production companies have private financing deals with banks or other large investors. They pay for all or a large part of the film, then sell the US distribution rights to a major studio. This is called a negative pickup, because generally the studio has nothing to do with the film until a complete cut of the film is available.
It&#8217;s rather uncommon for individual investors, even the really high-rolling ones, to have the opportunity to invest in a major film. All this changes when you&#8217;re talking about smaller films, in particular direct-to-video films. Depending on the economic climate, prevailing tax laws, etc., these films are financed in a wide variety of ways &#8211; including getting a bunch of doctors and dentists together in a room to pitch your film in the hopes of getting a couple of hundred thousand out of them. Getting a lot of credit cards and maxing them out, whining to your parents, and cashing in disability pensions are other techniques that have worked in the past. If you poke around, you can doubtless find a way to spend $10,000 helping someone make an independent film he&#8217;ll swear will be the next &#8220;Reservoir Dogs,&#8221; but it almost never will be. Bankrolling independent films is not the high road to financial success. 
There are a few interesting exceptions. Disney has made a practice of selling shares in blocks of its (at the time unmade) films through various partnership agreements. The catch is they never sell shares in their animated films. For that matter, when you buy in you have no notion which films will be made under the partnership. They&#8217;ve done this five or six times, and I believe none of them performed as well as simply buying Disney stock, though they also didn&#8217;t lose money (which is pretty unusual in the world of film finance). 
Actor Paul Hogan, made an unusual arrangement to finance Lightning Jack, a Western he made a few years back. He essentially sold shares of the film on the Australian Stock Exchange. Strictly speaking, he sold shares in a company whose only costs and assets were the film. The film got made, but bombed. 
The producer rarely invests their own money. In the case of studio productions, the producer uses studio money. In the case of production companies, the producer works to get others to invest, basically serving as a broker, although there are now loads of companies in &#8216;film capitals&#8217; such as Los Angeles, New York, London, and Hong Kong who specialise in raising finance for films.

Question 12

Do you need to form a company to make a film?

Accepted Answer

Technically there is no need to form or use a company to make a film, but in most cases it is a good idea to do so.
For short films, it is less important, but producing the film through a company can bring benefits in areas such as reclaiming tax (e.g. VAT or GST) and limited liability if things go wrong. It&#8217;s worth bearing in mind that in some countries you can just register your business name and start trading. This type of business is known as a &#8216;sole trader&#8217; in many jurisdictions. Although usually cheap to register, sole trader type business do not offer any liability protection to their owners, as in effect the owner and business&#8217; finances are one in the same. As such, sole trader businesses are not recommended for films. A business type which provides limited liability to its owners is far more suitable.
When it comes feature films, having a properly incorporated company with limited liability is essential. Typically a new company is incorporated specifically as a &#8216;vehicle&#8217; to produce the film (i.e. it does not have any other activities besides producing the one film). These companies are often called &#8216;special purpose vehicles&#8217; or SPVs. Besides the same tax and liability benefits mentioned earlier, the main advantage of this approach is that all of the finances are ring-fenced within the company, which makes it simpler to manage and more transparent to the various parties which will be involved. It also means that if things go wrong, because the company is legally separated from its owners (and other production partners), any claims against the production can only be made against that company.
Later down the track, the production vehicle can also be used to manage the distribution of the producer&#8217;s net revenues to the various participants in a fair and transparent way, since the company is subject to normal accounting rules.
So the upshot is for feature films, you should always incorporate a limited liability company to produce the project. The downside is you will incur once-off registration fees, and the costs of preparing and submitting the annual accounts to respective authorities in your jurisdiction, but this is ultimately a small price to pay for the benefits gained.

Question 13

Does it matter where I live if I want to be a filmmaker?

Accepted Answer

On the surface the answer to this question would seem to be that where you choose to base yourself isn&#8217;t important.  With a telephone and an Internet connection you are never that far away from anyone these days.  But as always, the reality is more complex and probably can be summed up with that age-old, but somewhat unhelpful answer:  it depends.
Inevitably, choosing to live in a location which has an active film industry will bring with it benefits and opportunities which just aren&#8217;t available if you live somewhere which doesn&#8217;t.  Industry hubs bring with it things like access to crews, more equipment and facilities companies. A deeper pool of actors to choose from, and networking opportunities, to name a few.  While it&#8217;s not impossible to live in a place that doesn&#8217;t have these things, it can make things quite a bit harder.
That said, lot of where you choose to live will depend on which bit of the film industry you want to work in.  If you&#8217;re a technician or someone else who relies on a contact network to find work, then you will almost certainly need to base yourself in an industry hub when you&#8217;re starting out.  However if you&#8217;re a &#8216;project instigator&#8217; (i.e. a producer or writer) then living in a hub can be less important so long as you are reasonably near to one.  The reason is that the time you spend on shoots is a small fraction of the time you spend on a project as a whole.  Writing can of course be done anywhere, and if you&#8217;re producing, a large amount of your work outside of principal photography is done over the phone or via email so physical location is less important.  It&#8217;s likely that you&#8217;ll need to attend meetings from time to time, but if you manage you diary well and do have access to an industry hub, then these can be done on visits &#8211; you don&#8217;t actually need to live there.
Obviously once you&#8217;re established and have a name for yourself it may be possible to live away from a hub because work will come via your contact network or people will seek you out.  But as a new filmmaker you&#8217;ll find it that much harder if you are too physically detached from the industry. 
But before you begin packing your bags for Hollywood, remember that there are quite a few film industry hubs in other cities and locations across the globe.  Where you base yourself has a much to do with the type of films you want to make as it does with the hub itself.  And bear in mind that these days fewer and fewer films are actually shot in LA.  The high-costs of shooting in California, combined with the strength of the local unions, plus a plethora of tax incentives offered around the world means that even the Studios largely make their films elsewhere.  Other big hubs include New York, Vancouver, and London, but there is also plenty going on in placed like Sydney, Auckland, Paris, Berlin, and of course Mumbai.  Indeed, it can often be easier to get a foothold in the industry in a hub other than LA. 
For you personally, the question might ultimately be answered by things such as your ability to support yourself in a given location, your lifestyle expectations, immigration status, and how dedicated you are to forging a career in the industry.

Question 14

How can I clean up grainy digital footage shot in low-light conditions?

Accepted Answer

Short answer: you cant&#8217;t.
Long answer: with a lot of work in a program like Motion or After Effects and some complex masks and filters like gaussian blur and unsharp mask, you might be able to SLIGHTLY improve your image quality. Generally, however, it&#8217;s not worth the effort and you should either reshoot the footage or settle for what you got.

Question 15

How can I get a big budget look to my lighting without spending a fortune?

Accepted Answer

This question appears in filmmaking forums with reasonable frequency, and there have been a few good general answers from anonymous posters on rec.arts.movies.production.
One DOP says, &#8220;Light effects are a relation between the light source and the film. For example, a nice orange effect can be created by using tungsten light with daylight balanced film. Or a blue effect by using HMI lights with tungsten balanced film. Green effects are most often achieved by using non-balanced fluorescent lights (meaning fluorescent lights not intended for film/TV production). Or if you are using tungsten lights with tungsten balanced film, use a blue Gel on the light to make it blue. Same with HMI/ daylight (orange gel to make it orange) or green gel on some lights to make it green.&#8221; Another continues, &#8220;A high speed film(look into Kodak&#8217;s vision series), lots of tungsten and maybe at least on 1200 PAR HMI for those tough spots you&#8217;re bound to get yourself into. That being said it all depends on the look you&#8217;re going for. Vision stock probably won&#8217;t give you the contrasts and sharpness you&#8217;d find in a 50 or 100 ASA motion picture stock. And HMI gives you the power to play with a wider scene unless you have a large number of small fixtures.&#8221;
Another user adds, &#8220;A lighting man I know of said that it is possible to buy &#8220;work lamps&#8221; from local DIY stores etc. These have bulbs of 500 watts so if you want lots of lights in your shot, this is a cheap way of doing that. They cost about $20 each.
Another tip is look at a similar scene to the one you are working on in another film, and simply match their lighting using cheaper sources of light. Go in closer. Don&#8217;t have huge sets that need lots of light. Learn from the film noir techniques of old and learn to utilize your creative, artistic imagination! That doesn&#8217;t cost anything at all!&#8221;
Tomas Lewis has written a great tutorial on the essentials of lighting for DV, which can be found at the Media Ed web site.

Question 16

How can I get a job in the film industry?

Accepted Answer

There are no hard and fast rules about breaking into the film industry. It&#8217;s extremely hard and very competitive. Many many many people dream of working in the movies, but fall by the wayside in their attempts because it&#8217;s impossible to break in. The film industry lives off the concept of &#8220;who you know&#8221; and quite frankly, that is the only way you&#8217;re really going to get anywhere. If you don&#8217;t know anyone in the industry, go out and meet them. Spielberg spent day after day down on the Universal lot, bugging them until they gave him a job. One of the beautiful things about the film industry is that once you&#8217;re inside, it&#8217;s lot easier to meet the people that can make your dream happen.
Also, don&#8217;t aim for the top straight away. So you want to work for ILM in special effects (reality check time) you and about a billion other people. The thing that is over-looked these days is that there are a multitude of other companies that do the same work as ILM, which just don&#8217;t have the profile. Try them first, particularly the small, budding ones, as they are probably more likely to give you a job. And once you&#8217;re in the field that you want, it&#8217;s up to you to prove that you&#8217;ve got so much talent that ILM will come running to YOU.
Going to film school is another great way to learn the basics of the trade (and find out whether you have the armoured skin and stick-with-it-ness to make it in this, at times, demoralising occupation). However, don&#8217;t expect to get a job straight out of college like your buddy who did law. Most film school graduates end up being very overqualified (on paper) for their entry level jobs as PAs, coffee makers, assistants to assistants etc. One of the biggest problems facing many film school grads is that they often have little or no experience in using current industry standard equipment. This is due to the fact that all but the most prestigious film schools are poor faculties which cannot afford to keep up with the rapidly changing technology of the industry (in my course few years ago we used cameras and editing equipment that was almost 30 years old &#8211; they still get the job done but they area far cry from the precision machines that today&#8217;s industry is using).
There is not many ways of getting around this problem, so expect to encounter new and fascinating equipment when you get your first job. Nevertheless, film school can be a valuable and worthwhile experience for giving you a grounding in the industry, as well as the ability to think about what you are putting on screen.
Finally, if all else fails just get out there and do it. Robert Rodriguez got his break from scraping together a couple of grand, borrowing a camera, some actors and a few other things and just doing it. It doesn&#8217;t really what camera you use when you&#8217;re starting out &#8211; it&#8217;s more about what you&#8217;re learning through doing it. Use your smart phone, or pick up a cheap second-hand DSLR or camcorder on eBay. It may not allow you to make the next $200 million blockbuster, but it will enable you to get something done.
Regardless of what happens, your first film will probably turn out crap. And it is more than likely that the next couple will also look forward to being buried deep in the cupboard. None-the-less, when you are starting out it is better to have two or three shit films behind you, than nothing at all. And you will have learnt a hell of a lot at the same time.
If you are serious about working in the US film industry, you should read Breaking into Film, by Kenna McHugh. This excellent book provides a wealth of information on planning and executing your film career. Although it is very Hollywood-specific, the basic principles are extremely sound and can be related to any film industry around the world. You can buy this book now from filmmaking.net store.
If you are in the UK, you must visit Skillset. A joint training venture between many top British industry players (including the BBC, Channel 4 and PACT), Skillset provides both (free) guidance and training for people wishing to persue careers in film, broadcast and multimedia. Information here will probably be of greatest benefit to UK wanna-bes, but the underlying principles should relate to any country.
Also in the UK, PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television) provide some limited career information at their website. For those interested in both traditional and new media careers, you should visit
the incredibly useful Skills Net site, which not only offers industry overviews, job descriptions, and a training guide, but also offers some suggested routes for pursuing that job of your dreams!
If you already have some skills, then you might find the following sites useful to start finding work:
ShowBizJobs.com
EntertainmentJobs.com
Mandy.com
4entertainmentjobs.com
1takemedia.com (India)

