Introduction to Fiction Production

Visualization is the process of translating an idea from our mind into motion picture and sound on the screen.

Story is the most important consideration of any project.

No one has ever been unable to make a movie because they did not have a camera.

The more time and energy a moviemaker invests in pre-production, the higher quality the end product.

The hallmark of a professional moviemaker is their ability to fund their project in development and sell the project in distribution.

Moviemaking can be broken down into five distinct phases; development, pre-production, production, post production and distribution.

The budget summary used by executives to outline the above-the-line creative positions and the below-the-line technical positions.

The writer is a thinker. The challenge of the writer is to face down the empty page and take those ideas floating around in their head and develop them into a fully formed story.

The producer is a person of action. They will take an idea, gather the resources and see the idea through to the end. The producers challenge is to determine if the idea is worth the effort.

To ensure that your short film is as producible as possible, be aware of the number of characters, number and types of locations and the number of pages in the script.

You should pitch your concept to as many people as possible and shape it based on criticism and feedback. Invite criticism.

You should let your imagination run wild and free but realize that not every idea should be produced, or can be produced right now.

A risky or unique concept is one of the few advantages an independent film has over a studio picture. You must embrace risk-taking and shun convention to be successful.

Many times, the most difficult thing is getting the first words on the page. If you have having difficulty getting started, put words and ideas down without worrying about structure or rules.

You must be able to crystallize the concept of your movie into a single, simple expression.

Many independent films suffer from a lack of clarity, which can almost always be traced to poor structure. Breaking from convention is encouraged but if the result is confusion, look at your story structure.

The concept of your screenplay should be reducible to a few sentences. Without this clarity, you cannot build a story.

Invest time in determining how your concept is different from others and how it might be the same. This will save you from unwittingly remaking another film.

Real characters have flaws and are rich in detail. Do your research and background work to discover the true nature of your character.

Knowing what drives your protagonist forward is the key to understanding what your story is about and how it will develop.

The transformation of the character over time is what we preoccupied with, how our characters overcome obstacles and deal with the aftermath reveals things about them and ourselves.

If you do not follow proper script formatting guidelines, you are sinking your ship before you even get it in the water.

Scriptwriting Programs will help you with speed and help you adhere to formatting guidelines; they will not make you a better writer.

Scripts contain scene headings, dialogue and action.

Leave the acting to the actors. Do not include parentheticals, notations on emotion or any actions that do not directly advance the plot.

Do not allow your script to go to production until all of the problems have been addressed.

You have to know yourself and know what feedback to incorporate and what feedback to reject.

No one puts words onto paper flawlessly the first time. Be hard on your idea and yourself and work through every aspect until it is perfect.

The difference between a project and a script are attachments. Attachments are the necessary resources to get the project completed.

A producer has the ability to bring the necessary resources to the project and get commitments from cast, crew and vendors.

If you have a strong script, people are more likely to be attracted to your project and makes producing a far easier task.

Nearly all other players in the process have a tactical approach to the film. The producer must have a strategic vision.

Read the script carefully to identify what the unique things are about this script that will be obstacles to overcome.

Interiors and Exteriors both offer challenges and advantages. Be familiar with each and take that into account.

Many changes can be made to the script without sacrificing the story. Anything that can be done to make the story easier to tell without compromising the story should be made now.

Always take time to thoroughly read the script and know the challenges you will face before giving the project the green light.

Moviemaking involves an enormous amount of preparatory work in pre-production. Be prepared to invest yourself in the process.

Pre-production splits into two concurrent paths; the logistical planning and preparation and the director's visualization.

With the start of pre-production, many jobs come into play. Although an individual might fulfill many roles, they should know they are doing the work of many people.

Bring as many of your crew to walk through the locations: Sound Mixer, DP, Production Designer. It will help significantly in planning.

The sooner you find locations and cast your actors, the sooner you can start scheduling.

Breaking down the script is one of the first tasks for the Assistant Director. This is done so that different departments can do their preparatory work.

Scheduling is one of the most challenging and time consuming aspects of pre-production and the domain of the Assistant Director.

Firming up a schedule is a complex task, the earlier you start, the less chance you have of getting in a last minute jam.

Determine what your priority list is for elements and what the scheduling restrictions are. Start with the highest priority and work your way down the list; when you reach conflicts it should be with elements that can be replaced.

The film industry uses a common vocabulary to describe the framing of shots.

Cutaways are critically important to enhance the meaning of the main action, but also to maintain continuity.

The Director's visualization is broken down into discrete individual elements called "shots".

The first visualization we have in our head when we read the script is flawless but romanticized. We do not have a real visualization until it has been defined and refined through shot list and storyboard.

Speaking in general terms, wide shots tend to communicate and explain. More information is contained in a wider framing, including setting, geography and relative positioning.

Close-ups magnify emotional responses and deliver a greater rhetorical impact. Close-ups are often reserved for the climax of the scene.

By breaking down a scene from a movie into shots and examining what framing and angles were used, we can teach ourselves the art of directing.

