Advice for Aspiring Film Makers

[Dazza]

Hi

As we are all obviously very much into the same thing what is the best advice we can give each other in low budget short film making?

I like Shane use lots of friends and family in my films and they always love to be involved and give it there best. I even have a Paddy Considine to use which is brilliant in my mate Paul. I only came across this site today and already have looked at some of Shane's tips which were great.

Usually the films i make are weekend projects.

I have made about 4 short films now and all have been more or less test work for the bigger picture when i have finally written it.

So far to make my films they have been shot on several Sony Digital 8 Camcorders and edited via Sony Vegas 4.0 software. Does anyone know any better ways of making amateur short films or any better software to use?

What are people doing in regards to music in there films? I was using other artists music which I have been told is illegal so have redone the music using my own work which is alright but nothing special, one idea i had was to try and work with local bands as it would be promoting there work in your films?

Once u have a good short film whats the best way to get it seen? Local film competitions? What are people doing in regards to sound quality?

I have no qualifications in film just a passion for making them and sometimes i think this can be enough if you can make the right film and the right people see it.

Shane has been a big inspiration and Romeo Brass and Dead mans shoes were fantastic, two of my all time favorite films. I even have one of those Russian gas masks for a future film when i can think of one to use it in lol.

If anyone has any advice to share please do, oh by the way a free way to get your films seen is to use video.google.com and put them on there in like 2 weeks I had 500 hits on my films, the only downside is there is no feedback or comments area on there.

[Dave]

Loads of cool questions there but I'm not really one to answer them. I'm sure you'll get some helpful replies from others!

I see you have tempted us with tales of how many hits your short films have received on Google Video... yet you fail to link us up to them! What a tease! haha

Come on, give us the links! You'll get feedback then which you aren't getting on Google Video!

[RydCook]

hey, great to see more short film makers on the site, i mysef make short films, and am inspired by shane and his passion, and his belief that making shorts is a very important part of a film making career. i'll try an answer some of your questions as best i can.

"So far to make my films they have been shot on several Sony Digital 8 Camcorders and edited via Sony Vegas 4.0 software. Does anyone know any better ways of making amateur short films or any better software to use?"

i suggest you get a DV camera, as they are inexpencive and higher quality its also much better to edit with DV footage. the camera i would recomend is a Canon 800i (make sure it has Dv in and out so you can get your footage onto a computer and off it) this camera is very sturdy and will last, i've never had any problem with Canon products, and it should do fine, nice and easy to use and cheap. if you however, have more money the i recomend a Canon XM2 which i use, which has awesome picture quality, and you can get great sound quality with it, this will cost about 1600 though. as for editing, i highly recomend a Mac, for simplicity and great results, iMovie comes free with the computer, and is an awesomely effect and easy program to use, also with it comes garage band, which is perfect to make your music for your films in, record your mates stuff, or even use the 100s of samples included. chepest mac. should be about 500 i think for a mac mini? then all you need is an average monitor, you may allready have one. but i'd say iMovie is perfect for starting out in film making, and a mac gives you everything you need, including firewire ports for importing your footage, and you will need a firewire too of course! thats what i recomend camera/editing wise anyway!

"What are people doing in regards to music in there films? I was using other artists music which I have been told is illegal so have redone the music using my own work which is alright but nothing special, one idea i had was to try and work with local bands as it would be promoting there work in your films?"

i also had trouble with this, i won a competition recently for a film i made, it was going to be shown on TV but they can't because i used a prodigy track for the music, shame really. so anyway, if you do use artists music then all you need to do is get it cleared, should be able to do it by contacting the artist, or the record company. i strongly suggest you do use local bands, or mates you know who know how to use intruments. for my new film i had my mate who is a guitarist play a riff for the film, and it fitted pefectly. so i recomend this, especially in garage band on mac, because i could record the riff straight to the video to fit it perfectly! im sure the bands who do it for youwould love the promotion, all you'd need is a credit at the end.

"Once u have a good short film whats the best way to get it seen? Local film competitions?"

yes exactly that, also try to make a website that features all your videos (macs also come with iWeb a simple website editor, man i seem like im bumming apple to the max here.) could make a blog too, and then use the code from your google videos to put them on your blog, then you cna get feedback and link us to your films eher! we'll give feedback!

hope this all helped, and good luck with future films and getting them seen, any more questions i'd be happy to answer, link us to your fims! see ya

[fattaxi]

Editing Software

I have used the following programmes:
Final Cut Pro
Adobe Premier
Liquid Pinnacle
Avid

The best two i've found are Final Cut and Avid which are both industry standard.

Cameras

As for cameras i can only really recommend cannon XM2 which I use and i'm sure RYD22 mentioned too, you get an awesome picture on DV.

Anything else you wanna ask feel free...

Si

[salvador]

With regards to music, I have found that if you search the internet and put posts up on music forums, you will get a load of feedback. I have got loads of music from bands this way, some crap and some really great. If you keep in touch with the good bands they will usually keep giving you tracks to use.

I think AVID is the best editing package but its damn expensive. I think you can get a version free on the AVID website though. Its like a promo copy, so that you will think about buying the real thing, but its got most of the features.

