FILM GUIED Pre-Production Ideas for MoviesStuck for an idea for your next film??

Yeah? Well this really is a bad situation. Don't worry, read to the bottom of the page and your synapses will be buzzing furiously - ideas for films are easy to come by (unfortunately 'great film ideas' aren't). Sharpen your pencil and by the end of the page we'll have the next Citizen Kane (well, maybe not, but I'm sure we can manage a 'Chain Reaction').

The Idea is Everything

Get the idea, the one spark that gets your script going, and you've got your film. Most films that really grab you can be summed up in one line - this is usually called 'the pitch'. Don't believe me? Try these :

Jaws - 'Man afraid of water pursues killer shark' Reservoir Dogs - 'Diamond heist goes wrong.'Independence Day - 'Aliens invade Earth'Try to create a couple of these by asking yourself 'What if...'For example 'What if...an alien visitor gets left behind on Earth' (ET), 'What if...toys came to life' (Toy Story), 'What if...a lodger dies leaving behind a suitcase with a million pounds in it' (Shallow Grave).

Write down as many as you can as fast as you can. One might take your fancy. Scribble a couple of notes down around it. At this point don't self-censor - write everything down however dumb it seems. You're mining pure inspiration!

Tell your stories

The great thing about chucking around concepts for films is that you can talk through your ideas with others. Reading scripts takes a lot of effort. Chuck an idea in someone's face and they can immediately get involved. And every time you tell the story to someone it gets refined, you learn to tell the story better, people throw things back at you - 'why doesn't this happen?', 'couldn't she be a suspect', 'I'm not sure about the ending, but if they did escape...' The film starts to evolve. You find yourself thinking out aloud, adding new parts, cutting back on stuff if it gets a bad reception. Its a tradition of oral storytelling. Keep someone's attention in a busy pub for five minutes and you could probably entertain them on film. And the great thing there's no budget to worry about.Occasionally you meet people who can spot an idea a mile off - 'No, its been done - have you ever seen 'Assault on Precinct 13'. Don't let them worry you. Remember, your idea is your idea. Make the film and it will be different, because its your film. Although I would recommend that you avoid watching the other movie until you've finished it.

Time to create some more ideas.

Have a film pile-up. List a couple of movies, pretend each is a car and start ramming them into each other. Take a look at the wreckage and see if you can make a new movie. So totally randomly here's my attempt.

'The Omen' (horror, the devil etc.) Vs. 'The Money Pit' (Tom Hanks tries to renovate a house with hilarious consequences).

Hmm...OK how about a film about a yuppie couple who move to a house in the country. After a housewarming party a neighbour (well, neighbour in the country means 15 miles away) suggests a local builder that could help them out. The yuppies don't seem to notice that his mobile number has 666 in it, nor do they seem that that worried when the builder starts suggesting a deep red colour scheme throughout the house. It is only when they discover that their bedroom ceiling's plastering resembles a pentangle and the builder's rennovations include digging down through the cellar into an ancient burial ground that they start to worry - but by then it is too late.

OK, so maybe Hollywood won't be knocking at my door just yet, but you get the idea. There's a school of thought that says you shouldn't look for ideas for movies in other movies and that you should do something original. These are the people that hate Tarantino. They've got a point - but its still helpful to start smashing other movies up to kickstart your inspiration. Besides, I've a horrible feeling that this is how some films get made. Imagine, there's this producer chewing on a cigar shouting 'I got it!! 'Die Hard...on a boat!' - before setting cameras to roll on 'Under Seige'.

Ideas come from everywhere

Sitting in an empty room isn't going to inspire you - read a daily newspaper, get out to the theatre or nip down the pub. Don't push trying to get ideas, they'll come. Just get ready for when they do. Scribble as much down as fast and as soon as possible. Consider having some sort of film-makers journal so you can keep everything from getting lost. I've got a book now that's stuffed full of ideas - sometimes I'll come back to it and add things, sometimes ideas mature and start flowing into each other. Keep doing this and you'll start to have a number of projects, ideas that you can work on from time to time. This is exactly what real film-makers do (whoever they are). An idea can lounge around for years before finding that the situation is right to make it. French Director Luc Besson waited years to make 'The Fifth Element' after having the idea as a teenager.

Just because your film has a simple concept it doesn't mean your film has to be one dimensional. Don't think for a minute that simple concepts mean simple movies. All it means is that you know what your movie is really about. Get stuck developing it and you can always get back to its core. Everything in the movie stays relevant to the central story.

 

What makes a good idea?

What makes a good film? Same thing. If you can imagine your idea on the big screen then its probably going to make a good film. It needs to be visual (so no introspective characters) and like any good story has to have a beginning, middle and an end.

You have to fully exploit your idea, so if you've got a great beginning, make something else happen in the middle, then give it a good resolution. The story and the characters have to go somewhere. The audience has to care what happens to the characters. We have to empathize with them.

Boil a film down to its basics and what usually happens is this : A character gets involved in some sort of situation, which gives them an aim. They spend most of the movie struggling to achieve this aim, just before the end it becomes 'make-or-break' time and either they work out how to achieve the aim, or the aim gets more complicated, usually both. Then the story wraps itself up as the character sorts the problem out. Roll credits.

And Finally...

In the end it all comes down to two things. 1) Do you love the idea? You better do because when you are making the film and things go wrong (and they will) being in love with the idea is the only thing that will bring you through. And 2) Will your audience love the idea? Does everyone else you know think its great. Make a movie people want to watch. If you can get them to watch your film without them wanting to walk out, eject the tape or flip channels the idea is worth it.

Finito! End of my thoughts. Now quickly, run for a pencil and start scribbling. Good luck!

Script LayoutWhy does my screenplay have to be formatted?

So it's easy to read. It may be OK to have a scruffy looking script if you are the only one who will use it, but to allow your cast and crew to make sense of it applying a few rules of formatting makes it easier to read.

There are two main types of fictional screenplay - the spec script and the shooting script. The spec script is what gets sent out to producers and actors, but we can probably forget about that as we are going to pick up a camera ourselves, so we can write a shooting script.

Layout

Scripts are best typed on only one side of the paper in 12 point courier. Double spacing between lines allows you to read the script easier. Leave good borders around the script.

Keep to the above tips and you will have a well laid out script. This can help you time your script as now one page of screenplay will equal one minute of screen time.

Now take a read of the sample script below. Clicking on any of the underlined words will take you to an explanation of their place in a script layout.

Slug Lines - Business - Dialogue - Character Names - Sound - Camera Directions - Transitions - Do you wanna see what the final film looks

like?

Slug Lines

INT. FRANKENSTEIN'S LABORATORY - NIGHT

The scene heading/slug line. Consists of either INT. (Interior - eg. in a room) or EXT. (Exterior eg. on the street), the location (eg. CITY STREET. NEW YORK) followed by either DAY or NIGHT (Forget about morning/afternoon/sunset etc. as it makes no difference when it is being filmed - no one is going to shoot you for filming in the afternoon and pretending it is the morning).

Here's a few examples to give you a rough idea.

INT. MORTUARY - NIGHT

EXT. RACE TRACK - DAY

Scenes inside cars are INTeriors despite the fact that the car is outside. You may occasionally see EXT/INT or INT/EXT on a script. This occurs when the camera is in one location and the action is happening in another. For example :

INT/EXT. HOTEL LOBBY/CITY STREET - DAY

(The camera or a character is watching the action occuring outside)

EXT/INT. CAR/APARTMENT - NIGHT

(The camera or character are sitting in a car watching something happening through an apartment's window. Hey, maybe their on a stakeout or something!)

 

The Business

The scene direction/business. This tells the reader what is going on. Clear, concise. Always showing rather than telling. Don't say that :

DAVID is suffering inner torment because of his wife's kidnapping.

...show us!

DAVID runs his hands through his hair. Picks up a shot of bourbon, tastes it and winces. He throws the glass across the room, hitting the mirror which SHATTERS.

Oh yeah! Write in the present tense. It gives events and action much more immediacy, like they are really happening, which is what you want.

Dialogue

Dialogue appears in a column down the centre of the page indented from the business. Its in the form :

NAME(Direction)Hey, this is what your character says.

The name is straighforward right? It goes in Upper Case.

The direction isn't always given, in fact in a spec script you would provide hardly any - telling an actor how to act is as bad as telling a director how to direct! The only occasion you might put some in would be if dialgue was directed specifically at another character eg. (To Alberto) or if it has to be said in a particular style (Whispering).

And finally the dialogue itself. Try to keep it to a minimum, no long speeches here. That way there is less for your actors to remember and less for them to muck up. Good actors will always make the best of what you have written for them and can provide so much more with their intonation and body language which you simply cannot write. I'm sure I read somwhere that only 20% of communication is speech.

Avoid exposition (that's when you character explains something in detail) - try and show rather than tell. Keep it simple and heed Lew Hunter's words 'Good dialogue is dialogue that illuminates what the characters are not saying'.

Character Names

When a character first appears their name in the scene direction should be in CAPITALS. After that their name is in lower case.

Try to avoid giving minor characters names like THUG 4 as its pretty demeaning to have to play such a lowly character - 'Hey, I'm not even playing THUG 2'. You needn't go to extremes and give them a full name (unless the character is named by another character), just spice it up, so that when you offer the part to your friend, rather then being the fourth thug they could be a MEAN THUG or a TATTOED THUG. Let's hope your friend doesn't take the description too personally, eh!

Sound

You can put important sounds in CAPITALS, so that monsters SHRIEK and cars EXPLODE, but this is up to you. Some people like to, others don't. If you do put sounds in upper case try not to overdo it.

You see the word OVER used in scripts. This means that there is an important sound OVER the normal soundtrack eg. music.

 

Camera Directions

As this is a shooting script we can add camera and actor directions to the script - in a spec script you wouldn't do this - just like you wouldn't turn round to Coppola and say 'Do a Close Up here'. But as this is our show we get to play director.

There are several abbreviations to speed the writing and reading along.

C/U - Close-upMS - Medium Shot

LS - Long ShotTwo-Shot - Shot of two characters in the same picture

V.O. - voiceover (e.g."Ex-Cop, Ex-Bladerunner" from er...Bladerunner)O.S. - off screen

P.O.V. - Point of view (eg. one of those wobbly cameras they use when someone is breaking into an apartment in a horror movie. For a great example watch the first few minutes of Strange Days).M.O.S. - without sound. Apparently comes from "Mit out sound" which some German director used to shout (or something). Great for when your characters are staking out some joint, watching the bad guys pull off some drug deal and they can't hear what they are saying.