The dramatic curve can not only be seen in the context of the entire movie but also in subsets of the film in scenes or sequences of scenes.

The director must understand the emotional content of the material to build a shot list and construct a plan for shooting a scene.

The director must know all angles and perspectives and make decisions about what parts of the scene to cover from which angles.

The director cannot shoot all angles. It will wear out the cast and crew, waste time and kill morale. The director must have a vision.

Give the editor options by covering the action in the scene from more than one angle.

The best edit is one that is not seen. We have a number of tricks that we can use to hide an edit.

Conditions can be exploited to make an invisible edit; they can be placed on a hierarchy from most effective to least effective.

The director can do their shot planning in such a way to deliver strong opportunities for the editor to make the transitions between shots.

The storyboard is a critical tool for communicating our directorial vision to the director of photography. The camera department needs pictures, not words, to help you create the images you want to capture.

The storyboard will help us see our shots in a completely different way and help us take the next step in developing our vision.

Storyboards should not have artistic detail in the same way that the script should not contain prose. Storyboards are reference material and not a work onto itself.

You should never be in a position where you do not know what is going to happen in advance. Storyboards help eliminate grey areas and uncertainty and tell you where the camera will be placed.

Storyboards represent the director's road map for shooting. The better developed the visualization, the fewer adjustments need to be made in production.

Good preparation and careful development of the visualization should mean that the storyboard matches the final shot. Some deviations will occur but what you plan should be what you shoot.

One can expect that minor deviations from the Storyboard will happen, adjustments will always need to be made in production. However, these adjustments should be minor.

The director should create their own storyboards to retain control the style and help refine their visualization.

Creating your storyboards requires careful consideration of your shots, the movement of actors through the space and the relationship between objects. Invest time into using this tool to refine your vision.

You would be well advised to walk through the storyboards with the DP, get his or her input, and use that feedback for a revision. It is especially valuable to do this in the actual physical space where the movie will be shot.

The camera diagram helps us see our shots, the movements of the actors and the physical space in a new way.

It is critical that we know the properties of the physical space we will be working in to design the camera diagram.

Seeing our camera placements laid out on the diagram helps us see which shots are similar and which ones can be eliminated.

The camera diagram helps us identify where each set-up will be made in advance. It is critical that the director know each position before production begins.

Finding a production procedure and adhering to it provides a rhythm for the crew and a standardized way to coordinate groups operations.

Without a strict leadership hierarchy, the production will fall into chaos and breakdown.

The Assistant Director makes sure that everything and everyone is in place to do each shot and ensures nothing stands in the way of the next shot.

The Art Department, headed by the Production Designer, creates a look and feel for the production with all of the elements we see in the frame - wardrobe, set, make-up, hair and props.

The director of photography manages a sizable team that can include grips (camera support), gaffer (lighting) and camera assistants.

The difference between an independent film and a student film is good sound.

Do not treat sound as an afterthought. Use a trained sound person that will take care to capture quality audio on location.

You cannot recreate dialogue easily or accurately in post production. Get it right the first time.

The Production Designer is one of the most influential positions when it comes to the look and feel of the movie.

The goal of the Art Department is to create a completely believable environment that supports the director's vision.

The cinematography has an extraordinary number of things to keep in mind and the position requires an ability to focus on the task at hand.

It's easy to get distracted by complex shots and forget basics that can totally destroy the entire shoot. First things first.

Controlling light is a far more important skill for the cinematography than operating the camera.

Mise-en-scene can be defined as the arrangement of objects in the frame.

Keep errant objects out of the frame to avoid expensive fixes in post.

Do not center your subject in the frame. More powerful and pleasing compositions can be had by aligning your subject(s) along vertical or horizontal thirds of the frame.

Lens and camera choices can create greater or lesser ranges of distance in front of the lens that are in focus.

With a shallow depth of field, the camera operator can choose which objects in the frame to focus the attention of the viewer.

In wider shots with a variable focal length (zoom) lens, focusing on distant objects can be difficult. Push in to the subject, find your focus, then pull back out to get a critical focus.

Latitude is a term to describe the range of luminance that can be resolved, or seen, by a particular format.

A stop is a measurement of light. Two stops is equal to twice the amount of light as one stop. You can control the amount of light in your image by using the aperture and the shutter speed.

Aperture refers to the size of an opening in the lens which can be adjusted to allow more or less light to pass through the lens.

The Kelvin Scale, measured in degrees, is a scale of the color temperature of light.

Different light sources have different colors. Our eye fools us into seeing them all as the same.

The camera must be explicitly told what is white. It can guess with automatic settings but as with exposure and focus, you need an operator to verify and manipulate these settings.

Using a slate, or clapboard, is a critically important organizational tool for post production.

Without accurate camera logs, the post production team will need to spend a great deal more time organizing and managing footage.

Be sure to call out the shot when you use your visual marker. In many cases, a poorly marked slate can be identified by the audio, and vice versa.