Question 17

How can I make my own &#8220;SteadiCam&#8221;?

Accepted Answer

To make your own steadycam is quite easy and can be quite cheap. The following websites have comprehensive guides to making your own steadycam.
Check out the the following websites:
https://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/steady/steady.htmlhttp://www.videouniversity.com/xlstablz.htm

Question 18

How do I check whether my movie name is available?

Accepted Answer

It isn&#8217;t possible to copyright a movie name, so from a legal perspective there is no need to check whether it&#8217;s available or not. In most instances you can call your movie whatever you want, regardless of how many other movies have the same title. 
The only area where this might be murky is in the instance where your title is or contains a registered trademark. If you suspect this is the case, then you will either need to find another title, or consult a lawyer to get a better understanding of your position (just because it is a registered trademark doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean you can&#8217;t use it, but you should get professional advice to be sure).
In saying all of this, it may still be worth checking which other movies have the same or similar titles to your own, particularly those which have been made recently.  If your film is about to enter distribution the last thing you want is for another film with the same title to also be out in the marketplace causing confusion in minds of the audience.
Probably the easiest and best place to check is the Internet Movie Database.

Question 19

How do I convert feet to running time when shooting on film?

Accepted Answer

Working out the running time for your film is as simple as follows:
&#8211; 16mm shot at 24fps will be 36ft per minute
&#8211; 35mm shot at 24fps will be 90ft per minute
Remember that changing the camera speed (i.e. increasing/decreasing the frame rate) will affect these ratios!

Question 20

How do I copyright my script?

Accepted Answer

Under an international copywriter treaty known as the Berne Convention for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1889 (as revised), your script is automatically copyrighted as soon as you write it and signatory countries to are obligated by law to protect this copyright. To indicate copyright ownership of a work, you should place the copyright symbol (©) and year of claim along with your name on the front of the script. For example:
© 2003, John Smith.
In the instance where you feel your copyright has been infringed by someone else, the problem isn&#8217;t so much about whether your work is copyright or not, rather it’s about proving that you created the work (and therefore owned the copyright in it) prior to a certain date. So how do you prove you owned copyright prior to a certain date?
In the past it has been quite common for less-learned people (and sometimes companies) to recommend that you mail yourself a copy of your script as a way to protect your copyright. The idea goes that when you receive your script back you don&#8217;t open it, and then you are able to use the postmarked date as proof that the work existed prior to a certain date. Unfortunately this is a fallacy, as it&#8217;s extremely unlikely such an argument will stack up in court. Why? Because it&#8217;s extremely simple to fake and anyone who works in the legal side of copyright knows this. Faking it is as simple as sending yourself and empty, unsealed envelope, then once it comes back, popping your script inside and sealing it. The post office doesn’t care that the envelope&#8217;s empty or even that it is unsealed &#8211; they will deliver regardless. So you could easily have sent yourself an empty envelope a couple of years ago, rip-off someone’s script, then pop your new script inside the postmarked envelope and voila! You have a sealed, postmarked envelope containing your script. Don’t use this method.
At a basic level, the best way to protect your script is to be very careful who you show it to. Legitimate producers and/or agents will expect to sign a relevant release form to protect them from any suggestion of infringement, and most will not even look at your script without it. Make sure you keep records of everyone you&#8217;ve showed the script to and copies of release forms they’ve signed. Be very wary of anyone who suggests release forms are unnecessary.
If you are really paranoid, you should consider registering your script with the Writer’s Guild of America (or the local alternative in your own country). The WGA offer a script registration service which creates a legal date of authorship for you. There is a nominal fee for this service, but complete peace of mind. Visit the WGA web site for more information and online registration. 
Finally, remember that whilst you can copyright a script, you cannot copyright an idea. Be extremely careful who you tell your ideas to, because until they are written down in a tangible form (i.e. in a script or treatment) it is open season for all who hear. More information on the concepts in copyright can be found at the US Copyright Office or the UK Patent Office web sites. You can also read the amended text of the Berne Convention on Cornell University&#8217;s web site.
You might also want to check out the service from the Worldwide Creators Online Registry, an organisation which offers registration service for creative works in order to act as a kind of &#8220;witness&#8221; to the date of creation.

Question 21

How do I film a scene of someone being shot, and showing blood?

Accepted Answer

The way you show someone being shot in your film is greatly dependent on the style of the film.
Old film noir films for example, often showed a gun going off in one shot, smoke rising, and the victim falling to the ground in the next. Or even their shadow!
If you want something that leaves less to the imagination, you could try several techniques.
The first is to position the victim with their back to the camera, have the shooter fire the gun facing camera, and have the victim turn round in pain, clutching their belly, bloody pouring out &#8211; blood which you gave the actor to hold carefully just before you shouted &#8220;action&#8221; [condoms full of fake blood are good here &#8211; Ed].
A more gory way of using this technique is to do exactly the same, but have an &#8220;exit wound&#8221; appear on the back of the victim&#8217;s shirt, so it looks like the bullet has passed straight through him. This requires a squib or similar technique to create a hole and a lot of fake blood stored in a baggie, and a great sense of timing, so be careful, and read the notes about using squibs elsewhere in this site.
If you really want to go for it, you can reverse the shot and have the victim getting hit square in the chest right before your eyes. Again, a squib or a baggie full of fake blood and some great timing are in order, plus a good reaction from the victim.
Maybe you could have two men struggling with a gun and it goes off mid-struggle&#8230; but you can&#8217;t see the wound, or even the gun, until they separate, effecting concealing the actual incident but suggesting it to the audience through sound, reaction and angle.
The more gory you want the shooting to be, the harder it will prove to shoot! You can have armour exploding as a soldier is hit in the chest, which will take a lot of setting up, but even more so if the victim is naked and you want to see the bullet going into the torso, with latex skin and guts everywhere!
And another thing you need to think about is; was that necessary? Is your film a gruesome horror or a Merchant-Ivory film? Are you trying to shock, sadden or entertain your audience?
For a comparison of two ways in which one director showed two different characters getting shot, check out the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Julian Glove shoots Sean Connery; it employs some of the above techniques to shockingly realistic effect! We needed to see Indy&#8217;s dad get suddenly and very realistically shot to heighten the shock of the moment, and by God it works. Contrast this with the way Wu Han is shot at the beginning of The Temple of Doom; very stylistic and he barely notices amongst all the noise and popping of corks! Just a quizzical look as he sees a little patch of blood appear on his shirt. Not too realistic, but right for that moment.
So think hard about how the style of the film should dictate the way the shooting happens, and come up with a budgetable shooting scene.
One film my company did involved a girl getting slashed across the face with a knife. We showed the back of the victim, the assailant raising the knife up, the girl throwing her head back, and the next shot was from above, of the girl&#8217;s bloody face after we&#8217;d put a latex scar and some blood on her face. Got a good audience reaction, and looked very dramatic!

Question 22

How do I find good actors for my film?

Accepted Answer

The answer to this question really depends on a few things: firstly, what sort of production your film will be; secondly, what age the actors you need should be; and most importantly, whether you are paying.
Unsurprisingly, the last point is normally the one which will have the most impact on your ability to get good actors for your production. If you can afford to pay, even just at union minimum levels, you&#8217;ll find that your options will be quite extensive. Start by putting together a brief for each character, including their playing age (normally a five year range, e.g. 25-30), gender, rough physical description, ethnicity (if relevant to the story). It&#8217;s also a good idea to include a 1-2 sentence dramatic description of who the character is, as this helps actors get a feel for whether the role might be something they would be interested in. Once you have your brief, get in touch with casting agencies in your local area and start the search.
If you don&#8217;t have enough money to pay the actors, all is not lost. Inevitably this will significantly narrow your options, but many actors may be willing to do you a favour if they like the script or are looking to boost their showreel. It&#8217;s likely you&#8217;ll have more success with younger actors, particularly those in, or just out of drama school. That said, it is well and truly possible to get older actors for nothing if you have a good script. Indeed, even big stars like Ian McKellen and John Hurt have been known to do shorts for free if they like the script (and are available at the time).
Regardless of whether you are paying your actors or not, the most important thing is to be honest about what the deal is when talking with potential cast members. This includes providing key information on things like: how much time they will be required for, shooting dates and locations, transportation arrangements between their house and the set, any special requirements for the shoot (e.g. action sequences, working at heights etc). You should also offer to pay all of the actors&#8217; out of pocket expenses &#8212; important always, but essential if your actors are working for free. It&#8217;s also worth talking with them about the likely outlets for your film.
In terms of finding actors, you should try and cast your net as wide as possible to ensure you have the largest number of options to choose from. Areas such search include:
local and regional casting agencieslocal drama schoolslocal amateur theatre groupsThere are also a growing number of free (or very cheap) services on the web which help filmmakers locate actors. These include:
Star Now (UK) Mandy.com (UK)Constant Casting (UK) Shooting People (UK/US) Talent Circle (UK) Spotlight (UK)Fame 4 Anyone (UK/Worldwide)Feel free to suggest more services, particularly those in other countries.