 

Camera Movements

CRAB - camera moves completely to the left/rightPAN - camera pivots left or right

TILT - camera pivots up or downBOOM - camera moves up or down.

DOLLY - camera moves in/out from subjectZOOM - camera zooms in/out from subject (not strictly a camera movement cos its the lens that's moving not the camera but you knew that right?)

 

Transitions

These are how you change from one scene to another. They always sit over to the right of your script and on the whole you will find yourself using CUT TO : which is a straight change of picture from one scene to the next.

There are some other transitions available but be careful, they have different connotations to the veiwer.

DISSOLVE TO :

The final shot of the previous scenes fades into the first shot of the next scene. This can be used to suggest the passing of time. Oh! And you will need a three machine edit suite or a non-linear computer editng system to achieve this.

FADE IN :

Usually used at the start of films, with FADE OUT used to end the movie. You can also use CUT TO BLACK and CUT FROM BLACK/CUT IN. You can use these transitions together to alter the mood and pace. For example :

NICK grins at ALBERTO.

NICKYou're even uglier than I remember.

Alberto scratches his head, thinking, before pulling his fist back and hitting Nick full on in the face.

CUT TO BLACK :

FADE IN :

INT. BEDROOM - DAY.

Nick comes around, groggy at first. He gingerly feels his chin, pulls himself off the bed and over to the sink. He grimaces and spits out a few teeth.

 

If there's something that's confusing Email me, I don't claim to be any expert on screenwriting, just enough to get by. Try buying a book on it, just one mind. Don't end up spending all your time reading screenwriting books rather than sitting down with a pad and a pencil and getting your own screenplay down on paper.

With that in mind here are a few good 'uns.

Sharks and StructureCreating Dramatic Structure for Screenplays

Buried beneath most great films are skeletons. Strip away a film's characters, location and story and underneath you'll find the bare bones of structure. This is the framework on which the film is built. According to Syd Field 'Structure is what holds the story in place'.

Syd Field, author of 'Screenplay - the foundations of Screenwriting' is one of the most influential writers on screenplay writing. During his time as a script reader he had the opportunity to read over 2000 screenplays in the space of two years. He reckoned that only 1% of these were any

good (presumably the other 99% were called Speed 2). Reading through the 40 scripts that delivered the goods Syd Field reverse engineered the screenplay.

Reverse engineering is what Russia used to do to produce IBM clones. Take something apart, see how it works and copy it. This is exactly what Syd did. What did all these great scripts have in common? What made them work where others failed? If you haven't guessed that the answer is 'great structure' maybe you should give up now.

Great scripts (which hopefully become great films) have distinct beginnings, middles and ends. Act One, Act Two and Act Three - a three act structure. In fact these acts are so distinct that you can spot where each of these acts start and finish.

 

Let's assume a film is 2 hours long (although film lengths are creeping up - 3 hours for 'Thin Red Line'! - aargghh! did my butt ache) - that's 120 minutes of screentime and because a page of script roughly equals a minute of screentime (provided the Script Layout is correct) the script should be 120 pages long.

If we split the script up into the three acts, the beginning of the film (Act One) should take us up to 30 minutes, the middle of the film (Act Two) should run from 30 to 90 minutes and the end of the film (Act Three) should be the last 30 minutes giving us 2 hours of non-stop action and entertainment.

And each act does a different job. Act one is the setup, Act Two gives us confrontation and Act Three resolution.

Act 1 - Setup (1/4 of film)

OK, we're in the cinema, the logos have whooshed over our heads, we know it's a James Cameron film...now what? Where are we? What's going on? The first 30 minutes is the setup, it has to lay the groundwork for the movie and answer three questions.

1) Who's this film about? Who is the lead character? What kind of person are they? Usually we are introduced to the characters and see what they get up to day to day. We are made to identify with the characters and like them. e.g. Luke works on his uncle's farm but wants to go to the Academy.

2) Where's it taking place? What's the story's location? What kind of world do the characters live in? e.g. Luke lives on a desert planet called Tatooine.

3) What's going to happen? Something is going to happen that is going to challenge the lead character and change their life. e.g. Luke's family are killed.

That's 30 minutes to establish the Characters, the World and the Premise, and it better keep us interested!

And now the bad news...you may have 30 minutes to set your story up but you've probably only got 10 to get the reader's and the audience's attention. You need Shark Theory.

 

Eejit's Shark Theory

Syd Field wrote 'Screenwriting' in the seventies and to be honest its beginning to look a bit dated. In order for your film to be successful today it has to be a shark. No really, it does!

 

You can split a shark up into three parts (or more if you've got a stick of dynamite) - bite, body and tail.

Bite - Nowadays to make your film survive you have to give it impact right from the beginning. Your film better scream out at people, grab them by the throat and force them to watch it. It has to do something so funny, so shocking or so engrossing right at the beginning or you've lost your audience because they've just switched channels. Get your audience's attention and get them on your side. Give it bite.

If it's an action movie put an action scene right up front. Make your film start like most films end - like the intro sequences to James Bond movies or the start of Indiana Jones. Classically this would probably be called a prologue - a prelude to the rest of the film.

Body - This is the main chunk of the film. Stuff happens, usually to one person who's fighting against it. Pretty much like an Act Two.

Tail - The film wraps up all the story threads and resolves the body of the film. Plot elements and characters come to the boil. Ultimately we see where things have been heading and as a result of their actions characters change and grow. The audience gets something out of it too - a tale is told (sorry about the bad pun) and we all learn something about ourselves. End of story - the fin, FIN y'see!!

To be honest if you can make a great intro and a blinding ending (because that's what your audience is going to be talking about when they leave the cinema) and a couple of good scenes in the middle you're onto a winner. Hitchcock said that's all his films were - a great scene which the rest of the film hangs around. Funny how it's elements like Psycho's shower scene and the attack on the school in The Birds that are remembered best.

Plot Point 1 - At the end of Act One comes the first plot point. A plot point is a hook in the action that spins it around and creates direction. Something happens that sets the course for the rest of the movie - eg. the aliens invade or a body is found. Now the characters know their purpose; to fight back against the aliens or discover who the murderer is. And that's what they'll spend Act Two doing.

3-Act Strucure in Action - A breakdown of Act One from 'Jaws'

 

Act 2 - Confrontation (1/2 of film)

Your character has a dramatic need; to find the holy grail, to defeat the evil empire or to kill the shark. But it wouldn't make that great a film if they could complete their task in the next ten minutes. Conflict is the essence of drama. The character has to overcome a series of obstacles that you drop in their path.

Create your characters and throw shit at them for 60 minutes. Let them struggle towards their goal.

Act Two is the biggie to write - its 60 pages long!! To help you out it can be further subdivided into two, separated by the mid-point, exactly halfway through the film by the mid-point - usually where something relevant to the character's main aim becomes clearer. Each of these two halves can be cut in half by a Pinch; a key scene that helps keep the story on track.

 

Plot Point 2 - At the end of Act Two comes the second plot point. Now the character has been moving towards their goal for the last 60 minutes and it's usually by now that the the solution is in sight. It may not be easy to achieve, but they know what they have to do. Usually its just before plot point 2 that all the really bad things happen. One minute you think, 'wahey! he can make it' but suddenly he is imprisoned, or his partner gets shot or something. Now the lead character's efforts have to be redoubled. The last mile is the hardest mile.

3-Act Strucure in Action - A breakdown of Act Two from 'Jaws'

 

Act 3 - Resolution (1/4 of film)

The film should be on a roll by now. Everything should be in place for the finale so it's a downhill run to the finish line. All the plot threads and characterisation that has been building up in Acts One and Two can be milked for dramatic effect and released and resolved in Act Three.

If the setup of the film has been done well there's a lot of freedom in the final act. The first act mainly deals with logistics (the characters live here, they do this etc.) and whilst these can never be dispensed with completely there's a lot more room to 'ride the emotion' in the final act letting some of the finer points be ignored so you can concentrate on the bigger picture. For example the 'Rush Hour' DVD includes a couple of deleted scenes showing how Jackie and pals get into the art opening at the end of the film for the final showdown. OK, so I wondered how they managed to get in there but it was better to take them out and leave me wondering than to defuse the action and emotion that the director had built up just to explain that Elizabeth Pena had managed to get them tickets.

By Plot Point 2 the main character knows what needs to be done so Act Three (if you need to split it down any finer) is spent planning and getting into a position of strength, mostly carrying out the action and finally enjoying the afterglow and seeing who gets to ride off with who into the sunset.

3-Act Strucure in Action - A breakdown of Act Three from 'Jaws'

 

Fade to Black

Are screenplays that formulaic? When I first read about 3 act structure I tried in damn hard to prove Syd wrong, if only so that there could be a little magic left, a little artistry. Unfortunately after watching films with Syd's theories in mind I have to admit that most films do have a three act structure. But that doesn't mean there's no magic or artistry. Even with a structure in place its still not paint-by-numbers. You still need to use your creativity and talent to stick the meat on the bones of the structure - to tell a good story with great characters.

Let's face it writing a feature film is a long haul, that's 90 minutes of screentime you have to fill! Anything that helps break this task into bite-sized chunks is welcome. And this is dynamite info to have. With the basic structure of your film mapped out you can concentrate on telling the story, building characters and writing cracking dialogue.

And this is not just important for feature films. Three act structure is just as vital for short films. Before shooting 'El Mariachi' and 'The Faculty', Robert Rodriguez cranked out a fair number of short films which put him in a good position to shoot his section of Four Rooms, by far the best. He offers this advice on structuring shorts: 'Set up the story, get to the pay-off and get out of there.'

So watch a couple of movies and take a look at their structures. If structuring your movies works for you go with it. I'm outta here!

To illustrate Film Structure in practice here's a real world example. Because I can't clear the copyright from Universal for 'Jaws' eXposure is proud to present 'Shark Attack', filmed entirely in Legovision.

Spielberg breaks down the structure - "The first act proved there was indeed a shark out there. The second act proved that

the mayor was wrong, the beleagured police chief right. The third act was basically a man-against-beast tale."

