PRACTICAL DV FILMMAKING

Practical DV FilmMaking

• Overview
• Inside video
• Films and how they work
• Pre-production
• Production tools
• Production aesthetics
• Post-production tools
• Post-production aesthetics
• Careers and distribution
• Mapping the industry
• Glossary of film and video terms

As starting ideas, the following are examples of the mini-narratives you could choose:

• Escaping down a flight of stairs

• A short journey in a fast car

• A bad morning getting to work.

They each involve a direct progression in physical terms from A to B. These ideas may be simple but don't dismiss them just yet. By keeping the story to a minimum they enable you to focus attention on the way you tell the narrative; the fun (and the difficulty) comes in how and where you point the cam­era, what scenes you choose to show and how much you show. The multitude of choices is what makes filming stimulating.

To develop the idea a little more, make a list of the shots you think you will need to convey the action.

Stage 2: Visualizing

Follow the guidelines in Chapter 4:7, 'Visualizing your film', about sketching ideas for shots. List the shots you think you would like to shoot on one side of a sheet of paper, and then draw images that could represent these adjacent to them.

Stage 3: Shooting

With an in-cam edit movie, you will take the first scene on your list and shoot it. It may be useful to do a couple of rehearsals if there is action or dialogue. During a rehearsal, remain looking at the scene through the camera; this encourages you to stay on the lookout for new, better ways of shooting it. If the scene goes wrong, just rewind and tape over with a better version, but do so as accurately as you can, hitching the new clip seamlessly onto the last one. Carry on like this until you have completed the whole film.

Tip If an object or actor is static, the camera should be moving. If an object or actor is moving, the camera should be static.

Technical glitches

Cameras have their quirks and one of these is the tendency for some to rewind a couple of seconds once you stop filming. Manufacturers have good intentions with this, as it is designed to prevent 'snow' caused by the blank tape showing through between shots, so it rewinds slightly to overlap each piece of film onto the next. If yours does this, simply work out how much it is rewinding and build this into the length of the shot. If your shot is going to last 10 seconds, make it last 10 plus the extra, so it ends where you wanted it.

Evaluation

It is worth going over a few points to see what has been gained. First, don't worry if the final film dif­fers often from the initial plans. A good film is not judged by how closely you have followed a pre-set path