Question 23

How do I find standard rates of pay for&#8230;?

Accepted Answer

This is one of the most common questions asked by new and independent producers, and unfortunately the simple answer is: nowhere. More than most other industries, rates of pay for those in the business of show vary dramatically, depending mainly on the skills involved and ultimately how much someone is prepared to pay for them.
In highly unionised markets (e.g. Hollywood) or sectors (e.g. actors), minimum rates of pay are set by the various unions that cover different skill sets used in filmmaking. However these are the minimum and many people will charge fees considerably higher than what the union says is acceptable. For example, under the US Screen Actors Guild (SAG) low-budget agreement principle performers on your project should be paid a minimum of $2,142 per week. Now you are unlikely to get Tom Cruise for this sort of money. The same goes for technicians and other performers.
Now producers are even harder. You may see from time to time that a producer usually takes 10-15% of the project budget as their fee and I guess there are some producers out there that do. The reality for most independent producers is that you’re the person doing most of the paying, but being the last person to be paid (if you&#8217;re lucky).
Your best bet about finding out about standard rates of pay is to discuss them with the individuals involved in your project. You may find that your DP usually charges himself out at a day rate far higher than you can afford, but he may be willing to work for less for the opportunity to work on a feature (but don&#8217;t always count on it).
You can also contact the various unions in your city to obtain information on the minimum award for their members, although be aware than many unions (e.g. SAG, DGA) prevent their members working on projects which do not pay at the minimum level, even if the member in question is prepared to do it.

Question 24

How do I find standard rates of pay for&#8230;?

Accepted Answer

This is one of the most common questions asked by new and independent producers, and unfortunately the simple answer is: nowhere. More than most other industries, rates of pay for those in the business of show vary dramatically, depending mainly on the skills involved and ultimately how much someone is prepared to pay for them.
In highly unionised markets (e.g. Hollywood) or sectors (e.g. actors), minimum rates of pay are set by the various unions that cover different skill sets used in filmmaking. However these are the minimum and many people will charge fees considerably higher than what the union says is acceptable. For example, under the US Screen Actors Guild (SAG) low-budget agreement principle performers on your project should be paid a minimum of $2,142 per week. Now you are unlikely to get Tom Cruise for this sort of money. The same goes for technicians and other performers.
Now producers are even harder. You may see from time to time that a producer usually takes 10-15% of the project budget as their fee and I guess there are some producers out there that do. The reality for most independent producers is that you’re the person doing most of the paying, but being the last person to be paid (if you&#8217;re lucky).
Your best bet about finding out about standard rates of pay is to discuss them with the individuals involved in your project. You may find that your DP usually charges himself out at a day rate far higher than you can afford, but he may be willing to work for less for the opportunity to work on a feature (but don&#8217;t always count on it).
You can also contact the various unions in your city to obtain information on the minimum award for their members, although be aware than many unions (e.g. SAG, DGA) prevent their members working on projects which do not pay at the minimum level, even if the member in question is prepared to do it.

Question 25

How do I get a job in special effects?

Accepted Answer

This response is bent towards live-action as opposed to computer graphics, as that is my background, hope it helps. Since I do not reside in California I can&#8217;t really give you any practical advice about work in California, however, I can tell you that the best way to jump-start a career in SFX is to work for a company doing FX. However, they probably won&#8217;t just hire you unless you come highly recommended or have useful skills such as sculpting or fabricating or electronics.
So what do you do? You work for free as a Production Assistant (or gopher). You get a copy of a local company directory for your city (or the city in which you wish to work) and get the contact details for all of the FX companies. You then contact them and tell them that you&#8217;re looking to break into FX. Don&#8217;t say that you want a job, just that you want to work in the industry. You&#8217;ll work for free, do work experience, whatever they want. You&#8217;ll get plenty of rejections, but it&#8217;s harder for a company no to a person who will work for nothing. This is the fastest way I know of to break into any field.
However, be aware that egos drive a lot of people in the business. Many people are very protective of their techniques and methods, so they may think you are a &#8220;spy&#8221; or something, you may run into that type of mentality. Big Tip: Do not pretend you know everything, play dumb and soak up as much info as you can. An FX company doesn&#8217;t want a person who always thinks they have a better idea or knows a different way of doing something (your idea may actually be better, but you really are not in a position politically to offer it). They want an empty page to work for them that they can train or mould to do things &#8220;their&#8221; way.
After a while they may decide to pay you something or maybe not, but in the meantime, you have established a &#8220;presence&#8221; in the &#8220;biz&#8221;. You will meet other people in the biz and they will think you already work at so and so&#8217;s FX company.
The rest is up to you. Once you are in as a Production Assistant, you can look around at various fields within the FX business and see if you have a place there.
Digital Domain has a FAQ which includes a section for people interested in working in the FX industry which can be viewed at their website. You can also visit the VFX Pro and check out the alt.movies.visual-effects FAQ for additional pointers.

Question 26

How do I get my hands on fake guns?

Accepted Answer

There are many options available, but the cheapest and easiest option at your disposal is toy guns. There are plenty of toy guns available to kids these days, which with a quick make-over, can be turned into mean-looking movie weapons at very little cost.
Water pistols are always a good bet. Don’t be put off by the fact that they come in fluorescent colours either &#8211; nothing that a can of matt black spray paint can’t fix. Water pistols sprayed matt black turn into surprisingly realistic-looking guns (great for most scenes other than close-ups). To help your actors with realism, fill the water pistols will sand to give them a little weight.
Your other options are of course things like cap-guns, starter pistols, and replicas (if you can get your hands on them). Remember the matt black spray paint if they need added realism.
There are a few stores online which sell useful items. Swords N Stuff sells what its name suggests. Tuscany Trading has a bunch of replica guns and swords, 411 Toys also stocks plastic guns, and The Costume Page has a great list of places to get accessories. For those in the UK, try Firesupport.
One good ideal for guns for movies are Airsoft guns. For those of you who don&#8217;t know, Airsoft guns are 1:1 replicas of real firearms, only they shoot 6mm plastic BBs. Most even use realistic action motions, so when you shoot your Beretta the slide moves back and returns for the next shot just like a real one. Try Shorty USA, or in the UK, Airsoft Dynamics or BB Guns.
As a final thought, remember that the safety of your cast and crew is paramount at all times! Even cap guns and blanks can cause injury and even death, and in many countries if someone dies on your set, the director can even be charged with man slaughter! More information on safe use of firearms on set can be found at the web site of Australian armourer John Fox.

Question 27

How do I get the rights to adapt a book into a screenplay?

Accepted Answer

So you&#8217;ve read a book/play/article/something that you reckon will make an unreal movie. You&#8217;re a script writer of sorts so you think, &#8220;yep. I&#8217;m gonna write this sucker.&#8221; Where do you go from there? 
The most important first step you should take is finding out whether the motion picture and associated rights are available for the work you wish to adapt. FIND THIS OUT BEFORE YOU START WRITING as you may just be wasting your time if you go ahead and write a killer screenplay, only to find that Spielberg&#8217;s company just optioned the material for half a million dollars. There are thousands of other reasons that may prevent you from getting the rights to a work so you must always check first if you are serious about the project. 
Finding out if the rights are available can either be a piece of cake or a monstrous task of seeming impossibility. The easiest way for published works is to get in contact with the author (assuming they&#8217;re still alive). This can be done through a number of ways. 
1) writing to the author&#8217;s fan club address;
2) sending a letter to the author care of the publisher of the book;
3) finding out who the author&#8217;s agent is (many reference books exist with this information) and asking them. Regardless of the method, it is best to try and deal with the author directly if at all possible as you are likely to get a better deal (agents after all take 15% of the income made off the work so they will push for as high a fee as possible to get maximum profit);
4) doing a copyright search.
Once you&#8217;re in contact with the holder of the screen rights (this may not be the author but they should be able to put you onto the right parties), you must request to get an option on the rights. An option gives you the exclusive right to adapt and seek to produce a motion picture based on the previously published work, for a limited amount of time (usually 1 year). Basically, with an option you can get your script written, and look for production finance, or try and sell it, without having to worry about someone else taking it (or more importantly, you being sued for copyright violations). 
At the time an option is granted, an agreement will be entered into between the various parties regarding the ultimate purchase of the screen and associated rights once certain conditions have been met (i.e. production finance has been secured etc). The option will usually cost around 10% of the total purchase price for the rights, and should include the first right to renewal for an additional term (for a further fee of course). Make sure it is made clear in the agreement whether the option is part of, or additional to, the purchase price. An option should really be like a deposit &#8211; you lose it if you pull out, but it becomes a down payment when you go ahead. 
Options and rights on published works can be expensive. Try to consider this before you are blown out of the water by a $500,000 option price on John Grisham&#8217;s next novel. The profile of the author and the work will be a large factor in determining how expensive the option/rights will be. If you are a small time operator or just starting out, don&#8217;t try and adapt the world&#8217;s best-selling novel unless you have a golden tongue (or wealthy relatives). 
Once you have secured your option, you can then go ahead and write your killer script. If the option expires before you find a buyer/producer, and you don&#8217;t renew, the screen rights you lose your right to adapt the material (but you still own the copyright on your work &#8211; you just can&#8217;t sell it without the underlying rights). 
Copyright Searches (USA)
If you are interested in the US rights to a particular publication, you can do a copyright search at the US Copyright Office (Tel. +1 202 707 9100). Order a Circular 22, which explains the process in more detail.
If the work in question were published after 1978, the copyright records should be available at the Library of Congress. 
For more information on copyright, you can check out the Copyright FAQ, posted to misc.legal, or contact an entertainment/publishing lawyer.

Question 28

How do I go about finding out which agent represents a specific actor?

Accepted Answer

You&#8217;ve seen them on screen, you want that talent! But how do you actually go about getting in touch to convince them that your baby is the next best thing?
Probably the easiest way is to get in contact with the relevant actors union in your country. They will most likely be able to tell you who the actor’s agent is, dependent of course on the actor in question being a member (and if you’ve seen them before, they probably are). In the US, contact the Screen Actors Guild or AFTRA; the UK, Equity; or in Australia, the Media, Entertainment &#038; Arts Alliance.
Another good resource is the Internet Movie Database.  Many of the regular listings include information about the actor&#8217;s representation, and the IMDBPro service (subscription required) has a great deal more information.  Another pay service is operated by Who Represents?, a web site for locating agents by actor, or actors by agent.  For British actors, Spotlight is almost definitive, but sadly isn&#8217;t that cheap to subscribe to.
In countries other than the USA, you might also have some joy getting in touch with your regional or national government film office, particularly if you are interested in details for a local star.
Of course, if you engage a casting director for your project, they will have all of the necessary contacts to find out who represents which actor.