Before each comment there's a rough timing from my VCR eg. 1.11.30 (1 hour, 11 minutes and 30 seconds)

Act 1 - Setup

3.20 - Following John William's ominous shark theme we are introduced to the first of the major characters - the Shark. A couple of teenagers leave a beach party for a spot of skinnydipping and before you can say 'what's for lunch?' the girl gets pulled down and eaten by....something.

4.30 - First shot of Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) getting out of bed. In his first minute of screentime we learn he's got a wife and kids, they're newcomers to the island and that he's the police chief. The setup is hardly subtle - to let us know he's a police chief he walks out in full uniform, the door of his car with 'Police' is clearly positioned in the background and even his wife calls him 'Chief'.

Brody drives past large sign 'Amity Island' which has a large picture of a girl sunning herself on a beach. It even states 'Annual Regatta on the 4th of July', foreshadowing the 4th of July sequence later in the film.

7.40 - "Oh Jesus" - Brody investigates girl,

dead on the beach with crabs crawling all over her.

8.40 - Brody gets back to office and types up his report - 'Possible cause of death - SHARK ATTACK' ('Shark Attack' was the original title for 'Jaws')

Whilst Brody is trying to figure out what's eating the local kids he's constantly being pestered with insignificant matters - "There's a problem at the Karate school" etc. This not only helps to ground the film in reality and show us what Chief Brody usually deals with but also makes the attacks appear much more momentous in comparison.

11.00 - The town's mayor (Murray Hamilton) is introduced as Brody argues with him about shutting down the beaches - "Amity is a summer town - we need summer dollars" Just in case we forgot that Brody has just moved to the island the may tell him - "It's your first summer you know!"

Mayor Vaughn also foreshadows the 4th of July sequence later in the film with his line - "Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, and everyone says, "Huh? What? You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July".

Brody is on the beach checking the water for trouble. Now Spielberg gets to play The Rule of Three where a piece of action is setup, repeated and changed for the third time to surprise the audience. 1) Brody sits up - there's something cutting through the water - turns out its only an old man's swimming cap - false alarm. 2) Brody gets panicked when a girl starts thrashing around in the water - not to worry, its only her boyfriend messing about 3) A kid on a lilo gets attacked in a fountain of blood and salt water - SHARK!

16.08 - The famous shot where the perspective changes and Brody is lurched into panic. This type of shot was first used by Hitchcock in Vertigo and is achieved by tracking the camera forward whilst zooming out - which keeps the subject the same size but changes the perspective of the

background.

Just before the second attack the old man in the swimming cap gives us another fact about Brody - "We know all about you Chief, you don't go in the water at all." So nailing this shark's going to be a real uphill struggle.

19.20 - Hoary old seaman Quint (Robert Shaw) turns up at a town meeting. He introduces himself by scraping his nails along a blackboard before demanding $10,000 to catch the shark. And he doesn't want any help.

Brody flicks through a book with some great pictures of shark attack victims missing legs etc. just in case we're not too sure how dangerous sharks are. (If you look carefully there's also a shot of a shark with a diver's tank in its mouth - a crafty piece of foreshadowing). He shouts at his son to stop playing with his new dinghy (which foreshadows the attack on his son later in the film).

23.00 - Two old guys try a spot of nightfishing in the hope of catching themselves the shark. They are third time lucky though as this time they're not attacked by the shark.

Chaos in the harbour as Brody tries to control opportunistic sharkhunters.

26.30 - Matt Hooper arrives from the Oceanographic Institute. Richard Dreyfuss described his character as 'just there to give us shark information...Boring, boring, boring'. Boring maybe, but very useful for a setup (besides which actors tend to hate spouting jargon)

Hooper performs an autopsy on what's left of the first victim. He helpfully informs us 'It was a shark".

31.00 - The shark is caught! Brody poses for a photo with the sharkhunters. If this is the shark this is going to be a pretty short film. Thankfully it isn't as Hooper informs us that "the bite radius on this animal is different to

the victim's wounds"

34.20 - Just in case we had all forgotten how serious this is Spielberg grounds us in reality. Mrs. Kintner, the mother of the dead boy, comes up and slaps Brody - "My boy is dead".

Brody mopes about a bit. Hooper comes around for a spot of dinner. In case we'd forgotten what Hooper does Brody's wife breaks the silence with - "My husband tells me you're in sharks."

Tanked up on two bottles of wine Brody and Hooper decide to cut the shark open to check for the boy's body. Apart from a Florida number plate there's nothing there.

42.30 - The shark is still out there.

PLOT POINT 1 - Brody is finally convinced that there is a killer shark out there and it needs to be brought in.

46.30 - Hooper and Brody take the boat out and Hooper goes for a late night scuba-dive.

47.30 - Hooper discovers a dead man's head. Spielberg added this part in after successful preview screenings, convinced he could get another shock out of the audience.

By the end of the first act we have been introduced to all the characters: Chief Brody - a newcomer who is afraid of the water, Quint - a Captain Ahab-a-like who's a traditional shark hunter and Hooper - a young enthusiastic biologist. The location is established as Amity Island which is as a popular seaside tourist resort. And the premise is that there's a hungry shark that's bigger than anything this island has ever seen that needs to be killed.

Act 2 - Confrontation

~50.00 - The 4th of July. Brody is patrolling a packed beach. Hooper is out on a launch co-ordinating the efforts at sea. Brody persuades his son to play with his dinghy in the pool.

55.30 - The mayor persuades everyone into the water. No sooner are they splashing around than a shark is spotted and everyone runs out. It turns out to be a couple of kids with a fake fin.

58.30 - Another cry goes up. There's a shark in the pool! Brody's son is nearly a gonner but escapes.The shark consoles himself by biting the leg off a day-actor.

MID-POINT - Almost exactly in the middle of the film (1 hour) following the attack on his son Brody takes a long look out to sea. Up until this point the shark has been hunting the people. Brody realises that he has to confront his inner fears and go out to hunt the shark.

Brody convinces a panicked Mayor to sign an agreement to hire Quint. The Mayor has been one of Brody's main sources of confrontation, refusing to let him close the beach. Brody's other stumbling block is his fear of water which he is about to confront.

Brody and Hooper set out with sea-dog Quint to hunt down the shark.

1.09.30 - There's a great shot here of Brody, Quint and Hooper together on the boat that sums up their characters. Brody is splashing fish-heads over the side of the boat, looking sick and out of place. Quint is laid back on a chair with a fishing rod - a traditional shark hunter. Hooper is checking some electronic equipment in the background.

If the mayor was Brody's source of frustration in the first act then the animosity between the traditionalist Quint and the modern, scientific upstart Hooper is what threatens them all in the second act. If the shark doesn't kill them maybe they'll kill each other!

1.10.20 - Brody knocks down some air tanks and gets shouted at - "You screw around with these tanks and they're gonna blow up". A handy piece of information that is used in the finale.

1.11.10 - Quint gets a bite. Fishing line snaps - False alarm.

1.17.20 - Brody is slopping fish-heads into the water. The shark makes a toothy appearance behind him (Spielberg uses exactly the same shot he used in the false alarm five minutes earlier). This is the shark's first proper appearance in the film.

Spielberg explains that he 'thought what could be really scary was not seeing the shark.' However the original promo storyboards showed a more acrobatic shark flipping out of the water. The shark models were so unreliable that little effective footage of the sharks was shot and a more Hitchcockian 'the-less-you-see-the-more-you-get' approach was taken with floating barrels suggesting where the shark was.

Quint starts shooting the shark with yellow barrels to bring it to the surface.

1.22.30 - Quint and Hooper compare scars as they drink together. They discover that

they deep down they are just like each other.

1.25.00 - Quint's U.S.S. Indianapolis speech about how he watched the survivors of a torpedo attack get picked off by sharks one by one. The story was going to become the sequel to Jaws but later became the basis for the 1991 TV movie 'Mission of the Shark'.

Act 3 - Resolution

1.30.00 - Shark returns and starts attacking the boat. Quint shoots at it and the shark swims off.

1.31.50 - Spielberg's trademark shot of a shooting star crossing the night sky.

1.32.20 - Daybreak. A barrel surfaces.

~1.40.00 - Shark chases them as they head back to shore.

1.43.45 - Boat's engine blows. The boat is sinking.

1.46.00 - Hooper plans to inject the shark with stricnine nitrate, luring him by using himself as bait. The shark cage takes a battering and the gun tip falls to the ocean floor. Hooper escapes the cage as the shark mauls it and the boat. Brody brings the cage up. Hooper isn't there.

~1.52.00 - Quint gets attacked and eaten by the shark.

~1.53.00 - Brody manages to fight off a marauding shark by lodging a gas cannister in its mouth.

1.54.55 - Standing on the boat's rigging as it disappears beneath the waves Brody takes a shot at the gas cannister in the shark's mouth. BOOM! The shark explodes.

 

1.55.45 - Bubbles come up through the water. Is it the shark resurfacing? No, its Hooper. He's alive!

In the story's original ending both Quint and Hooper die and instead of being blown to pieces the shark swims off. When Spielberg suggested that the shark was blown to pieces the producers where wary that the audience might not swallow it - it's hardly realistic. What the producer's didn't realise what that the audience wanted now was the resolution - Brody gets the shark and the more spectacular the more satisfying.

1.56.30 - Brody and Hooper swim back to shore.

Brody - "I used to hate the water"

Hooper - "I can't imagine why."

 

SHARK ATTACK AnimationQuicktime 3.0 movie - 150K

 

Jaws Facts

Jaws was originally going to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock (with Charlton Heston as Police Chief Brody)

To make the real sharks look bigger a midget diver was hired for Hooper's cage sequence.

The mechanical sharks were named 'Bruce' after Spielberg's lawyer Bruce Ramer.

The shark's final death cry is sampled from 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' and was also used as the death cry of the truck in Spielberg's earlier movie 'Duel'.

Afraid of being drowned by his mutinous crew Spielberg had a motorboat standing by to whisk him away after his last shot.

At the height of seventies 'Sharkmania' ice cream stands started selling flavours such as 'Jawberry', 'Finilla' and 'Sharklate'.

And now in LEGOVISION!

