Tips on Filmmaking

My favorite movie of all time is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And ever since I watched Steven Speilbergs epic masterpiece trilogy on DVD....

I realized that there is a style to shooting in the classic "Saturday morning Serial" type of films. Since I am a huge fan of the films its always been a way of shooting my action movies ever since.

(Please Note: This is mostly towards the new mogulers out there who want to go outside and shoot a quick movie that they can throw together in the simplest of editing programs.)

So, I'm going to teach you about what I mean.

Steps

1) Rent or Buy the Indiana Jones trilogy (It just might do the teaching for me)

2) Buy or borrow a very small camera - I have found it very useful to have a small sized camera. I use the Canon ZR500 for now. But its small size allows me to get up close with running shots and fast fight scenes. This may not have been apart of Speilbergs style of shooting, but it gave me my own uniqueness.

3) Don't come up with a complicated story - Serials and the Indiana Jones movies have one thing in common. Almost every scene depicts our fedora clad hero going from point A to B. Which means, in your story give your hero ONE goal to accomplish, like beat the bad guy, or find the treasure. But of course before the end, give it a small twist and indicate that the story is to be continued "next week".

4) Plan a little, shoot a lot, AND FAST - Figure out what you want to shoot first. If you have your villain over your house and your hero isn't there for his close up, shoot all of the villains stuff when he is over your house. Then shoot all of the hero's stuff later. If you have a script, go through all of the things you can do in one day, if you don't finish, plan to shoot ahead the next day. Shoot fast, get all of the angles you think you may need, improvise if you have to.

5) After your done, edit it slowly - I remember I made a quick action movie and I finished shooting and editing it in one day. I left it a lone for a while, then when I came back to it I had made different cuts and effects that improved my movie a lot. Take your time when it comes to editing.

6) Go out and make another one - After your all done, go out and make more of these quick action movies. You'll notice that they get longer and more sophisticated for every one you make. You learn how to add more events in your story, shoot more with little time, and edit with perfection.

To all the younger filmmakers out there

If you really want to make movies, you will eventually do this and get into the habit of making a ton of short movies. Every one of them you learn from, and soon you will be able to figure out how to shoot that epic adventure movie you had planned to do so ambitiously when you first saw Erik put on that Zombie makeup.
Try doing something simpler, and you'll realize that the epic is going to be much harder than you think.

So get into practice of going out there and shooting quick movies when you're bored. You'll realize its fun and you'll get better at it.

And for all those mogulers who complain about how much they don't have. Thats great, the less you have to make your movies, the more creative you become. If you really want to make a movie, you'll figure out a way to make a movie all by yourself if you have to.

Now, stop sitting on your butts, grab your fedoras and GL2s and go and make some movies.

Answer your own questions on how to make a movie!