Question 29

How do I make my video look like film?

Accepted Answer

The short answer to this rather repetitive question is simple: if you want your movie to look like it was shot on film, then shoot it on film. 
Whilst there are many products out there that can approximate a film look, not one of them currently stack up against the real thing. Film is film, video is video. The very way in which the image is captured is so different between the two mediums, you will possibly never be able to get an exact match. Benedict Thienpont provides this brief overview of the key differences: 
&#8220;Technically speaking, video is capturing in RGB, meaning the picture is effectively captured using three cameras in one: one sensitive to red light, another to green light and a third to blue light. This is very close to the way our eyes see. We also have sensitive cells for red, blue and green light plus cells that are sensitive to light in general (these are most effective to see in darker environments, when we see less the colour aspect of the light). So what we see on video covers greatly our own experience of vision. In video reproduction there are 25 or 30 still pictures passing through per second to create the illusion of motion. During recording each still picture was created as the view is being scanned from top to bottom from left to right in a weaving manner. 
What happens to film is the light is being captured in CMYK, sort of the same principle used in quadri print production. There are four photosensitive layers on the film. One for the magenta coloured elements in the viewed picture, one for the yellow, one for the cyan and a fourth for light strength in general. The fourth one is especially for dark areas and good light contrast. Actually the charm of film reproduction is in the fact there&#8217;s an error in colour. Not all colours are reproduced and are shifted. The overall result is warmer. In film reproduction there are 24 still pictures passing through to create the illusion of motion. During recording each still picture was being scanned in one shot just like an ordinary Kodak camera does.&#8221;
Of course, there are now quite a few commercial products on the market for use in post-production to help approximate a &#8220;film look.&#8221; These normally take the form of plug-ins for post-production applications like Adobe Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro, and After Effects, and have got much better over the years. The leading products for approximating the look of film in a video are Digieffects CineLook, BigFX FilmFX and Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite. All of these products are plug-ins for popular NLEs and FX packages such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Xpress, Final Cut Pro, and Adobe After Effects.
But remember, these will not give you the same results as shooting on the real thing. And don&#8217;t forget that lighting and lenses will ultimately have a far greater impact on the finished look of your film than shooting format. Learn more about film at Kodak.
Of course, with the growing strength and quality of new digital cameras in the marketplace, what exactly constitutes a &#8220;film look&#8221; is now more contentious than ever.  A range of factors, such as lighting, shooting format, lenses, DOP skill, and of course the camera itself, will have a major impact on how cinematic your film ends up looking.  Having state of the art equipment won&#8217;t magically turn a crappy film into a good one but it does help boost the production value.

Question 30

How do I make my video look like film?

Accepted Answer

The short answer to this rather repetitive question is simple: if you want your movie to look like it was shot on film, then shoot it on film.
Whilst there are many products out there that can approximate a film look, not one of them currently stack up against the real thing. Film is film, video is video. The very way in which the image is captured is so different between the two mediums, you will possibly never be able to get an exact match. Benedict Thienpont provides this brief overview of the key differences:
&#8220;Technically speaking, video is capturing in RGB, meaning the picture is effectively captured using three cameras in one: one sensitive to red light, another to green light and a third to blue light. This is very close to the way our eyes see. We also have sensitive cells for red, blue and green light plus cells that are sensitive to light in general (these are most effective to see in darker environments, when we see less the colour aspect of the light). So what we see on video covers greatly our own experience of vision. In video reproduction there are 25 or 30 still pictures passing through per second to create the illusion of motion. During recording each still picture was created as the view is being scanned from top to bottom from left to right in a weaving manner.
What happens to film is the light is being captured in CMYK, sort of the same principle used in quadri print production. There are four photosensitive layers on the film. One for the magenta coloured elements in the viewed picture, one for the yellow, one for the cyan and a fourth for light strength in general. The fourth one is especially for dark areas and good light contrast. Actually the charm of film reproduction is in the fact there&#8217;s an error in colour. Not all colours are reproduced and are shifted. The overall result is warmer. In film reproduction there are 24 still pictures passing through to create the illusion of motion. During recording each still picture was being scanned in one shot just like an ordinary Kodak camera does.&#8221;
Of course, there are now quite a few commercial products on the market for use in post-production to help approximate a &#8220;film look.&#8221; These normally take the form of plug-ins for post-production applications like Adobe Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro, and After Effects, and have got much better over the years. The leading products for approximating the look of film in a video are Digieffects CineLook, BigFX FilmFX and Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite. All of these products are plug-ins for popular NLEs and FX packages such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Xpress, Final Cut Pro, and Adobe After Effects.
But remember, these will not give you the same results as shooting on the real thing. And don&#8217;t forget that lighting and lenses will ultimately have a far greater impact on the finished look of your film than shooting format. Learn more about film at Kodak.
Of course, with the growing strength and quality of new digital cameras in the marketplace, what exactly constitutes a &#8220;film look&#8221; is now more contentious than ever. A range of factors, such as lighting, shooting format, lenses, DOP skill, and of course the camera itself, will have a major impact on how cinematic your film ends up looking. Having state of the art equipment won&#8217;t magically turn a crappy film into a good one but it does help boost the production value.

Question 31

How do I shoot a scene inside a moving car?

Accepted Answer

Shooting inside a car is simple but tricky. It often needs a bit of lengthy preparations and patience. There are three simple ways of taking a shot inside a moving car:
1) Place the camera inside the car. You can keep it on the rear seats while your subjects are in the front seats and get a nice &#8216;over-the-shoulder&#8217; shot. Or you can shoot from the front seat while your subjects are in the rear seat and get a mid-shot. You can try placing the camera inbetween the two front seats.
Another method is to seat beside your subject and take a close-up shot. If two subjects are involved than take their shots separately and ask them to assume that they are talking to the other charecter. You can mix this two shots while editing and create the required sequence.
2) The second trick is to attach the camera to the bonnet and pre-focus it. This is pretty effective when only one charecter is involved. But the major dis-advantage is the immobility of the camera and the occasional jerks.You can try a gyro machine if you are able to sustain that dammage to your pocket. The other simpler and costless trick is to shoot the scene in a smooth highway or somewhere like that. As for two charecters, you can use two cameras.
Now comes the question of attaching your camera to the bonnet. I&#8217;ve always done this trick by using assortments of wooden block to get the proper angle and attaching it by sticking plaster!!! And it worked very well.
3) The third and the most skillfull way of taking the shot is to attach the camera to the end of a boom( just a firm metallic rod should do) and taking the shot from another car( if you like adventure, you can try a bike). The greatest advantage of this method is the easy movement of the camera. You can take the camera back & forth by altering the relative speed between the two cars. This provides an easy method of adding a punch of glamour to your shot.
For my choice, I&#8217;d advice a combination of the first and the third method.

Question 32

How do I white balance digital video?

Accepted Answer

The camera will have a white balence button which you must press down so that you can callibrate the white balence, then you must focus the camera on a white area where you will be shooting you footage. The easiest way is to focus in on a piece of white paper were you will be filming, then adjust the white balence dials until correct balence is met and set. This must be done each time you change light conditions.

Question 33

How do I work out the timing of my script from its number of pages?

Accepted Answer

A rule of thumb has been in existence for a rather long time which states that &#8220;one page of script equals one minute of screen time.&#8221;  Whilst this method isn&#8217;t overly scientific it has a strange characteristic of being true most of the time.
Obviously whether the one page per minute rule works for you is of course dependent on the content your script.  For example, a page of dialogue will most like represent a completely different amount of time on screen than a page of scenic description.  And on top of that, the decisions made by the director in how they visualise the script will also have a major effect on the final running time.  A good example of this involves the &#8220;Staircase of Baradur&#8221; sequence from the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  In the original script, this sequence is described in a single line (paraphrased):  &#8220;The fellowship runs down the stairs.&#8221;  In the final film, director Peter Jackson decided to turn this sequence into a major set-piece and the final screen time ended up being several minutes with the companions struggling to get across as the staircase collapses.
So whilst it&#8217;s useful to use the one page per minute rule of thumb as a rough guide, it&#8217;s better to either have your script timed by a professional, or at least for you to time yourself reading through it (aloud) at a realistic pace.

Question 34

How do they do that &#8216;frozen time rotation trick&#8217;?

Accepted Answer

Many commercials, music videos, and films have employed a technique where the subject appears to be frozen in time and the camera then changes angle to give a frozen time and rotation effect.  This technique became extremely popular after it was used in The Matrix.
This effect is created by setting up several cameras in an arc around the subject. Each camera photographs the subject by a slightly different angle and in post-production, the footage from all the cameras (as many as 150) are edited on nearly a frame by frame basis to create the impression of a slow dolly around while time has stopped.
These days there is software that allows you to achieve this effect in post-production with images from as few as two cameras. This is done buy using the shots from each camera as key frames and having the computer render the frames in between (a bit like morphing). Don&#8217;t, however, expect to be running this kind of software on your PC at home.
UK production company Time-Slice Films were a pioneer in developing this technique and have quite a bit of info on their web site.

Question 35

How do they do that &#8216;frozen time rotation trick&#8217;?

Accepted Answer

Many commercials, music videos, and films have employed a technique where the subject appears to be frozen in time and the camera then changes angle to give a frozen time and rotation effect. This technique became extremely popular after it was used in The Matrix.
This effect is created by setting up several cameras in an arc around the subject. Each camera photographs the subject by a slightly different angle and in post-production, the footage from all the cameras (as many as 150) are edited on nearly a frame by frame basis to create the impression of a slow dolly around while time has stopped.
These days there is software that allows you to achieve this effect in post-production with images from as few as two cameras. This is done buy using the shots from each camera as key frames and having the computer render the frames in between (a bit like morphing). Don&#8217;t, however, expect to be running this kind of software on your PC at home.
UK production company Time-Slice Films were a pioneer in developing this technique and have quite a bit of info on their web site.

Question 36

How do they do that effect where the action speeds up and slows down in the same take?