Since Shark Attack I've discovered a number of other Lego productions on the net, including the first five minutes of Star Wars and a Lego Titanic. But the best offerings have to be these from Japan. Click through for screenshots from Baka Eiga - Desperado (and The Matrix - Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!!)

 

Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Lego Set

This has to be the coolest toy out. Spielberg has got together with Lego to produce this plastic brick studio backlot complete with earthquake-plate road, destructable buildings, Jurassic Park style dinosaur and a team of yellow-headed cast and crew. There's even a model of the bearded one himself! The set comes complete with a PC-  USA and International orders from

compatible USB movie camera, kid-friendly software to assemble your movies and a tips and tricks handbook to help create your special effects.

 

amazon.com

Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Lego Set

Production

FormatsA rough guide to cameras

Before we start this let me just say that any camera is better than no camera. Checking out camera magazines you can easily catch some equipment

fetish, where you only wanna shoot with the coolist equipment. Its a waste of your time (and money) and gets in the way of making movies so forget it.Its what's on the film/video that's important. You never know, that grainy, crappy image you get might be just what your film needs to give it some energy.

OK camera formats really means tape formats. The gubbins up front - the lens, the buttons etc. don't vary much from camera to camera, but what the camera records onto alters what film you see at the end of the day.

So lets look at the pros and cons of each of the formats (oh yeah, and the price range is the recommended retail price, if you buy mail orders you will probably get it cheaper, and obviously the camera is going to cost less if you buy second-hand).

8mm Price Range £350 - £500

Pros Cons Reasonable picture quality Good sound quality (mono or stereo

depending on model) Compact tapes (about the size of an

audio cassette) giving 60 - 90 minutes recording

Cheapest camcorders available Popular format so lots of choice

Lightweight cameras

Can't be played on normal VCR - Although you can transfer to other formats for editing

Very few 8mm editing VCRs

Hi8

Price Range - £450 - £800

Pros Cons Good picture quality (near broadcast

standard - 400 horizontal lines, your TV does 525)

Top notch stereo sound Tape a bit more expensive than 8mm

but still compact and you can record up to 90 minutes on standard play.

Can use 8mm tape as well (although the picture won't be as good as with proper Hi8 tape).

Lightweight cameras

Like 8mm it can't be played on normal VCR - Although you can transfer to other formats for editing

To retain picture quality you will really need a Hi8 editing deck

Costs more than 8mm - boo!

VHS

Price Range £850 - £1400 RRP.

Pros Cons Same tape as you put in your normal VCR, so its

cheap, easily available and you can edit easier. Because the tape is bigger than 8mm, the

cameras are also bigger. This means you look like a proper film-maker and you can shove it on your shoulder which means more stable shots.

Picture quality about 8mm standard - which means its not that bad.

Long recording time (3 to 4 hours)

Extra Punk Points! Robert Rodriguez (Director of Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn) cut his teeth on a VHS camcorder. Using his camera and the family VCR he edited his first short films.

Only has a mono soundtrack

Bulkier cameras also mean lugging around something which is heavier - nurg!

Very few cameras available.

VHS - C (like VHS only smaller, so I guess the C is for compact)

Price Range - £280 - £500

Pros Cons Essentially VHS-C is smaller VHS tapes, meaning

the tapes are more compact. Like VHS picture quality about 8mm standard -

which means its not that bad. Compact, lighweight cameras. All the advantages of VHS as far as editing goes

as you use an adaptor (which looks like a VHS tape) that allows your VCR to play VHS-C tapes like normal videotapes.

Cheap cameras!!

Only has a mono soundtrack

Because of the decrease in size the tapes are shorter (30 - 45 mins).

S-VHS Price Range £900

Pros Cons Excellent picture quality Stereo soundtrack

Despite being the same size as VHS tape, tapes can only be played back on S-VHS VCRs.

Can also record onto VHS tapes (although the quality isn't as good as using proper VHS tapes) or S-VHS-C tapes with an adaptor.

S-VHS VCRs are top notch - a wide choice with excellent control over editing of sound and pictures.

Expensive. Bulky machines - although this

isn't necessarily that bad it makes for steadier shots

Few cameras to choose from.

S-VHS-C (another compact format - like S-VHS only smaller)Price Range £370 - £450

Pros Cons Like S-VHS excellent picture quality (near

broadcast standard) Stereo soundtrack S-VHS VCRs are top notch - a wide choice

with excellent control over editing of sound and pictures.

Compact little cameras

Because of the decrease in size the tapes are shorter (30 - 45 mins).

Needs a S-VHS VCR to playback tapes.

Not cheap.

Mini DV Price Range £700 - £2700

Pros Cons Offers bloody good pictures - nigh on TV

quality (500 line horizontal resolution) CD quality sound Designers are experimenting with design of

cameras so they are some nice machines out there eg. JVC's metal fag packet and Panasonic's Tube Cam (not the official names)

No loss of picture quality in editing provided it is all edited on DVC VCRs or non-linearly using a Firewire card.

The price is coming down.

Err...buy one of these and have to be nice to your bank manager for a long time.

Editing VCRs are available, but damn expensive.

 

Digital8 Price Range £??? - £???

Pros Cons DV quality pictures using compression

ie. 500 lines resolution CD quality sound Uses cheap 8mm and Hi8 tape Can play back old 8mm and Hi8 tapes

No loss of picture quality in editing provided it is edited via Firewire.

It's a Sony technology so you have to buy a Sony camera

Super8 Price Range £5 - £2000

Pros Cons Its film, so everything looks nicer and more,

err...filmy. Y'know like home movies and pop videos.

On the whole they are well built - ie. metal etc.

Inexpensive - because everyone's Uncle Bob had one of these you might find someone in the family with one, or as everyone else is getting rid of their you can pick them up cheap in second hand shops - I got 3 for a tenner the other day. Wahey!

You can also pick up editing equipment cheap as well.

Full on retro stylee.

I saw a film shot on Super8 the other day and frankly you couldn't tell the difference between that and 16mm.

At the moment it costs about £12 for 4 minutes of film (including developing). This makes it pretty expensive to lark around with if you don't know what you're shooting.

Don't expect to find autofocus or any to other 'latest features' type stuff on them. Almost everything is manual - but this is no bad thing, at least you learn.

Super8 is punk - underground Super8 site courtesy of a smart New Yorkersmall movies - well designed (but graphics intensive) Super8 siteSuper8 for sale - 'cos I love you loads and I want you to get your films made here's a link I use every day just to check if there are any good cheap secondhands cine cameras in the UK (yep, its Loot Online - UK only I'm afraid).

Fisher Price Pixelvision$400?? seems to be the going rate but there is talk of the inventor rereleasing the camera and talk has been of a $150 pricepoint for a B&W version and $250+ for a colour version although this has been very sketchy. Cool if they make it again though!

Pros Cons

These cameras record 3 or 4 minutes of ghost-like black and white pictures onto a normal audio cassette, they were meant for kids but now they are being used by underground US film-makers.

Probably dead cheap if you could find one in a junk store.

Never released in the UK

No sound

About $400 if you buy one off someone who knows what they have got their hands on.

Cool Pixelvision 2000 pageThe Pixelvision HomePage

Tyco Kidcam - is it the new Pixelvision?? (err. NO!)

Price : £50 or less

Pros Cons Under £50 for a video

camera - bargain!!

Black and white pictures and sound!

No tape mechanism - instead it has a long cable that you can wire up to your VCR.

The pictures looks they are being filmed by a security camera.

It really struggles in low light - like, you can't see anything.

...and that's yer lot. There are other formats available (Betacam, D1, D2, Umatic, 16mm etc.) but for starting out they either too complicated, too expensive or difficult to get yer mitts on. What you choose is up to your budget and your film.

Also note that prices for cameras are always coming down. Each time I update this article I discover that the prices halve every 18 months. Isn't technology great!

For more info on individual cameras with reviews then try the excellent US magazine Videomaker and its equally good web site.

So what do you shoot on then?

I've rented mostly S-VHS and Hi8. The price was good, the quality was tip-top and you got stereo sound. I've bought a couple of battered Super8 cameras to experiment with and (bitten by the equipment bug- bad thing), oh yeah, and I picked up a Tyco Kidcam in the sales. At the moment I'm shooting on a MiniDV camcorder and whoah, are they smart. It pays to experiment, so play around with what you can get hold of and make up your own mind.

Blood & Bullets for No-Budget movies

EXT. CITY-STREET - DAY.

LEWIE is surrounded by armed police pointing his guns straight forward.

BLAM! A shot rips through his arm, causing a fountain of blood to explode from the wound. BLAM!! Another shot rips through his chest. BLAM! BLAM! Two shots tear at his stomach. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! LEWIE's torso is riddled with bullets. Finally the shooting stops.

LEWIE stands there, his breath turning to clouds of white vapour in the early morning. He takes a single laboured breath - and collapses.

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 150K

 

 

Tarantino has a lot to answer for. For that matter so does Sam Peckinpah, John Woo, James Cameron and Robery Rodriguez. These maestros of gore-laden gunplay and balletic bloodshed all owe their careers to the humble bullet hit.

Wanna know the secret to big budget effects at no-budget prices? Read on my friend.

The bullet hits in the clip above were achieved using the same method professionals use - a small explosive charge is triggered by a battery causing a blood-filled bag to burst outwards.

I had a set of very sturdy 5 x 4 inch metal plates made up (which are usually backed with foam to cushion the actor). A squib, which is a small explosive charge triggered by a 9V battery, was taped to the plate and a blood pack placed over the charge and secured in place with gaffer tape. Blood packs can be anything that can be filled and sealed, but most people use condoms ('Always practice safe effects'). Placing the blood pack over the charge reduces the flash given off by the squib detonating. The rigged plate is taped or strapped to the actor and concealed under clothing. White clothes show the effect off best and should be pre-scored with a knife to weaken the fabric. Ideally the squib should blow through the shirt and it helps here if the shirt is tucked in. Cable is run from the squib down the actor's leg to a control box or nail board. A bit of simple wiring allowed us to trigger the charges in turn by running a nail across a nail board (a piece of wood with a series of nails in a line). Before firing everyone stood well clear of the charges, the actor

avoided looking down at his chest, and the camera was a safe distance away. Only at the last moment was the circuit completed and the charges made live. A simple countdown helped the actor be aware of when to expect the hit.