The editor may be the main player in post production but he or she is not working alone. Many other roles come into play in post.

Keep the producer and director out of the editing room until a rough cut is complete. Let the editor do their job, there will be plenty of opportunity to make changes.

A post team that was never on the set will not be emotionally attached to any of the footage. You want their sole focus to be forging a quality movie and telling a story.

Post Production is much more predictable and less stressful than production. Managing a post production schedule is much easier than production.

The rough cut is about shot selection and shot order. Do not worry about timing. Your efforts will be wasted when you are instructed to rebuild sequences after the first viewing.

When the producer or director has signed off on picture lock, there will be no more changes to the edit. Get signatures on paper. Any changes to the edit after this point will be painful and expensive.

Your fine cut has to play and be watchable without music. Do not rely on music to rescue a scene. Music will make it better but the scene needs to play without it.

Time spent in post production can be easily estimated with these rules of thumb: one hour per minute for the rough cut, another hour for the fine cut and another hour for sound editing.

The well is often dry when the movie gets to Post Production. Be sure to allot sufficient resources to cover all the tasks and requirements of your project in post.

With digital productions, it is easy to shoot mountains of footage. This can come at the detriment of the post production team - be sure you know the shooting ratio before planning post.

Don't be fooled by the technical requirements of the job. An editor must understand how to tell a story or they will forever be confined to twisting knobs for someone else.

The editor must see everything that has been shot, you never know what you can use for the project.

The movie has been shot around a director's plan for the final product. An editor must be able to see that plan in the footage and follow the path left for them by the director.

Editors solve problems. There will be problems with the footage - in amateur films, there may be an enormous number of issues. There are solutions and the editor is obligated to find them.

One of the harder parts of editing is choosing to leave things out. Just because you have the footage doesn't mean you have to use it.

Intuitive editing often leads to the best decisions. Agonizing over every single option and possibility will destroy perspective.

You can tighten the edit a great deal by cutting stale footage at the heads and tails of a shot to keep the story moving along. Hold on your moments - cut everything else to a smart clip.

The difference between a student film and an independent film is good sound.

A sound track contains four elements: dialogue, narration, sound effects and music.

The importance of music to the emotional impact of your film is grossly disproportionate to the relative investment of time and money. Do not take your music lightly or treat it as an afterthought.

Post Production sound requires its own team of talented artists. Treat the process with respect and allot sufficient time and money to do it right.

You cannot fix bad production audio in post production and actor's dialogue cannot be easily or accurately produced in post. Get it right the first time and you will be set for a strong sound track.

Mixing all of your audio together is an art onto itself. If your engineer is not paying close attention to detail, important information and carefully designed nuances can be lost.

The sound designer will create a rich, multi-layered audio experience around the image and engage the audience on a completely different level.

The goal of location sound is to get all signal and no noise. We need to add ambience in place of the noise to make the space sound natural, but natural in a way that we can control.

Sound effects can come from many sources, many of which may not exist in nature. A talented Sound Designer will use their imagination to create or find sounds with a wide range of objects and tools that may have no relation to the image on the screen.

A pre-recorded song will not match the emotional cues of your movie in the same way as a custom score.

It is not difficult to find a composer willing to create a score for your film; most are talented and professional.

Many programs are available to create loop based music in sync to image on the screen. The internet abounds with loops that can be downloaded. Some programs, like Sound Track Pro, come with a collection of samples.

Distribution is the most important phase of the process. This is where we put our idea and ourselves out into the world to have an impact on others.

Creating a movie is a five phase process that leads back onto itself. Distribution flows to development, your plan for distribution should influence your development.

Always look forward to what you want to accomplish with this project but also the next project and the one after that.

You will need to communicate your idea to the world in a way that they will understand. Know the conventions of the media kit.

How your concept is presented to the world is an important part of the creative process. Don't hand over this responsibility in the most critical phase of your project.

Your marketing efforts will be crippled without high resolution production stills. Remember to bring a photographer onto your set for at least one day to get good still photos.

Amateur key art will repel viewers from your project - they will judge it based on a glance. Money spent on a talented and experienced artist will yield results tenfold in value.

Although the internet projects our movie around the world, we will never have the kind of feedback we can gain from a live screening. You will learn more about the movie and yourself when you see the live reaction of an audience.

The applause of the audience has provided motivation and encouragement for countless filmmakers. Don't be afraid to feed off this energy.

You will meet people at festivals that love movies and moviemaking. These are your future collaborators and supporters. Meet them face-to-face, engage with them and it will help propel you forward to your next project.

The Internet is the only medium where independent filmmakers can compete on the same level as a studio. There's no excuse not to leverage it to your advantage.

The website is at the core of the internet marketing campaign and that last destination for all of your marketing efforts. Build it first.

Video sharing sites provide visibility to popular videos. You must actively work to drive that buzz by sending people to your video.

The more people you have talking about your project, the more people will talk about your project. Critical mass is the key but remember that in the beginning you will have to fight for each fan.