Accepted Answer

This technique is called &#8220;ramping&#8221;. It involves increasing or decreasing the frame-rate, with accompanying adjustment of the shutter angle to compensate for F-stop adjustment during the ramp. 
There are also accessories, such as the Arri RCU, which can be fitted to a camera not designed to ramp that will accomplish the same thing by adjusting the iris ring on the lens during a ramp. The reason the shutter angle and/or stop is adjusted during a ramp is that the differing frame rates require different levels of light to be made available to the film&#8230; example: if your stop is 5.6 @ 24 fps, and the end of your ramp is 48 fps, you&#8217;ll need to open a full stop, as the film is running faster through the gate, requiring more light to expose properly. The stop @48 fps would be 4. You set all this in the Arri RCU. During the ramp, the camera will slowly adjust the shutter to the exact rate as the camera ramps up and down; it doesn&#8217;t happen all at once, so timed adjustment is critical to make the shot look right.
For those with persistent budget constraints just simply shooting at higher than normal speeds and controlling the &#8220;ramp&#8221; via a non linear editing or compositing program like the Avid Media Composer or Adobe After Effects; even Adobe Premiere can often yield better results with much greater control over exact times of the speed change. The results can be fine tuned even further by having the ability to control the ramp speeds to whatever you desire from x (whatever the duration you desire) to zero ramp. The reason for the higher shooting speeds is to eliminate motion stutter or strobing when attempting to slow down shots in post-production (mainly because the frames aren&#8217;t there and interpolation can only go so far). However, if you shot at higher filming rates (50fps to 100fps), speeding the shutter looks like 25fps and results in no strobe like effects and the only perceptible change is the lack in motion blur.

Question 37

How do they do that effect where the action speeds up and slows down in the same take?

Accepted Answer

This technique is called &#8220;ramping&#8221;. It involves increasing or decreasing the frame-rate, with accompanying adjustment of the shutter angle to compensate for F-stop adjustment during the ramp.
There are also accessories, such as the Arri RCU, which can be fitted to a camera not designed to ramp that will accomplish the same thing by adjusting the iris ring on the lens during a ramp. The reason the shutter angle and/or stop is adjusted during a ramp is that the differing frame rates require different levels of light to be made available to the film&#8230; example: if your stop is 5.6 @ 24 fps, and the end of your ramp is 48 fps, you&#8217;ll need to open a full stop, as the film is running faster through the gate, requiring more light to expose properly. The stop @48 fps would be 4. You set all this in the Arri RCU. During the ramp, the camera will slowly adjust the shutter to the exact rate as the camera ramps up and down; it doesn&#8217;t happen all at once, so timed adjustment is critical to make the shot look right.
For those with persistent budget constraints just simply shooting at higher than normal speeds and controlling the &#8220;ramp&#8221; via a non linear editing or compositing program like the Avid Media Composer or Adobe After Effects; even Adobe Premiere can often yield better results with much greater control over exact times of the speed change. The results can be fine tuned even further by having the ability to control the ramp speeds to whatever you desire from x (whatever the duration you desire) to zero ramp. The reason for the higher shooting speeds is to eliminate motion stutter or strobing when attempting to slow down shots in post-production (mainly because the frames aren&#8217;t there and interpolation can only go so far). However, if you shot at higher filming rates (50fps to 100fps), speeding the shutter looks like 25fps and results in no strobe like effects and the only perceptible change is the lack in motion blur.

Question 38

How do they do that zoom trick where the background moves closer while the subject stays in the same place?

Accepted Answer

The &#8220;weird zoom trick&#8221;, where the background seems to either be sucked towards the camera or pushed away, is done using a combination of zooming-in whilst moving the camera away from the subject (or vice versa). The results of this basically mean that the subject remains still in shot, while the background moves. This technique is an excellent tool when used effectively, however it is harder that it seems to do well.
This technique is also known as &#8220;blowing out the background&#8221; and has been a popular suspense-building technique in suspense and horror movies. Hitchcock was one of the first to use this, although there are good examples in Jaws and Goodfellas (extremely slow). The technique is even parodied in the Kevin Bacon film The Big Picture, giving weight to the brief that its use is pretty clichéd these days.

Question 39

How do you achieve those shots where the camera seems to pass through a window or glass object?

Accepted Answer

Editing is key as well as being able to open the glass. I have done a similar shot by marking a path to follow on the ground, I shoot up until I am just about touching the glass and stop, I then open the window or door, back up, follow my path and begin recording once again and push the camera through the opening, once again stopping. Then, go outside the glass if possible, and line up with my marked path and continue out some more. Once in editing I find the proper frames to splice it together. The hardest part is staying on path which is why I like to use painters tape placed on the ground to help me. I have found that placing a small dissolve one that lasts less than a second when the camera &#8220;passes through the glass&#8221; helps add to the effect.

Question 40

How do you achieve those shots where the camera seems to pass through a window or glass object?

Accepted Answer

Editing is key as well as being able to open the glass. I have done a similar shot by marking a path to follow on the ground, I shoot up until I am just about touching the glass and stop, I then open the window or door, back up, follow my path and begin recording once again and push the camera through the opening, once again stopping. Then, go outside the glass if possible, and line up with my marked path and continue out some more. Once in editing I find the proper frames to splice it together. The hardest part is staying on path which is why I like to use painters tape placed on the ground to help me. I have found that placing a small dissolve one that lasts less than a second when the camera &#8220;passes through the glass&#8221; helps add to the effect.

Question 41

How do you achieve those shots where the camera seems to pass through a window or glass object?

Accepted Answer

Editing is key as well as being able to open the glass. I have done a similar shot by marking a path to follow on the ground, I shoot up until I am just about touching the glass and stop, I then open the window or door, back up, follow my path and begin recording once again and push the camera through the opening, once again stopping. Then, go outside the glass if possible, and line up with my marked path and continue out some more. Once in editing I find the proper frames to splice it together. The hardest part is staying on path which is why I like to use painters tape placed on the ground to help me. I have found that placing a small dissolve one that lasts less than a second when the camera &#8220;passes through the glass&#8221; helps add to the effect.

Question 42

How do you choose the right wide-screen format for your project?

Accepted Answer

One of the most common areas of confusion for independent filmmakers working with digital video is in the area of wide-screen. In many cases, filmmakers want their movies to be seen in a wide-screen format, more akin to what we&#8217;re used to with film, rather than the more square aspect ratio (4:3) found in television.
Many cameras, particularly the prosumer DV models, claim to have the ability to shoot wide-screen (sometimes called 16:9), however this can be misleading because not all cameras are able to do true wide-screen photography. Generally wide-screen photography for digital video is handled in one of three ways:
Letterboxed
Most home camcorders and prosumer DV cameras (like the VX-1000, XL-1 etc) do wide-screen in Letterboxed format. Letterboxing is achieved by shooting a standard 4:3 picture and putting black borders on the top and bottom of the frame to create a picture shape that is the correct aspect ratio for the wide-screen required. This is not true wide-screen, and you are effectively wasting the black space in your image, effectively reducing the vertical resolution of your frame. The black borders are simply black video being recorded on the top and bottom of the frame! This will most likely cause you huge problems in post-production so it is best not to use in-camera wide-screen functions if your camera only shoots letterboxed format.
If you&#8217;re going to use letterbox later down the track, frame you shots taking into account the future position of the black borders, but add them in post-production where you have more control.
Anamorphic
Anamorphic is a method by which you can get true wide-screen images using a standard 4:3 camera. It is achieved by playing with the optics of the lens &#8211; anamorphic lenses use the optics in the glass to stretch the wide-screen image vertically and squish it horizontally so that it will fit into the 4:3 ratio. At the playback end (i.e. VTR, projector etc), a complimentary lens (or digital process) is used to return the image to its original aspect ratio.
Getting your head around the concept of anamorphic photography can be a little difficult to start with. Mark Anand provided the following basic example on the Shooting People filmmaker&#8217;s mailing list: &#8220;If you imagine shooting a completely round object like a clock face. If you shoot in 4:3 and play it back the picture will look perfectly round. Now shoot the same clock in wide-screen Anamorphic and play that back on a 4:3 monitor &#8211; that same clock will look oval. Like the top and bottom had been stretched up and the left and right had been pushed in. Now take that same image and play it on a wide-screen monitor and that clock will again look perfect.&#8221;
Obviously this is not a technical explanation, so if you are interested in learning more you should get your hands on a good book about cinematography. However, hopefully it illustrates the point.
Shooting anamorphic is probably the best way for independent filmmakers using DV to achieve a wide-screen result (particularly if you are planning to blow up to 35mm) because you are recording at the full vertical resolution of your camera (the exact resolution differs depending on whether you are shooting PAL or NTSC). You can get anamorphic adaptors and lenses for many of the prosumer DV cameras such as the XL-1, although they are not cheap to buy/hire.
True Wide-Screen Photography
The third way to achieve wide-screen is to use a camera has a rectangular CCD (rather than a squareish 4:3 CCD). Generally rectangular CCDs are only found in more expensive professional cameras such as those in Sony&#8217;s DVCAM range and hi-def gear, although over time these may start appearing in prosumer equipment as well.
More Info
Check out A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions; and British filmmaker Michael Askin also has some information on aspect ratio conversions wit Adobe Premiere at his site.

Question 43

How do you film a person looking in the mirror?

Accepted Answer

The trick here is to place the camera on a different axis than the subject and the mirror. In most cases the person looking in the mirror will not be able to see themselves, at least not in the same manner that they appear on screen.
Position the camera and the mirror so that the camera is just out of the mirror field of view, as seen through the viewfinder. Then position your subject so that they appear to be looking at themselves in the mirror, as seen through the viewfinder. Again, they will probably not be able to see more than a small portion of themselves, depending on the size of the mirror. They may not be able to see them selves at all. They will, however, be able to see the camera, and it is very important that you direct them not to look at the reflection of the camera, as that will record as them looking directly into the lens.
A good trick to shoot a close-up cover of the subject looking directly at the camera and applying makeup or primping as though the camera were the mirror. When cutting this together with the shot above, and perhaps another side angle, this will complete the illusion that they could actually see themselves in the mirror while your were shooting.

Question 44

How do you fix Firewire video capture issues in Adobe Premiere?

Accepted Answer

There are some known issues with the Texas Instrument drivers that are used by some firewire card chipsets that can cause problems when you try to capture video via a firewire connection. See the following documents at Adobe to resolve the problem:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/28fb2.htmhttp://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/27322.htm

Question 45

How do you handle the challenges of fluorescent lighting?