Take a look at the film clip again. That is the first and last time I am ever going to use an explosive charge to perform a bullet hit like that. The first bang is near the top of the actor's chest. When he grimaces and pulls his arm back its for real. A plastic shard from the top of the squib flew off and hit him painfully in the shoulder. That's real pain. And at that point in time he knows he still has another two hits to come. To his credit he carried on far beyond the call of duty.

For low-budget/no-budget films there is no reason to use anything so dangerous or expensive. Each one of those bullet hits costs about £10. Suddenly your action movie gets a lot less violent as you start cutting out bullet hits to save money. And the cost of an injured actor is unimaginable. There is a cheaper, safer and more effective method available. It is portable, easily made and uses no explosive charges! And it looks better!!

Need your next movie to start with a bang? Eejit's Guide has full instructions for compressed gas bullet hits.

How to make compressed gas bullet hits

This method uses the force of compressed air to blast fake blood from a length of tubing. Simple!

What you'll need... A pump-up insecticide sprayer - Its worth investing in a new one as a used

sprayer might have some insecticide in and you don't want to kill yourself off before you get to shoot your movie.

Garden Hose - You probably need about 2 metres which you might be able to chop off your normal house. Failing that getting a good length to cut up is useful as you can experiment with different lengths for different purposes.

Fake Blood - For a whole bunch of recipes try Eejit's Guide to Blood. For the example below we used Cardiff Red.

Gaffer Tape - You would think I have a deal with the company cos I talk about this stuff so much. It is useful though.

Sponge - You'll need to rip it into little pieces so buy a cheap car sponge. Blu-tak - Y'know the putty type stuff used to stick up posters. Old Shirt

Step One - Cut approx. a 2 metre length from your garden hose reel. About an inch up from one end you need to make a hole big enough to put your little finger in. This is where the blood will be ejected from. We used a heated screwdriver to melt through the hose as it was pretty tough. Probably not recommended though as it gave off these awful fumes. Best to do it in a well ventilated place so you don't pass out.

Step Two - Bung up the end you have made the extra hole in using Blu-Tak. By forcing the blood to fly out of the extra hole instead of the end of the tube it sprays out rather than jets out.

Step Three - Unscrew the spray nozzle from the insecticide sprayer. Attach the unmodified end of the tube to the empty sprayer. Now to work on your biceps! Give the sprayer about 150 pumps. The first 100 or so should be easy but by the end it should start getting more difficult. All this energy is being stored as pressure and when you push the trigger all the energy will be released at once, blasting the blood out.

Step Four - Gently pour in about 20ml of your fake blood to the modified end of the hose. You may need to thin the blood mixture with water to make it less 'gloopy' (err...that sounds technical). Bung up the side hole with pieces of sponge. Ideally use red sponge as this will fly out when you trigger the sprayer looking like chunks of flesh. Mmm...nice!

Step Five - Make a hole in the back of the shirt and feed the tube over the actor's shoulder and down to the area that is going to be 'shot'. Tape the tube in place at the front with the side hole facing forwards.

MOST IMPORTANT BIT!!!

Have the actor get down on his knees and get an assistant to hold the sprayer as high as possible for 30 seconds. This allows the blood to run down and prime the tube. The blood should now all be in the last part of the tube held back by the bits of sponge.

Step Six - The shirt here has been prepared by scoring with a knife. The side hole of the hose should be lined up with the hole in the shirt. Use gaffer tape on the inside of the shirt to close the shirt up.

Step Seven - Have the assistant who will fire the trigger, out of camera shot on the ground. Here stuntman Stephen demonstrates what the setup would look like if it wasn't concealed underneath the shirt.

When positioning the camera be careful. The force was so powerful on one of the tests we ended up showering the camera operator with blood. If you are straight on get a good distance away and zoom in.

Step Eight - Push the trigger!! Ker-BLAM!! Blood flies everywhere. Gore City!

[Sick puppies can click for a close-up]

Gutshot movie - Here's the final result! Stephen, who worked so hard at designing these compressed air hits, takes a shot in the belly - OW!

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 120K

HeadHit movie - And just to prove how vicious we are here's a head hit using the same method. The delivery tube had to be much shorter as the compressed air had to fire up and out, - working against gravity. If you listen carefully you can also hear the compressed air hissing.

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 80K 

OK, that's probably enough to get this page an 18 certificate! But funnily enough its not what  you see that makes the effect so gory. In truth there is probably only one or two frames where you can see a flash of red spray. If you pay attention whilst watching some action movies you'll notice the same thing. Most bullet hits are one frame wonders, barely enough for the eye to register.

So what makes these effects so shocking? Turn the volume down and watch the clips again - not so effective huh? There's two reasons for this :

1) Sound is 80% of the effect - It's the bang, crunch and splat that make the effect work. Most of the clips above had had their sound tweaked (using Adobe Premiere). The original sound for the squib movie has explosions that sound like 'pops', they were lowered as the clip was slowed down and become more effective. The compressed air hit had an extra sound of a slowed down and distorted hand clap added to it to beef up the hit. Finally the compressed air head hit had a gun shot and splat added from a copyright-free sound effects CD (the bizarre 'Totally Gross Sound F/X from Hell'). All of the above methods work to increase the shock value.

2) They need to be in a dramatic context - OK, so we've been talking about how to achieve the effect, but this is wasted if they are overused in a film. Repeat the same images again and again and they lose their potency. By watching these clips to see how they are achieved you probably no longer find them so shocking - you've become desensitized to them. To be effective in a film they have work dramatically - we have to care about the character who gets shot, there needs to be a tension in the air before the gun goes off, or it needs to suprise us by happening when we least expect it. We don't always need to see the hit itself, sometime only the effects of the hit (the spray of blood on the car windshield) or the sound of the gun (whilst cutting to a wideshot of a building) can be just as disturbing. Don't believe me? Seen a Tarantino movie lately?

Finally a word of warning - whatever you are using to make your effects be careful. Your cast and crew's safety is vital. Not only that make sure that everyone around you knows what you are doing. We were shooting a bank siege. There were a couple of

police cars and van, extras as an armed response team and our lead actor in the middle of all this toting a pair of handguns. A couple of squibs later and he was lying on the floor in a pool of fake blood. Unfortunately this was so realistic that we later discovered that a member of the public had made a complaint when they discovered it was a film we were shooting. They hadn't entered the building as they believed it was for real!

Big-budget effects at low-budget prices! Now you know how its done. So next time you shoot your video, shoot your actors as well. So to speak.

Blood & Bullets for No-Budget moviesEXT. CITY-STREET - DAY.

LEWIE is surrounded by armed police pointing his guns straight forward.

BLAM! A shot rips through his arm, causing a fountain of blood to explode from the wound. BLAM!! Another shot rips through his chest. BLAM! BLAM! Two shots tear at his stomach. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! LEWIE's torso is riddled with bullets. Finally the shooting stops.

LEWIE stands there, his breath turning to clouds of white vapour in the early morning. He takes a single laboured breath - and collapses.

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 150K

 

 

Tarantino has a lot to answer for. For that matter so does Sam Peckinpah, John Woo, James Cameron and Robery Rodriguez. These maestros of gore-laden gunplay and balletic bloodshed all owe their careers to the humble bullet hit.

Wanna know the secret to big budget effects at no-budget prices? Read on my friend.

The bullet hits in the clip above were achieved using the same method professionals use - a small explosive charge is triggered by a battery causing a blood-filled bag to burst outwards.

I had a set of very sturdy 5 x 4 inch metal plates made up (which are usually backed with foam to cushion the actor). A squib, which is a small explosive charge triggered by a 9V

battery, was taped to the plate and a blood pack placed over the charge and secured in place with gaffer tape. Blood packs can be anything that can be filled and sealed, but most people use condoms ('Always practice safe effects'). Placing the blood pack over the charge reduces the flash given off by the squib detonating. The rigged plate is taped or strapped to the actor and concealed under clothing. White clothes show the effect off best and should be pre-scored with a knife to weaken the fabric. Ideally the squib should blow through the shirt and it helps here if the shirt is tucked in. Cable is run from the squib down the actor's leg to a control box or nail board. A bit of simple wiring allowed us to trigger the charges in turn by running a nail across a nail board (a piece of wood with a series of nails in a line). Before firing everyone stood well clear of the charges, the actor avoided looking down at his chest, and the camera was a safe distance away. Only at the last moment was the circuit completed and the charges made live. A simple countdown helped the actor be aware of when to expect the hit.

Take a look at the film clip again. That is the first and last time I am ever going to use an explosive charge to perform a bullet hit like that. The first bang is near the top of the actor's chest. When he grimaces and pulls his arm back its for real. A plastic shard from the top of the squib flew off and hit him painfully in the shoulder. That's real pain. And at that point in time he knows he still has another two hits to come. To his credit he carried on far beyond the call of duty.

For low-budget/no-budget films there is no reason to use anything so dangerous or expensive. Each one of those bullet hits costs about £10. Suddenly your action movie gets a lot less violent as you start cutting out bullet hits to save money. And the cost of an injured actor is unimaginable. There is a cheaper, safer and more effective method available. It is portable, easily made and uses no explosive charges! And it looks better!!

Need your next movie to start with a bang? Eejit's Guide has full instructions for compressed gas bullet hits.

How to make compressed gas bullet hits

This method uses the force of compressed air to blast fake blood from a length of tubing. Simple!

What you'll need... A pump-up insecticide sprayer - Its worth investing in a new one as a used

sprayer might have some insecticide in and you don't want to kill yourself off before you get to shoot your movie.

Garden Hose - You probably need about 2 metres which you might be able to chop off your normal house. Failing that getting a good length to cut up is useful as you can experiment with different lengths for different purposes.

Fake Blood - For a whole bunch of recipes try Eejit's Guide to Blood. For the example below we used Cardiff Red.

Gaffer Tape - You would think I have a deal with the company cos I talk about this stuff so much. It is useful though.

Sponge - You'll need to rip it into little pieces so buy a cheap car sponge. Blu-tak - Y'know the putty type stuff used to stick up posters.

Old Shirt

Step One - Cut approx. a 2 metre length from your garden hose reel. About an inch up from one end you need to make a hole big enough to put your little finger in. This is where the blood will be ejected from. We used a heated screwdriver to melt through the hose as it was pretty tough. Probably not recommended though as it gave off these awful fumes. Best to do it in a well ventilated place so you don't pass out.

