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

Pre-production

Logistics and crew. Working out a budget

DV is less expensive

The size of your budget should be part of the decision-making process from the start of the devel­opment process. How much or how little you have will play a key role in deciding what kind of film you make.

A DV film is going to cost far less than its conventional analog or celluloid forerunner. Moreover, get­ting high quality, or even broadcast quality, images is now within reach of most micro-budget film­makers, throwing up the possibility that a first movie by an unknown director will be of sufficient technical quality to find a buyer, leading to distribution. Until now, the best a low-budget director could hope for was to work on 16 mm film, which could be blown up to academy 35 mm at great expense should the film find its way into theatres. Soon, however, the debut DV director could be showing a film on digital projectors, beamed from satellite to theatres, saving huge costs previously spent on printing copies of the movie on celluloid.

Equipment

Getting hold of equipment also used to take some ingenuity. Expensive film cameras, rolls of film, lights and editing units were all guaranteed to take up a large slice of a budget, but digital camcorders are now getting cheaper with each new model and arriving with added features. Editing software is likely to have been bundled free onto your PC, while others still can be downloaded free from the Internet.

A common way of getting hold of equipment is to use facilities at weekends. Ask local companies or production houses whether you can borrow cameras, lights or other items when they are not being used. It sounds like a tall order but it is surprising how often it works.

Interview

You should realize that film isn't all about money - it's also about time. If you give your­self more time to accomplish something you can mitigate the fact that you're doing it for very little money. In the time you give yourself you could have an idea that will add real production value to the film you're making, you could add finesse to a shot a couple more times resulting in a better scene; you could do another draft of the script when the film has been cast, honing it to actors' strengths. The possibilities are endless; all you need to know is that with enough time and imagination (and not money) there shouldn't be much of a limit to what you can do with the story you're telling.'