Accepted Answer

Fluorescent lights (&#8220;Flos&#8221;) have no filament; light is given off when exotic gases are subjected to a current and their electrons become excited, and they &#8220;fluoresce&#8221;. Household flos are warm white or cool white. In film terms, warm white is analogous to tungsten colour temp (3200 k) and cold white is approx daylight balance (5600k). They are also very green. In practical photo terms they are corrected with &#8220;minus green&#8221; gel, a magenta colour, restoring balance to either tungsten white or daylight white. Sometimes if necessary, film light fixtures may have &#8220;plus green&#8221; gel (green colour, obviously) added to correct to match existing flo fixtures.
Modern film photography now uses many types of flo fixtures commercially produced especially for film. These are lightweight, with accessories, and utilise special flo bulbs that are green-corrected, i.e., do not photograph green. Kino-Flo is one company, Syne-Flo is another. Kino-Flo is the best known, and makes fixtures ranging from the Wall-O-Light, with ten 4 ft bulbs, to the micro flo, thinner than a pencil. Most often used are the 4 ft, 2 bulb or 4 bulb fixtures, used for everything from car commercials to features to tabletop to glamour.
Another concern when shooting with fluorescent lights is flicker. The chances of flicker are directly proportional to the frame rate you are using and where you are shooting. What causes flicker is the dead time in between bursts of electricity from the electric company. In the U.S., it comes at 60Hz (in Europe, Australia, 50Hz), which means that there are120 bursts and 120 dead times per second. When using this electricity directly with HMIs or fluorescents this means that there are 120 flashes and 120 spaces of no light per second. What this means for cinematography is that you must shoot at a frame rate that will catch a flash while the shutter is open. In the U.S., that means shooting at a frame rate at a multiple of 6 (i.e., 24, 30, 36, 60, 120 etc). All other frame rates will produce flashing (or changing between these frame rates during shooting will produce flashing) without an electric ballast. A ballast condenses these spaces of no light to very small brief periods of time, to the point that only at very high frame rates will flashing show up(like around 400 fps). Under a ballast, no flashing will occur under all normal frame rates (under 400 fps), including during frame rate changes.
More detailed info is available in the American Cinematographer&#8217;s Manual, published by the ASC.

Question 46

How does a Foley Artist create sound effects?

Accepted Answer

A Foley Artist is a person who creates sound effects for the post-production of the film. They beat drums, throw themselves on the floor, walk on gravel, break vegetables etc to record the right sound effect as required by the director and sound supervisor.

Question 47

How is deep focus achieved?

Accepted Answer

Deep focus is achieved by stopping the lens down. This requires a lot of light. Even though colour negative films are now faster than the black and white stocks of the 1940s, deep focus has never been used much in colour (there are a few exceptions). My theory is that deep focus is less attractive in colour. In black and white, everything is monochromatic and reduced to tone and texture &#8211; so a red curtain in the background is not going to distract from a face in the foreground even if both are in focus. In colour, a lot of details in the background are going to jump out at you due to their colour, thus competing too strongly for the viewer&#8217;s attention. Therefore, deep focus would only work well in colour if there were complete control over the art direction (such as in a period film.)
The old-school &#8220;deep focus&#8221; king was VistaVision which featured a 28mm focal length lens and had a field of view which slightly exceeded the field of view of the 35mm focal length B&L CinemaScope lens (which was seldom used because of its relatively severe barrel distortion).
Skipping the films that use tricks like split-dioptres and slant-focus to achieve deep focus, there are few colour films to study that have been lit to a high f/stop for deep focus. You might look at the Raiders of the Lost Ark films or much of DP Douglas Slocombe&#8217;s other work like Lady Jane; he often shoots for deep focus. Polanski&#8217;s Frantic averaged an f/8 for interior scenes where the DP could use a lot of light. Some of Bogdanovich&#8217;s work like in Texasville also tried to work with deep focus (although that film also points out how colour can get uglier when everything is in focus.)
Another problem with modern films is that it&#8217;s impossible to shoot an entire film in deep focus because some locations require you to use a certain amount of available light. For example, maybe you could light a hotel room to f/11 but in the next scene you could be in a parking garage with low ceilings and bare fluorescent tubes working at an f/2.8 &#8211; and then be filming a car driving out into a city street at night and shooting at f/1.3.
Another problem is that many directors don&#8217;t know how to stage for deep focus &#8211; so what&#8217;s the point of lighting to an f/11 if every actor stands ten feet away from the camera or the whole scene is shot in close-ups against a blank wall?

Question 48

How long should my film be?

Accepted Answer

At a basic level, the length of your film should be dictated by the story and how you edit it.  Most stories have a natural pace which will suggest an appropriate length, so you should base the final running time on the needs of your story rather than try to adhere to a specific number.
That said, there are a couple of considerations you should bear in mind when writing and editing a film.  The first is with regards to short films.  Most festivals and other outlets which show shorts these days tend to prefer films which are 10 minutes or less (although up to 15 minutes is normally fine too).   Once you start getting a short much beyond 15 minutes it becomes very difficult to program so the number of distribution and exhibition options tends to shrink pretty quickly.
The second is with regards to feature films.  Most distributors like features to be between 90 and 120 minutes.  The lower end of that scale is best for strong genre films (e.g. horror) , whilst drama can get away with being slightly longer.  Much above 120 minutes and the exhibitors (i.e. cinemas) start to grumble because they can&#8217;t fit as many screenings into a day, and therefore can&#8217;t earn as much money.  Films like &#8220;Lord of the Rings&#8221; can get away with being 3 hours long because they are event films which the audience actively seeks out.  Independent films don&#8217;t have that luxury.
So from this, you can see that films which are between 15 and 90 minutes are problematic.  They exist in a kind of no man&#8217;s land between a shorts and features and are therefore very hard to distribute.  It&#8217;s advisable not to aim to make a film between these lengths unless you have a good reason to do so.
The final point is that this answer relates to film, and not television programmes.  TV programmes, particularly for commercial television, have very fixed lengths which must be adhered to.

Question 49

How long should my film be?

Accepted Answer

At a basic level, the length of your film should be dictated by the story and how you edit it. Most stories have a natural pace which will suggest an appropriate length, so you should base the final running time on the needs of your story rather than try to adhere to a specific number.
That said, there are a couple of considerations you should bear in mind when writing and editing a film. The first is with regards to short films. Most festivals and other outlets which show shorts these days tend to prefer films which are 10 minutes or less (although up to 15 minutes is normally fine too). Once you start getting a short much beyond 15 minutes it becomes very difficult to program so the number of distribution and exhibition options tends to shrink pretty quickly.
The second is with regards to feature films. Most distributors like features to be between 90 and 120 minutes. The lower end of that scale is best for strong genre films (e.g. horror) , whilst drama can get away with being slightly longer. Much above 120 minutes and the exhibitors (i.e. cinemas) start to grumble because they can&#8217;t fit as many screenings into a day, and therefore can&#8217;t earn as much money. Films like &#8220;Lord of the Rings&#8221; can get away with being 3 hours long because they are event films which the audience actively seeks out. Independent films don&#8217;t have that luxury.
So from this, you can see that films which are between 15 and 90 minutes are problematic. They exist in a kind of no man&#8217;s land between a shorts and features and are therefore very hard to distribute. It&#8217;s advisable not to aim to make a film between these lengths unless you have a good reason to do so.
The final point is that this answer relates to film, and not television programmes. TV programmes, particularly for commercial television, have very fixed lengths which must be adhered to.

Question 50

How much did El Mariachi really cost to make?

Accepted Answer

El Mariachi is one of the lowest budget films ever to get wide international release. Although exact budget information is not readily available, the film&#8217;s creator Robert Rodriguez claims it was in the area of USD $7,000.
When examining what appears on the final screen for this dollar-value, you must remember that Rodriguez dumped his negative straight to 3/4 inch video and edited from there. He did not pay for a 16mm print of the picture, nor make use of any film editing facilities or equipment. When El Mariachi was picked up by Columbia, the studio paid for the prints, the negative matching, the blow-ups, sound remix, the subtitles, and the credits.
Considering the amount of time that was spent on readying the film for theatrical release, and several Columbia-induced blunders during the process, the final film probably cost an additional $200,000 &#8211; $300,000 to put on screen (maybe more).
You can get more information on the making of this film in Robert Rodriguez&#8217;s very entertaining autobiographical account of the production, Rebel without a Crew.

Question 51

How much does a &#8230; get paid?

Accepted Answer

More and more these days, work in the film industry tends to be on a freelance basis, and consequently there are no standard rates of pay. 
The fee for a certain skill depends on a huge number of factors including the profile of the person in question, how much they want to work on the project, how much the project is prepared to pay for them, and indeed how much time they will actually spend on the production. 
Many unions will have what is often referred to as a basic award, or minimum wage, but the reality is that most professionals will be earning many times this amount. If you are an independent filmmaker, you should negotiate with your cast and crew to determine the level of remuneration they are happy working for (although bare in mind that some unions, ie. SAG, will prevent their members working for less than minimum wage).
If you are a high school student considering whether working in the film industry will be a financially rewarding career, then you are looking down the wrong path. If financial security is your primary career driver, you should consider law, accounting, medicine, or another stable industry with a well defined entry path. You don’t become a filmmaker for the money!

Question 52

How much does a &#8230; get paid?

Accepted Answer

More and more these days, work in the film industry tends to be on a freelance basis, and consequently there are no standard rates of pay.
The fee for a certain skill depends on a huge number of factors including the profile of the person in question, how much they want to work on the project, how much the project is prepared to pay for them, and indeed how much time they will actually spend on the production.
Many unions will have what is often referred to as a basic award, or minimum wage, but the reality is that most professionals will be earning many times this amount. If you are an independent filmmaker, you should negotiate with your cast and crew to determine the level of remuneration they are happy working for (although bare in mind that some unions, ie. SAG, will prevent their members working for less than minimum wage).
If you are a high school student considering whether working in the film industry will be a financially rewarding career, then you are looking down the wrong path. If financial security is your primary career driver, you should consider law, accounting, medicine, or another stable industry with a well defined entry path. You don’t become a filmmaker for the money!

Question 53

How much does a &#8230; get paid?