Step Two - Bung up the end you have made the extra hole in using Blu-Tak. By forcing the blood to fly out of the extra hole instead of the end of the tube it sprays out rather than jets out.

Step Three - Unscrew the spray nozzle from the insecticide sprayer. Attach the unmodified end of the tube to the empty sprayer. Now to work on your biceps! Give the sprayer about 150 pumps. The first 100 or so should be easy but by the end it should start getting more difficult. All this energy is being stored as pressure and when you push the trigger all the energy will be released at once, blasting the blood out.

Step Four - Gently pour in about 20ml of your fake blood to the modified end of the hose. You may need to thin the blood mixture with water to make it less 'gloopy' (err...that sounds technical). Bung up the side hole with pieces of sponge. Ideally use red sponge as this will fly out when you trigger the sprayer looking like chunks of flesh. Mmm...nice!

Step Five - Make a hole in the back of the shirt and feed the tube over the actor's shoulder and down to the area that is going to be 'shot'. Tape the tube in place at the front with the side hole facing forwards.

MOST IMPORTANT BIT!!!

Have the actor get down on his knees and get an assistant to hold the sprayer as high as possible for 30 seconds. This allows the blood to run down and prime the tube. The blood should now all be in the last part of the tube held back by the bits of sponge.

Step Six - The shirt here has been prepared by scoring with a knife. The side hole of the hose should be lined up with the hole in the shirt. Use gaffer tape on the inside of the shirt to close the shirt up.

Step Seven - Have the assistant who will fire the trigger, out of camera shot on the ground. Here stuntman Stephen demonstrates what the setup would look like if it wasn't concealed underneath the shirt.

When positioning the camera be careful. The force was so powerful on one of the tests we ended up showering the camera operator with blood. If you are straight on get a good distance away and zoom in.

Step Eight - Push the trigger!! Ker-BLAM!! Blood flies everywhere. Gore City!

[Sick puppies can click for a close-up]

Gutshot movie - Here's the final result! Stephen, who worked so hard at designing these compressed air hits, takes a shot in the belly - OW!

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 120K

HeadHit movie - And just to prove how vicious we are here's a head hit using the same method. The delivery tube had to be much shorter as the compressed air had to fire up and out, - working against gravity. If you listen carefully you can also hear the compressed air hissing.

Quicktime 3.0 movie - 80K 

OK, that's probably enough to get this page an 18 certificate! But funnily enough its not what  you see that makes the effect so gory. In truth there is probably only one or two frames where you can see a flash of red spray. If you pay attention whilst watching some action movies you'll notice the same thing. Most bullet hits are one frame wonders, barely enough for the eye to register.

So what makes these effects so shocking? Turn the volume down and watch the clips again - not so effective huh? There's two reasons for this :

1) Sound is 80% of the effect - It's the bang, crunch and splat that make the effect work. Most of the clips above had had their sound tweaked (using Adobe Premiere). The original sound for the squib movie has explosions that sound like 'pops', they were lowered as the clip was slowed down and become more effective. The compressed air hit had an extra sound of a slowed down and distorted hand clap added to it to beef up the hit. Finally the compressed air head hit had a gun shot and splat added from a copyright-free sound effects CD (the bizarre 'Totally Gross Sound F/X from Hell'). All of the above methods work to increase the shock value.

2) They need to be in a dramatic context - OK, so we've been talking about how to achieve the effect, but this is wasted if they are overused in a film. Repeat the same images again and again and they lose their potency. By watching these clips to see how they are achieved you probably no longer find them so shocking - you've become desensitized to them. To be effective in a film they have work dramatically - we have to care about the character who gets shot, there needs to be a tension in the air before the gun goes off, or it needs to suprise us by happening when we least expect it. We don't always need to see the hit itself, sometime only the effects of the hit (the spray of blood on the car windshield) or the sound of the gun (whilst cutting to a wideshot of a building) can be just as disturbing. Don't believe me? Seen a Tarantino movie lately?

Finally a word of warning - whatever you are using to make your effects be careful. Your cast and crew's safety is vital. Not only that make sure that everyone around you knows what you are doing. We were shooting a bank siege. There were a couple of

police cars and van, extras as an armed response team and our lead actor in the middle of all this toting a pair of handguns. A couple of squibs later and he was lying on the floor in a pool of fake blood. Unfortunately this was so realistic that we later discovered that a member of the public had made a complaint when they discovered it was a film we were shooting. They hadn't entered the building as they believed it was for real!

Big-budget effects at low-budget prices! Now you know how its done. So next time you shoot your video, shoot your actors as well. So to speak.

Film & Video Lighting for low-budgets

OK so after making sure that your actor is saying the right lines, that the picture is in focus and the camera is recording probably the last thing on your mind is the way the picture is lit. But wait, the difference between something that is well lit and something that isn't can be the difference between a film that's great and one that's totally pants.

Generally you want to keep your light level up. Video cameras work best in a certain range - too bright and whites get blasted out (use a Neutral Density Filter to combat this effect) too dark and you get a grainy image without much colour. Well lit footage makes your film look like it was shot with a really good camera.

But you also want to create a play or light and shade on the objects before you, revealing depth, form and mood.

So how do we do light a scene?

I was working with a group making a film (I was making the tea this time around) who were shooting on film. They had some proper lights, so I had the opportunity to observe how these semi-pro's went around their work. After sitting around for 40 minutes waiting them to set up I figured out their technique. They blasted a light at the actors which gave hideous shadows so they blasted another light to get rid of the shadows, which created another shadow etc. etc. etc. All this only served to slow everything down to a painfully slow pace and tire everyone out.

My advice, keep it simple and fast. Work with the light that is already there.

Put as many existing lights and lamps on in the room to increase the room's overall light level. (Techie Tip! Lights that are in the scene anyway are called 'practicals')

Replace existing lightbulbs with more powerful lightbulbs. Use a reflector to bounce an existing light source onto your subject.

Reflectors

A reflector is a piece of silvery, gold or white fabric stretched over a frame. Lastolite make some really cool ones that explode open into massive circles. They come in two main varieties : silver/white and gold/white (the gold is good for warming up flesh tones). They are always a good investment, but if you can't afford them there's a cheaper solution around the corner.

Reflectors for nowtNip down to the supermarket and get hold of some really big cardboard boxes and some aluminium foil. Cut the boxes into massive sheets taking advantage of its folds, and stick the foil to the boards to create folding reflectors. Use the shiny side of the foil for a hard reflector or the dull side for a more diffuse reflector. You could also try looking for reflecting sun shades (y'know the ones people put in their car windows on hot sunny days).

Getting more complicated now...

On board camera lights.

Waste of time. They sit on your camera, zapping power, and have all the strength of a decrepid glowworm. They also blast straight ahead, which flattens rather than flatters your subject and create bloody big shadows over the rest of your picture. Forget 'em.

Now for the big boys (and girls). Proper big lights like the pros use. Remember our budget (or lack of budget)here so don't buy 'em, rent 'em.

Big Lights

To get more bang for your buck, or strictly more wattage from your wallet get a bigger light. There are a few lights that can be carried by a separate person (such as the Reportalight) but to seriously light a scene you need lights over 100 watts. These lights come with stands which you can adjust to the appropriate height, they also have filters and barndoors so you can adjust the quality and quantity of light they put out. The most standard pro light is a Redhead. Now I thought they were called Redheads cos the back of them are red (well, a deep orange really), but apparently its because the more powerful ones are called Brunettes and the most powerful are called Blondes (well, they do say that blondes have all the fun).

There's a couple of things to watch out for when you are using these. Be very careful when adjusting the barn doors as they tend to get quite hot (here speaks a man who saw the skin off his fingertips vaporize before his eyes). Oh, and make sure that the stands are secure and that nobody can accidentally knock them over, as a hot moving object crashing down on cast and crew is a bad idea.

If you're shooting in a small room keep the lights switched off when you're not using them as the room can get very hot very quickly. (We were making a documentary and had lit a wall with a blonde cos that was all they had left at the renting place. That room go soo hot, it was freezing outside and we were all in this room sweating buckets).

Very Big Lights

During December I came home from shopping one night, turned the corner and there was this massive blinding white light right outside my house. It was shining through the trees and kinda looked like something out of the X-Files, what with it being up in the trees. Turns out that they were shooting an advert there, dunno what for, but when I got home my shoes were covered in false snow (which according to the news is the same snow they used in GoldenEye). Wow! I trod in James Bond snow!

 

Three light setups

So let's assume you have blagged a set of three redheads from a local hire place. What next?

Set something up you want to light. The example that is always used is a person. Set up your first redhead (they come with little tripods which they attach to) and put it in front of the subject at a 45o angle looking down on them a little. This is the key light. Our subject is now lit. Hurrah!

But the subject does seem to have heavy shadows on the opposite side of their face. Erect another redhead making this one more diffuse by reflecting it off a wall, a reflector or by putting a scrim (basically a grille) in front of it. This is the fill light and helps soften the shadows.

You can also add a light above and behind the subject to add a slight corona (ie. white line) around them that helps to separate them from the background. This is called the back light.

Remember that the further you move a light away from the object you are lighting the less light falls on it - not exactly rocket scinece eh? Well think back to your Physics lessons and you might also be able to remember the inverse square law. This states that 'the intensity of light observed from a source of constant intrinsic luminosity falls of as the square of the distance from the object'.

Wow! But what does that mean? Well if I am lighting Cameron Diaz if I double the distance she is from the light (by moving the light to the other side of the room) I would decrease the brightness of the light so it was only a quarter of what it was, resulting in a very dark Miss Diaz so that nobody good see her. Not good.

 

Avoid Backlighting - This is where your subject is standing with the sky or a window or white wall behind them. The camera goes 'Hey, loads of white I better set my exposure to that', so when you come to look at your footage all you can see it a silhouette of your subject and you can hardly see their face. Solution - turn around, and use the light from the wall/window to light your subject (Some cameras might have a BLC - Backlight Compensation button, but these tend to on the whole suck).

 

All white light is not white, right?

Light not only differs in intensity, but also in its colour. Lights have different colour temperatures. Sunlight is kindof bluey, artificial light (like lightbulbs and stuff) is orangey and fluorescent strip lights are greeny.