Buy a DV camera, like the other guys have said. Unless you are going for a certain style which you ca get from your Sony camera. I've got a mate who uses his digital camera to make his films and they are excellent.

[Dazza]

Hi Guys thanks for your advice its most apreciated. Here is a link to a couple of early films I did when I first started doing this last summer. Also you can put your own films on this site its better than video.google i found

livedigital.com/ANWNoQDDOg/content/user/30629

Bye for now

[RydCook]

hey live digital looks cool, i've made my self a profile over there now. i checked out one of your films "Trouble" i think it was called, its pretty good, simple story line, well acted and some nice shots. some of the shots were a bit wobbly, did you film it all handheld? if so i recomend getting a tripod to make the steady shots look better. also there were some rather dodgy sound cuts, which could probably be fixed in a program like final cut, where you can fade out the sound from another clip, while showing a different clip of video making it sound like its all happening there and then and thus making the cuts less obvious. it was cool how you got the ambulance costumes, they were good actors too. i really liked the table scene where they told each other there troubles, good stuff there. i dont think the music was really fitting.. something more atmospheric would have worked (this is probably due to my hate of coldplay) anyway, great job, keep at it i'll watch your other films later.

[Dazza]

Hi RyD22

Thanks a lot for your advice in regards to trouble, your right about the camera shots they were done handheld I should have used my tripod for a more steady shot I need to do this on my next film. Also your right about the sound in this film, I did it all in Windows movie maker which was good and easy to begin with but not so good for editing, I am now using Sony Vegas 4.0 which seems much better and the picture quality seems to be better as well although the size of the files are much bigger now and are GB as opposed to MB so I am storing a lot on external hard drive.

Thanks for praising the actors they are friends and family mainly in the films and always willing to take part which is all good and u know who u are working with, my biggest struggle in my new film I think will be getting a lot of extras for a crowd scene that I am thinking of doing. I love that way people are so friendly and giving advice to each other on here, I have learnt so many tips and tricks from talking to people and watching other short films.

Nice one on getting on live digital I'll keep my eye out for you on there and if u have any films I'll be happy to see them, I have been on it a few days now and it seems a pretty good site also another good site for promoting your films is www.youtube.com its similar to live digital and people can rate and comment on your films. Ok bye for now

[Dave]

dazzab21 said:

Hi Guys thanks for your advice its most apreciated. Here is a link to a couple of early films I did when I first started doing this last summer. Also you can put your own films on this site its better than video.google i found

livedigital.com/ANWNoQDDOg/content/user/30629

Bye for now

Dazzab21... you should start a new thread with that link to your films in. I will then make it a 'sticky' post that stays at the top of the threads. That way more people may watch your films and leave feedback.
So far I have only watched 'The Farm' and that was great fun. Is it in anyway a homage to Tank Bullock?? There were plenty of bits made me laugh in that, and the two actors are pretty good. You can't see the self-awareness in their actions on cam much (if at all) that you usually get in amateur shorts.

[Dazza]

Hello Dave

I'll start a new thread then and see what happens, thanks for the positive feedback. This Tank Bullock charecter I'm guessing from things I have just read on here that he is a creation of Shane's I have never seen him though is there a link to Tank Bullock without me trawling the site? Lol no the characters wernt based on Tank although between u, me and the other people reading this site they were slightly based on a few real charecters, you see I live in the farming village of Bromham in Wiltshire in the South West not that far away from places like Somerset and in Bromham there are some very shall we say interesting charecters lol, I was listening to the guys from Little Britain and how they based a lot of there sketches on real charecters they had met.

This was the first film I ever made and shot it last summer, we actually filmed the whole film in about 2 hours and i did a first cut in about an hour and my mates and my bro who was Norbert in the film loved it and so for the rest of the summer we ended up making beginer style films and we shot about 5 in total over the summer and then..................my camera broke so i didnt really pursue anything over the winter apart from a Dead or Alive music video I did.

Anyway during this time I continued to watch british films or artistic films and watched making off's on the dvd extras and and logged some filming ideas in my memory and then low and behold last week i finally purchased a brand new Sony Handycam TRV265E from ebay at the fantastic price of £160 delivered to my door.....last week i shot my first little film for about 6 months called the gas man (u might recognise the gas mask i'm wearing from a certain Shane Meadows film lol) now forgeting the plot as there wasnt one i just filmed something last thursday but artistically the film was my best piece yet and for once i paid attention to small details (and i used a tripod) and i edited it in Sony Vegas 4.0 as opposed to windows movie maker.

So now with the camera up and working, 5 films written, a list of people wanting to be in the new films, a more artistic filming method and hopefully this summer soem good weather I'm hoping to have some intermediate level films online soon.

[Dave]

It all seems to be going nicely for you.. good one.

Tank Bullock?? Visit Shane's World and watch Tank's Top Tips!

www.channel4.com/film/makingmovies/microsites/S/shanes_world/shaneWorld_main.jsp

[Dazza]

Thanks Dave, tried looking at Tanks tips yesterday but my laptop hasnt got realplayer on it so will have to down load it and have a butchers