Accepted Answer

More and more these days, work in the film industry tends to be on a freelance basis, and consequently there are no standard rates of pay.
The fee for a certain skill depends on a huge number of factors including the profile of the person in question, how much they want to work on the project, how much the project is prepared to pay for them, and indeed how much time they will actually spend on the production.
Many unions will have what is often referred to as a basic award, or minimum wage, but the reality is that most professionals will be earning many times this amount. If you are an independent filmmaker, you should negotiate with your cast and crew to determine the level of remuneration they are happy working for (although bare in mind that some unions, ie. SAG, will prevent their members working for less than minimum wage).
If you are a high school student considering whether working in the film industry will be a financially rewarding career, then you are looking down the wrong path. If financial security is your primary career driver, you should consider law, accounting, medicine, or another stable industry with a well defined entry path. You don’t become a filmmaker for the money!

Question 54

How to Navigate the Wide-Screen Maze?

Accepted Answer

One of the most common areas of confusion for independent filmmakers working with digital video is in the area of wide-screen. In many cases, filmmakers want their movies to be seen in a wide-screen format, more akin to what we&#8217;re used to with film, rather than the more square aspect ratio (4:3) found in television.
Many cameras, particularly the prosumer DV models, claim to have the ability to shoot wide-screen (sometimes called 16:9), however this can be misleading because not all cameras are able to do true wide-screen photography. Generally wide-screen photography for digital video is handled in one of three ways:
Letterboxed
Most home camcorders and prosumer DV cameras (like the VX-1000, XL-1 etc) do wide-screen in Letterboxed format. Letterboxing is achieved by shooting a standard 4:3 picture and putting black borders on the top and bottom of the frame to create a picture shape that is the correct aspect ratio for the wide-screen required. This is not true wide-screen, and you are effectively wasting the black space in your image, effectively reducing the vertical resolution of your frame. The black borders are simply black video being recorded on the top and bottom of the frame! This will most likely cause you huge problems in post-production so it is best not to use in-camera wide-screen functions if your camera only shoots letterboxed format.
If you&#8217;re going to use letterbox later down the track, frame you shots taking into account the future position of the black borders, but add them in post-production where you have more control.
Anamorphic
Anamorphic is a method by which you can get true wide-screen images using a standard 4:3 camera. It is achieved by playing with the optics of the lens &#8211; anamorphic lenses use the optics in the glass to stretch the wide-screen image vertically and squish it horizontally so that it will fit into the 4:3 ratio. At the playback end (i.e. VTR, projector etc), a complimentary lens (or digital process) is used to return the image to its original aspect ratio.
Getting your head around the concept of anamorphic photography can be a little difficult to start with. Mark Anand provided the following basic example on the Shooting People filmmaker&#8217;s mailing list: &#8220;If you imagine shooting a completely round object like a clock face. If you shoot in 4:3 and play it back the picture will look perfectly round. Now shoot the same clock in wide-screen Anamorphic and play that back on a 4:3 monitor &#8211; that same clock will look oval. Like the top and bottom had been stretched up and the left and right had been pushed in. Now take that same image and play it on a wide-screen monitor and that clock will again look perfect.&#8221;
Obviously this is not a technical explanation, so if you are interested in learning more you should get your hands on a good book about cinematography. However, hopefully it illustrates the point.
Shooting anamorphic is probably the best way for independent filmmakers using DV to achieve a wide-screen result (particularly if you are planning to blow up to 35mm) because you are recording at the full vertical resolution of your camera (the exact resolution differs depending on whether you are shooting PAL or NTSC). You can get anamorphic adaptors and lenses for many of the prosumer DV cameras such as the XL-1, although they are not cheap to buy/hire.
True Wide-Screen Photography
The third way to achieve wide-screen is to use a camera has a rectangular CCD (rather than a squareish 4:3 CCD). Generally rectangular CCDs are only found in more expensive professional cameras such as those in Sony&#8217;s DVCAM range and hi-def gear, although over time these may start appearing in prosumer equipment as well.
More Info
Check out A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions; and British filmmaker Michael Askin also has some information on aspect ratio conversions wit Adobe Premiere at his site.

Question 55

I need &#8230; codec. Where can I get it?

Accepted Answer

With the boom in streaming media, a large number of audio-visual codecs (Compressor/Decompressor) have hit the market. There are two main types of codecs: software and hardware. Software codecs are installed on your operating system and allow your computer to read and process the compression algorithms used for a video or audio file. Hardware codecs are used by capture devices, such as video capture card, to create multimedia files from external sources. Hardware codecs are often proprietary (ie. only available to users who have purchased the vendor&#8217;s hardware solution).
This is all well and good, but what if the file you are trying to use has been compressed with a codec that you don&#8217;t have available on your system? 
Windows Media Player
The latest version of Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Media Player has a very neat feature &#8211; if the file you are trying to view uses a codec that is not present on your system, WMP attempts to download it from Microsoft&#8217;s centralised codec resource (assuming your are connected to the Internet). In many cases, WMP locates, downloads, and installs the codec automatically in a few moments. Unfortunately because some codecs are proprietary or require you to buy them, WMP cannot always locate a suitable codec.
DivX
Named after the defunct competitor to DVD, DivX started as a hacked version of Microsoft&#8217;s MPEG4 codec. Although DivX is the codec of choice for most online video pirates, its high-quality for low-filesize makes it an interesting tool for independent filmmakers. This is one codec that Windows Media Player won&#8217;t download for you. Get it yourself at the DivX web site.
XvID
XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec. It&#8217;s not a product, it&#8217;s an open source project which is developed and maintained by lots of people from all over the world.  More information and codec downloads can be found at the official XvID project site.
M-JPEG
Motion-JPEG a close cousin of the familiar photo JPEG, M-JPEG is one of the most common codecs used by many analogue video capture cards. Morgan Multimedia make a software codec call Morgan M-JPEG that allows you to play M-JPEG files created by proprietary capture cards such as Marvel, Rainbow Runner, DC30 etc. You can download a trial version for free from their web site.
Indeo
Indeo was originally developed by Intel, but is now owned by Ligos and versions are present on most Windows systems. It is worth downloading the latest version from the Ligos web site to ensure that you can play all versions of Indeo.
ATI All-In-Wonder
Early versions of ATI&#8217;s All-In-Wonder cards used a ATI&#8217;s VCR1 and VCR2 codecs. Support has been dropped for these codecs in the latest version of the products, however ATI have made the old codec available for download so you can still play your files. Windows only.
For more information on common codecs, you should check out the following sites:
free-codecs.comfourcc.org codeccorner.comcodec-download.com
If you&#8217;ve got hold of an AVI file, but you don&#8217;t know what codec it uses, get yourself a copy of a little utility called AVICodec.  This essential tool allows you to easily identify which audio and video codecs an AVI file uses, tells you whether they are currently installed on your system, and even gives you a link to the relevant codec web site to download it where necessary!

Question 56

I&#8217;ve got a camcorder, how can I get that Hollywood movie look to my work?

Accepted Answer

Ok, reality check time. You&#8217;ve gone out and purchased your $300 camcorder and you want to make the next Hollywood blockbuster? It ain&#8217;t gonna happen.
Domestic grade equipment is exactly that, domestic grade. It is intended to provide a minimum of hassle for you to go out and shoot your kid&#8217;s birthday party or your trip to Disney World Florida. In order to make it more accessible to its market, the cost of manufacture is kept down, which at the end of the day results in a loss of quality. It&#8217;s a compromise. If you want perfect images, you need to pay for perfect quality equipment.
Now while domestic equipment is getting better, particularly with the advent of DV and other domestic digital formats, the thing that will let you down the most is the lens. Good lenses are expensive to manufacture so in order to keep the cost of domestic equipment reasonable, cheaper lenses are used which are often made of plastic rather than glass, and generally a lot slower than their expensive counterparts. What this translates to is, you need more light to make your pictures expose properly, and there is a definite ceiling to the sharpness and colour quality you can achieve.
However, you can push your camcorder a little further if you spend time (and money) on properly lighting your scene. You&#8217;ll never be able to compete with the quality of 35mm, a truck-load of gaffers, and an experienced Director of Photography, but you will get better images than if you just point and shoot. Obviously the most key thing to focus your lighting on is your subject. But for overall image quality, you should also light your backgrounds appropriately. If you know nothing about film lighting, it&#8217;s definitely worth getting a good book reading up.
You might also find it a lot easier if you turn off the auto-exposure and auto-focus functions on your camcorder and do them manually &#8211; particularly if you are tilting/panning or moving the camera. If your camera does not allow manual exposures/focus, then you are making life extremely difficult for yourself and should really consider upgrading to one that does.
A good poor-man&#8217;s trick for taking the edge of low-grade video equipment involves raiding your girlfriend&#8217;s (or you own) pantyhose drawer&#8230; Stretch sheer stocking across the lens using elastic bands, as it helps with that electronic picture look a little grainier. Your best bet is with black stockings, but experiment with other colours for bizarre effect.

Question 57

I&#8217;ve heard some people finance films with credit cards. How?

Accepted Answer

Over the past few years many enterprising filmmakers have managed to pull together enough money from a fistful of credit cards to bring their low-budget dreams to celluloid.  Most of the budget for Kevin Smith&#8217;s launch-pad film, Clerks, came from maxing out the plastic.  
The approach used by Smith and many others was to apply for as many credit cards as possible, then use the combined credit limit as production finance.  Today&#8217;s credit card market is ultra-competitive, but also massively lucrative, so there are thousands of companies vying for the chance to offer you credit.  It has never been easier for most people to obtain credit cards, and there are many exceptional deals such as interest-free periods, permanent low rates for balance transfers, and credit card cheques.  There are even loads of web sites which track which companies are offering the best deals.  So long as you have a good credit history already (and you&#8217;re over 18 years of age), it can be quite easy to raise several thousand dollars or more.
However, it&#8217;s worth taking a moment to consider the implications of hocking up a bunch of cards to pay for your next film.  The obvious concern of course is, how are you going to pay them off?  Minimum repayments will start almost immediately, even if you get introductory interest rates.  And credit card companies might be all warm and friendly when signing you up, but they will turn nasty the instant you miss a payment.  Film financing is an extremely risky venture, and the vast majority of films never make their money back.  If you&#8217;ve financed your film with credit cards, and it doesn’t make any money, you&#8217;ll be lumped with the debt.  This can expose your assets (house, car, etc) to the debt collectors if you fail to keep up the repayments.  
If you are considering using credit cards as a means of financing your film, the best advice would be to develop a rock solid, well-researched business plan so you&#8217;re clear on how (and when) you&#8217;ll make your money back.

Question 58

I&#8217;ve just written this awesome script. Does anyone have [insert name of famous filmmaker]&#8217;s email address?