Sunlight Bluey

Artificial Light Orangey

Fluorescents Greeny

Your eyes can sort this information out, but the camera tends to make everything look all one colour if its on the wrong setting. So remember to check the white balance on your camcorder.

White balance is essentially what colour your camera thinks is white. Some cameras have buttons for this i.e. indoors, outdoors etc. Other cameras sort this out automatically (although they can make a botch job of it) and some allow you to set it manually (by sticking a piece of white card in front of it and saying 'Hey, this is white you dumb camera').

If at all possible use a colour monitor (ie. play around when your camera is plugged into the telly) to see what colour different lights look on through your camera and how effective your camera's auto white balance settings are.

Try changing your camera's white balance for effect. Try using your indoor setting when filming sunsets etc.to make it even redder, and try using your outdoor setting indoors to create a blue clinical feel.

Gels

When you add light to a scene you usually end up mixing light of different colour tempertures. To make light all of the same colour you have to fit gels over the lights. Gels are plastic strips that attach via bulldog style clips to the light's barndoors. Most of the time you will simply add a blue gel to a Redhead to give it daylight balanced light.

You can double up gels or use theatrical gels to create really strong lighting schemes (see Dick Tracy). We tried this out on one film, starting off with the Redhead bare, and increasing the number of orange gels, so that by the end of the film the light is almost red, turning a normal bedroom into a vision of hell.

Light at Night

Lighting at night is no fun at all. However much light you seem to pour onto a subject it still looks dark and grainy, either that or your subject looks blasted out - white and washed out, like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights.

The best bet is to shoot all your night stuff just before light is about to go, when it looks like night but there is still some light on the horizon (you better be quick), or shoot it day for night.

Day for night is a cheapo 60's style technique. Check out ITV series from that period and Connery Bond films. You fit a blue filter to the front of the camera and decrease the exposure. Remember to make sure that what is in front of the camera looks right, so lights in houses need to be on and remember, no birds flying through shot!

Lighting inside cars

Have you ever really paid attention to scenes where there are two characters driving along at night talking to each other. The car's interior is lit so that both actors look like they are sitting there with 1000W lights sitting on their laps (which they probably are). Compare this to real life - light in car? nil.

We shot a scene like this using a portable light aimed downwards bounced off a reflector that was sitting in the back seat. Unortunately this car was a mini so there wasn't much room and we had rented the world's largest reflector which proceeded to unfold itself halfway through the shot appearing in the back seat like a surprised passenger! Take two.

Burn Baby Burn - creating fire light.

Need to create a decent fire effect on the faces of two characters as they watch a building burn? Aim a redhead with an orange gel away from the actors towards a massive reflector. Shake the reflector, aiming the light onto the actors. Add burning sound effects and voila 'instant fire'.

TVee nights - creating TV and monitor light.

A similar method can be employed to light a room of people watching television at night. Blast a blue light over at your actors and wave a piece of paper in front of it very fast to create a flickering effect.

Visible Light Beams

If you want to be a real show off and start painting with light you might want to consider using a smoke machine. By diffusing the smoke so that a thin haze fills the room you can shine light through it so that the beam reflects off the smoke particles and can be seen. Watch any episode of My So Called Life or Party of Five for a brief example. Smoke machines use a liquid which it heats up producing clouds on non-toxic smoke - you can usually rent one for ten or twenty quid a day.

'Turn off the light on your way out'

Good lighting adds so much to your film. It's like having another actor. Use light to create a mood, to tell us more about the characters and the world they live in.

The greatest thing about making movies is that it is pure madness. All you are doing is trying to capture rays of light onto a thin piece of celluloid or videotape. Moviemaking is simply painting with light.

Shooting : The Commandments101 Tips to make shooting with your camcorder easier

Remember to take the lens cap off. (Eh?) No, really, I'm being serious. In the rush of setting everything up for a shot you would be surprised at the number of people who set the camera recording with the lens cap still on. Even the pros can do it - a friend of mine had some footage that a Channel 4 documentary crew had shot the other day, there was a five minute segment with just sound, until the producer starts cursing when he discovers the lens cap is still on.

Always record 5 seconds before and after the shot you want. Editing decks need a bit of space to get the signal properly (called pre-roll) and they can muck their edits up if you don't have enough pre-roll. Your editor will hate you if you don't have enough, and if you don't have an editor you will hate yourself even more.

Use manual focus if at all possible. Autofocus hunts for stuff to focus on, so if someone walks through the shot it will try and focus on them, getting your subject out of focus. Autfocus also uses up a lot of battery power, so using manual focus and push focus (a button you can press for autofocusing) makes your batteries last longer. Whatever, make sure your subject is in focus. To be absolutely sure, zoom in on the subject, focus, and zoom out.

Leave that zoom rocker switch alone! See that button that rests just underneath your fingers when you hold the camera? That's your ticket to bad film-making. Its sitting there, nuzzling you saying 'Hey press me! Zoom in, go on. Now zoom out! Smart'. Unfortunately when you come to watch your film most of your audience will be sick because the zoom is constantly tromboning in and out. There are only two occasions when it is OK to use the zoom during a shot.

1) You are interviewing a man who has just seen his daughter run down by a steamroller. Understandibly its a heartwrenching moment. So Mr. NewsCameraman zooms in really slow (you barely notice it) so we capture that first tear perfectly (how they can do this I do not know).

2) Cheesy 70's cop movie. We have just ended the last car chase scene and we want to establish that they are now back in the cop shop.

EXT. POLICE HQ - DAY

FAST ZOOM IN on window of building.

CUT TO :

INT. POLICE HQ OFFICE - DAY

SUPERINTENDENT ROBERTS is chewing the asses off the two rookie cops have just flunked the car chase. He's angry, he's mean and he's got huge sweat rings under his armpits.

OK, so you get the picture. Zoom for effect - not because the button is forcing you to.By all means use it to set up a shot when the camera's not rolling, but leave it at that.

Use a tripod - If you want a steady shot then stick your camera on a stand (or a wall or something).

Don't use a tripod - (umm..bit of a contradictionn here - oops!) - If you want to give your film some energy dump the tripod, setting your camera up on sticks takes too long anyway. To keep it steadyish get as close to your subject as possible and shoot as wideangle as possible to minimize shake. If you can, keep both eyes open (instead of just squinting down the viewfinder) so you can adjust the camera to follow your subject.

Check your white balance, especially if you are in mixed lighted rooms. (White Balance? Mixed lighting? Eh?) White balance is essentially what colour your camera thinks is white. Some cameras have buttons for this i.e. indoors, outdoors etc. Other cameras sort this out automatically (although they can make a botch job of it) and some allow you to set it manually (by sticking a piece of white card in front of it and saying 'Hey, this is white you dumb camera'.This all matters because not all light is the same colour. Lights have different colour temperatures. Sunlight is kindof bluey, artificial light (like lightbulbs and stuff) is orangey and fluorescent strip lights are greeny. Your eyes can sort this information out, but the camera tends to make everything look all one colour if its on the wrong setting.Checking your white balance is okay if you've got a colour viewfinder but you'll need to wire the camera into a TV if you haven't. Failing that sure the preset is right and hope its OK.

So remember :

Sunlight Bluey

Artificial Light Orangey

Fluorescents Greeny

Avoid Backlighting - This is where your subject is standing with the sky or a window or white wall behind them. The camera goes 'Hey, loads of white I better set my exposure to that', so when you come to look at your footage all you can see it a silhouette of your subject and you can hardly see their face. Solution - turn around, and use the light from the wall/window to light your subject (Some cameras might have a BLC - Backlight Compensation button, but these tend to on the whole suck).

Try not to appear in your own film - Unless of course you are Hitchcock or your actor has called in sick and you're having to play the role yourself you want to try and avoid appearing in your film as...the camera operator! Avoid fingers near the lens or long hair draping into shot. Equally be careful when shooting through glass, mirrors or shiny objects not to catch a view of yourself. Use a polarizing filter to cut down on any reflection.

Switch the camera on before you take the lens cap off - I don't know where I heard this, but apparently you can damage the camera's CCD chip if you take the cap off then switch it on - y'know, cap off, light streams in, chip gets frazzled. Equally don't point your camera at really bright lights i.e. the sun, nuclear explosions etc

Check your sound - Most cameras have headphone sockets so you can monitor what the camera is picking up. Recording without checking your sound is like shooting and not looking down your viewfinder. Remember : your ears are great (they can filter out all that extra noise and focus in on just one voice) - your camera isn't, it'll pick up on every squeak and rumble.

Use an external mike if possible - To get better sound get your hands on an good external microphone that plugs into your camera. This should cut down on operating noise from the camera (gubbins inside whirring etc.) and you can pick a mike for the job at hand. Doing street interviews? Get an unidirectional mike (y'know, the ones that look like ice creams) to cut down on all that traffic noise (if your camera has any kind of handle tie your flex around this, so if your interviewer yanks on the cord the mike isn't pulled out). Drama? Try a supercardoid mike and mount it on a old broom and get a mate to stand there and dangle it in front of your actors.

Gag your microphone - If you know you're going to be shooting in a windy place get a wind gag for your mike. Wind gags are basically furry things that fit over your mike (in the wild they can live up to 70 years), that cut down on the roar you will hear if filming in wind. The other day I stuck my camera out of a car window and the sound I got was like ground zero at a nuclear blast!

Protect your equipment - You've got to keep it safe from two things - the environment and from it getting nicked. Keep your gear clear from dust and dirt (use

a cover to protect it from the rain) and screw on a skylight filter to protect the lens. Clean the lens/filter and viewfinder using blowerbrushes, airjets etc. Security! Keep your camera close to you, make sure its insured and know its serial number if it does get pinched.

Tape Care - Always use the best quality tape you can afford (usually metal evaporated). You can only capture an event on tape once. The great thing about tape is that you can record over stuff but be careful you may need footage again in the future. Remember, keep all your rushes!

Batteries - Always carry fully-charged extra batteries, otherwise you can bet that you will lose power halfway through the most important shot of your film. Bear in mind that batteries have a shorter lifespan in the cold. Hug them to keep 'em warm (and show them that you love them).

Shoot loads! - Tape is cheap. Use it. When you get around to editing you might just need a certain shot, so shoot everything. Shoot plenty of cutaways (shots to cut in at any point - closeups, buildings, reactions of other people). Don't tell your actors, but shoot practice takes (you might need to put a bit of gaffer tape over the recording light) sometimes they are the best, most natural take.

