Child of tip – Production
Continuity’s still important! If you’re using a revolver in your movie, make sure the bullet counts are accurate. Nothing makes you look more dorky than a character talking about how she only has one bullet left when the viewer can plainly see five.
(more…)Continuity’s important. For each “movie” day, make a quick sketch of what each character’s wearing and make sure you double-check that sketch against what you’re shooting. This is not something you can easily fix in post.
(more…)Regarding cables, lights, power supplies and other things plugged into the wall: These things should not get hot. If they feel hot to you, tell someone immediately. You don’t want them getting any hotter, and you definitely don’t want them to start smoking or burst into flame.
(more…)If you’re using a monitor (which you are, right?), then do your best to calibrate it. Calibration is simply setting the contrast, brightness, color levels, and other controls to be as accurate as possible.
(more…)Always use a monitor so that you can see what the camera sees without making your DoP move. On rare occasions, a monitor is contraindicated, but those are very rare occasions. You always want to know what the camera’s seeing.
(more…)If you must use a sprinkler to simulate rain, position it high enough so it doesn’t look like someone’s peeing on your actors.
(more…)Yes, being on a film set can be fun, but think very hard before allowing people on set who are neither cast not crew. They can be dangerous wildcards.
Spooky locations where mischief can happen invite mischief, such as dark woods, insane asylums, corn mazes, etc. Assign people to buddy groups for safety.
(more…)If you’re shooting at a natural location, such as a beach or a forest, when you’re all done, pass out trash bags and everybody wander around picking up trash and making it prettier. Not just your production’s stuff, but spread out. Make your group the Entropy Decreasing Group.
(more…)If you want someone to move very, very creepy in a movie, have them move backwards and reverse the video. If they move quickly, the illusion is blown, but if they move slowly and in a somewhat linear fashion, the audience won’t q-u-i-t-e know what’s going on, and that’ll freak ‘em out.
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