Accepted Answer

Time for a quick reality check. If you were Spielberg (or any other famous filmmaker), would you leave your email address (or any other personal contact details for that matter) open to the public domain. Of course not. Think about it. For every one bona fide contact you got, there would probably be a thousand more from wanna-bes, fans, crazy people and even critics. You just wouldn&#8217;t be able to deal with it. Unfortunately the more famous you are, the larger the &#8220;barriers&#8221; you need to set up between yourself and the general public.
Besides, even if it was possible to just email a famous filmmaker with your proposal, there are several other things working against you. Firstly and most importantly, for legal reasons they would not be able to even read your script &#8211; plagiarism is very real in Hollywood and people will do their best to avoid any possible exposure to such accusations. Secondly, regardless of whether your script is magic or crap, it may just not be the kind of project they are looking at doing at this moment in time. Finally, top filmmakers have extremely busy schedules and they may well be booked up until the end of time as we know it with other projects.
The best way to get your script to the parties you are interested in is through the proper channels (i.e. a damn good agent) or by using extremely creative means to have it &#8220;land&#8221; in the appropriate lap. The latter is of course considerably harder than it sounds as scripts are often read by many people before they are exposed to top directors. It&#8217;s also worth considering what the individual director&#8217;s approach to taking on projects is. For example, Steven Spielberg generally doesn&#8217;t write his own screenplays, so it is probably 0.000000000000001% more likely that he would do your script than say, James Cameron, who pretty much always works on scripts that he has written. Basically, the best advice is, try by all means, just don&#8217;t get too disillusioned when it doesn&#8217;t happen. Make the film yourself!

Question 59

I&#8217;ve just written this awesome script. Does anyone have [insert name of famous filmmaker]&#8217;s email address?

Accepted Answer

Time for a quick reality check. If you were Spielberg (or any other famous filmmaker), would you leave your email address (or any other personal contact details for that matter) open to the public domain. Of course not. Think about it. For every one bona fide contact you got, there would probably be a thousand more from wanna-bes, fans, crazy people and even critics. You just wouldn&#8217;t be able to deal with it. Unfortunately the more famous you are, the larger the &#8220;barriers&#8221; you need to set up between yourself and the general public.
Besides, even if it was possible to just email a famous filmmaker with your proposal, there are several other things working against you. Firstly and most importantly, for legal reasons they would not be able to even read your script &#8211; plagiarism is very real in Hollywood and people will do their best to avoid any possible exposure to such accusations. Secondly, regardless of whether your script is magic or crap, it may just not be the kind of project they are looking at doing at this moment in time. Finally, top filmmakers have extremely busy schedules and they may well be booked up until the end of time as we know it with other projects.
The best way to get your script to the parties you are interested in is through the proper channels (i.e. a damn good agent) or by using extremely creative means to have it &#8220;land&#8221; in the appropriate lap. The latter is of course considerably harder than it sounds as scripts are often read by many people before they are exposed to top directors. It&#8217;s also worth considering what the individual director&#8217;s approach to taking on projects is. For example, Steven Spielberg generally doesn&#8217;t write his own screenplays, so it is probably 0.000000000000001% more likely that he would do your script than say, James Cameron, who pretty much always works on scripts that he has written. Basically, the best advice is, try by all means, just don&#8217;t get too disillusioned when it doesn&#8217;t happen. Make the film yourself!

Question 60

If I use fake guns in a public place am I leagally obligated to inform the local police?

Accepted Answer

Although in most countries you are unlikely to find a law which requires filmmakers to notify the local police if they are shooting scenes in public which involve fake guns (or other weapons), it is usually a good idea to get them involved. Shooting scenes with any sort of fake weapons needs careful planning and management &#8211; the last thing you want is for some old lady to call the police on you because she thinks she sees a bunch of guys with guns running around outside her house. It is very much within the power of most police forces to arrest people who appear to be causing public distress.
It&#8217;s always better to have the police on-side so keeping them in the loop will help all concerned.

Question 61

Is it necessary to obtain a release from everyone whose face appears on camera?

Accepted Answer

The short answer&#8230; yes.
Privacy laws vary from country to country, but in most developed countries you need to gain permission from a person to use their image in a media project of any kind if they are identifiable in the piece. If the person is considered to be a minor (usually those under 18 years of age) in the jurisdiction where you are shooting, you will normally need to have a parent or legal guardian sign consent on their behalf instead.
Legitimate news gathering organisations often have special exemptions from these rules as they are generally considered to be operating &#8220;in the public interest,&#8221; but filmmakers (including documentary-makers) do not enjoy this exemption and must therefore get everyone who is recognisable in the film to sign a release form. Without the release, anyone who appears in your film may be able to sue you for using their image without permission, may prevent you from distributing your film, or may even demand a cut of the profits.
If you are shooting with actors or in a controlled environment, make sure you get releases signed at the outset. Leaving it until later on or after your shoot is a very bad idea &#8211; what if you lose contact with the actor or have a falling out? It&#8217;s better to have the releases signed so at least you can use the footage.
If you are shooting on location, always carry some blank releases with you. It&#8217;s best to try and avoid getting members of the public in your shots, but if it&#8217;s unavoidable, it&#8217;s worth trying to get them to sign a release (if you ask nicely, many people won&#8217;t mind). If you can’t get a release, you&#8217;d better forget using that shot.
For documentaries (particularly involving crowds), releases can be a nightmare, but they are normally required none-the-less. Some ticketed live events may include a condition to agree to be filmed in a crowd as part of the terms of issue, but don&#8217;t rely on this. You&#8217;ll need to discuss access with the event organisers anyway, so you should also use this opportunity to find out more about the legal implications of filmming people in the crowd (something that should probably also be discussed with an entertainment lawyer).
Finally, the other reason why you should get a release for everyone who is identifiable in your film is that most distributors will require you to prove &#8220;chain of title&#8221; (i.e. that you own all of the intellectual property in the film). This includes rights which are created during the course of the production in areas such as performance or the images of people you use. In order to prove chain of title, you need to have a paper trail, and that means release forms. Without them, you may severely limit your distribution options as most commercial distributors will not take the risk of picking up films where chain of title isn&#8217;t complete.
In summary, unless you are an accredited news gathering organisation, you must get a signed release form for anyone who is identifiable in your film.

Question 62

Is it possible to edit individual frames of a film without high-end equipment?

Accepted Answer

By &#8220;individual frames&#8221;, I take it you mean that the footage is already on you computer. If this is the case then easy, I do this all the time&#8230; hey if anythings worth doing, then it&#8217;s worth doing frame by frame. 
Use Photoshop and either Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. In Final Cut make a new sequence, then copy and paste your clip you need the frames from into new sequence then export your sequence using Quicktime conversion as individual frames. Import the frames into Photoshop and go about your business, however many frames you edit re-import these back into Final Cut and put them above your previous sequence clip in the right places. In Premiere you just export frame and it is the same process.

Question 63

Should I bother to record sound on set if it&#8217;s all done in post?

Accepted Answer

These days a large percentage of a film&#8217;s soundscape is designed and created in post-production.  Actors record ADR (also known as &#8216;looping&#8217;) in sound booths, foley artists create sound effects, and sound designers build complex soundscapes from a whole range of sources.  So if sound is done in post, should you bother recording sound on location?  
The short answer is yes, for several reasons:
Firstly, for reference.  It&#8217;s extremely helpful in post to have the set or location sound available as a reference for the sound designer.  Everything from ambience to sounds caused by physical action on set is extremely useful to help the sound designer understand the practical needs of the shot and ultimately make the sound track feel more real.
Secondly, because you may end up using some of it.  Depending on the type of scene being shot and the location, it is possible to record sound that you might want to use in the final mix.  Anything from incident sound effects to dialogue comes with all the ambience of the location built in.  This can help you sound feel more natural. 
Lastly, time.  Building sound tracks and doing ADR with actors takes time.  If you are able to use some of the sound and/or dialogue you recorded on set, you can save time in post by not having to re-record everything.  Your actors will be happier (most actors hate looping) and your sound designer will most likely welcome any reduction in their workload, not matter how small.
So the upshot is, always record sound on set whether you expect to use it or not.

Question 64

Should I go to film school?

Accepted Answer

Well, that is the big question isn&#8217;t it. Like everything, the jury is divided right down the middle on this one.
Obviously the biggest advantage of going to film school is &#8220;total immersion for an extended period of time.&#8221; What this means is that during your course, you become deeply involved in filmmaking as a way of life (believe me, it is). Through this, you a) train your mind to think in a filmic way, and b) can make a pretty objective decision on whether film is indeed the career for you.
Another key advantage of going to film school is that you are getting an education at the same time, and more importantly, you are given the opportunity to think about what you (and others) are putting on screen as well as putting it there yourself. Any decent author will tell you, the wider your pool of knowledge, the more successful a writer you will be. This is true for filmmaking too; the more diverse a slate of cinema you are exposed to, the greater the tools you will have available to you when you come to make your own. George Lucas (USC) and Francis Ford Coppola (UCLA) are two examples of successful filmmakers who used film school to get their careers moving.
Of course, the big downer related to going to film school is the cost (particularly if you are in the USA). Tuition fees can be quite high (particular for private schools), and you often have to pay addition production consumable fees for your student projects. On top of this, there&#8217;s of course living expenses for what will most likely be one to three years (and most decent courses have extremely intense timetables which make it difficult to rely on part-time work as a means of supporting yourself).
Many successful low-budget filmmakers have looked at film school from the point of view of, &#8220;Hey, it&#8217;s going to cost me $20,000 a year in tuition for three years &#8211; I may as well make some low-budget features with that kind of money.&#8221; This attitude has got many of the indie new wave where they are today. Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith are good examples here.
At the end of the day, whether to go to film school or not is a very personal decision. Some people will thrive in the educational environment, while others may find the rigid structures stifling. You need to think about it long and hard.
For further reading, we recommend checking out a couple of excellent articles on the subject in the Movie Maker online archives:
Is Film School Right for You?Directors Debate: How Valuable is Film School?How to Make Film School Work for You

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What Is Crystal Sync? A Guide to Perfect Sync Sound Film

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The Editors' Top 10 Film Schools Worldwide

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What is a “development deal”?

Is it necessary to obtain a release from everyone whose face appears on camera?

What Is a Deal Memo, and When Do You Need One?

What do the little letters mean after some people’s names in the credits?

How do I film a scene of someone being shot, and showing blood?

What is pilot tone?

What’s the significance of ‘In Alphabetical Order’ cast listings?

What 16mm cameras can be picked up cheaply?

Do you need to form a company to make a film?

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