Shoot with both eyes open -- like the news cameramen do. It takes some practice but it allows you to see what's going on in the viewfinder as well as around you. (Jonathan Lewis)

Avoid the horns of satan! - Try to keep an eye on what is in the background of your shot. You want to try and avoid pot plants sprouting from peoples heads etc. Especially steer clear of backdrops where there's visually exciting stuff going on - a videogame running in the background as you can guarantee that your audience will end of paying more attention to this than what the person is saying or doing. There's a classic clip I've seen where two policemen are talking about what a quiet night it had been with no arrests. Outside the chippy in the background are two lads beating each other to a pulp.

And finally, have fun!

...oh, and tell me if you have any more useful tips.

"Keep it Steady, Eddie"How to keep your shots smooth  

IF you wanna tell tell the difference between amateur and pro films its easy, just look for the one that's wobbling and making the audience seasick (that's us, the amateurs). OK, so how do we get out of this without losing the energy of handheld camera shots?

Umm..Tripods?

If you do get a tripod make sure its a good one, you want a fluid (or Teflon bearing) head so your pans and tilts are smooth. [I was playing with this awful tripod the other day, every time you tried to pan it jerked violently and sqeaked. The effect was kind of like NYPD Blue meets Kingdom of the Mice.] You also wanna get make sure its got a quick release head so you can get your camera on and off it quick and ideally get a lightweight one so its easy to carry around.

So that's our solution then?

Yeah right, like sticking your camera on a stand is gonna make it smooth. It'll make it look professional, but it will also look rigid. Rodriguez says dump the stand - I agree. Whenever the going gets tough and you need to shoot a bunch of stuff real fast the first

thing I do is dump the tripod as it vastly slows you down.

Handheld right?

Urr, kindof. The trouble is that you get jitter from your arms etc. so you really need to isolate the camera from your body.

Failing that you will find that a lot of modern camcorders have image stabilizers. These come in two fruit flavours : electronic and optical. I say ignore electronic like the plague. With electronic the picture 'floats' within the CCD chip (CCD chip? - umm..the bit that changes the picture into an electronic signal) thereby decreasing the actual amount of chip able to take a picture, so your picture quality isn't quite as good. Optical image stabilisers like Sony's Steadyshot use a bunch of moving lenses (or something) meaning your picture quality isn't affected - hurrah!

(Tip for the Top - Get close to your subject and go wideangle as much as possible to decrease camera shake.)

Trouble is though even with a stabilizer the problem hasn't completely gone away and your camera movement can feel 'sluggish' as at first the camera may try and compensate for any movement you do thinking that its shake. So let's see what the big boys (and girls) use.

Steadicam®

Strap yourself into a metal body vest and look like you are going to war. For smart use of a Steadicam check out Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (all those shots following the kid around on his trike - that's Steadicam) and pretty much every major movie since.Basically its a series of counterbalanced weights which moves the camera's centre of gravity away from the operator whilst still allowing them to perform camera moves. You need to keep fit if you wanna use a full size one as it can get pretty tiring supporting a full camera's weight. But thankfully Steadicam (the company) have made Steadicam Jr. which is designed to carry lighter cameras like camcorders. Its the same type of thing but without the body vest and with a LCD monitor so you can watch what you are filming without having to look down the viewfinder - neat! Only problem is that it will hit you for £499 - ouch! (Still, that's a fraction of what a full-size Steadicam will cost you).

There are also some pretenders to the Steadicam crown. Glidecam is another counter-balanced system and they have just started importing them into the UK and HandyMan looks to be a Steadicam variant built of metal (although its more expensive).

Dale's Tale of Woe

I'm after some smooth shots for my next film, so after some umming and arring (and a cash windfall) I decided to get a Steadicam JR for my camcorder (a Sony VX700). It comes with this really cool intro tape showing you sample Steadicam shots and its inventor Garret Brown explaining how to set it up - nice touch. Now setting up takes a while, as you have to be really delicate with the thing and you have to counterbalance your camera just right. I almost got it perfect (after about 3 hours fiddling) and got some nice shots BUT......then it snapped. Holding it like I was supposed to, one of the arms gave way and a screw flew out. Personally I reckon it was because my camera was too heavy (although the camera's weight was well under the limit its effective weight was greater cos its back heavy). Then the platform jammed up and it took my 3 hours with an engineer to remove my camera from this piece of plastic. Grrr.

Anyway, its gone back now and I replaced it with a Glidecam. Good thing is Glidecam is cheaper and built better (metal) although it doesn't have a monitor and low down shots are more difficult (although not impossible).

Then there's the option of a dolly and jib. A dolly is basically a set of wheels that go on the bottom of your tripod and allow you to wheel it around whilst a jib arm is an arm that fits over the top of your tripod that allows you to do crane shots (y'know, those bits where the camera moves up and out allowing you to look down on the whole scene). Hague do a smart Semi-Pro Jib and Dolly for £499. Again, its a question of cash (oh and lugging it around, you'll need a car).

So what's the low-budget/no-budget alternative? Well, Peter Jackson (director of Braindead, Heavenly Creatures etc.) built his own Steadicam for $15 for his first film, Bad Taste, but the consencus is that it ain't worth the effort of trying to build your own (and Peter Jackson is pretty good at turning his hand to mechanical type stuff) as for the money for parts you might as well buy one. So here's a few cheats. They're obviously not going to work as well as professional stuff but they're a damn site cheaper.

BagCam®

Get a plastic bag, ideally a good strong big one. Put your camera inside and cut a hole near the bottom on of the sides, large enough for your lens to poke through but not large enough for your camera to fall out. Now hold the back at the top and try walking around with it. This should isolate the camera from your movement (a bit) and make shots smoother (a bit). Try getting hold of one of those bags made out of string as this should

work even better.

MyArmHurtsCam®

Get a monopod (like a tripod, but with only one leg), add weights to the bottom of it (adjust weight to taste). Now screw your camera into position on the top and hold the monopod underneath the camera. Now try moving about. The centre of gravity is lower so it should move smoother. However this could hurt the old arm a bit if you do this all day.

BalloonCam®

OK, now something really stupid. Seeing as camcorders are getting lighter, why not buy a bunch of helium balloons (and I'm talking about quite a few of them) and attach them to your camera. Instant crane shots!Now a couple of major things can go wrong here. 1) You may not get enough lift so your camera could never get up - try adding some more balloons. 2) You could get too much lift so you might never see your camera again - add some guy ropes so that you can control the camera. 3) Your camera might not point at the right stuff - err, counterbalance the whole rig so that it points groundwards.If you are mad enough to try this one let us know how it goes!

OK, so the conclusion of this might seem to be - buy the stuff for the job. But at least you now know that the equipment is out there and that there are cheap techniques to get pro results.

If you've heard of or tried anything else then please, get in contact.

Non-Linear Editing #1a.k.a. Let Dead Horses Sleep*

There's a revolution taking place in film-making. Chances are that the last film you watched down at your local multiplex wasn't edited on film. Hollywood is saying goodbye to edit suites cluttered with strips of film and ageing Steenbecks and hello to digital technology. Yes, the movie was still shot on film (for the time being!) but it is was probably digitized to a non-linear computer suite and edited on computer. And this revolution isn't just affecting those people with the biggest budgets - its going to have its biggest effect on low-budget/no-budget film-makers who can now edit films on their humble home computer to a standard that a few years ago would have required a roomful of techie black boxes.

Every day the technology gets better and more affordable, putting powerful and professional editing within your grasp. You can now have frame accurate editing, powerful visual effects, sound mixing, titling, blue-screening and CGI modelling all on your desktop.

The key to all of this is non-linear computer editing. In traditional video editing you copy segments of your rushes tape to your master tape - laying shots in order linearly onto your tape. Get to the end of a sequence and decide that you want to change the 3rd shot and you have to edit the entire sequence all over again. Grrr!

Film editing is non-linear. Because the picture and sound exist as pieces of celluloid and magnetic tape that you physically cut and splice together if you decide you don't like the 3rd shot in a sequence it is simple enough to cut it out and replace it.

Computer editing combines the best of both worlds - no need hunt through rooms of film to find your shot and its equally able to edit sequences together in any order. Non-linear computer editing allows you manipulate movie clips like you would add and change words in a word-processor - simply CUT, COPY and PASTE your movie together!

What you need to get into non-linear computer editing?

Computer - Suprise! Suprise! I'm assuming you already have one of these (it makes reading eXposure easier ;-> ). Any machine produced in the last couple of years should be pretty capable. Obviously the faster the processor the better (to allow transitions such as dissolves to be built quickly). Lots of RAM is nice - video applications tend to gobble it up. Having spare expansion slots such as a PCI slot is vital allowing you to add a video capture card.

Firewire editing setup

Video Capture Card - This allows you to plug your camcorder or VCR into your computer and sample and store (digitize) clips of video to your hard disk. Capture cards compress video converting it to a digital file format such as M-JPEG (Motion JPEG) or DV (Digital Video). There's a variety of video capture cards - prices range from £150 - £5000+ depending on the quality of video and whether you want transitions and effects processed in realtime (rather than having to wait for the computer to build dissolves etc). If you are using Hi8 or S-VHS use a card with S-video input for the best quality. Likewise use a Firewire card for DV camcorders.

Big Hard Drive - Once your video is digitized it starts taking up a lot of disk space - typically between 1.5Mb - 4Mb per second!! You can expect to see disk space disappearing rapidly as video clips start to colonise your hard disk. Its important to have a fast hard drive too - the drive needs to be able to record 3 to 4 megabytes worth of information every second. If it isn't up to the job it will start to drop frames ie. it will skip frames resulting in glitches and ocasionally jerky video. The solution is to buy a dedicated AV hard drive - the bigger and faster the better.

More storage! - As you work on projects you may want to store and archive clips to work on in the future. Pound per megabyte the cheapest method currently is Recordable CD. For a quid you can store 650Mb (Jaz Drives can store a Gigabyte of data but Jaz cartridges are £40 whilst DVD-Ram drives can store 5.2Gb for £30) CD recorders also allow you to produce soundtrack CDs, enhanced CDs and send video clips to people around the world for negligible cost.

Video Compression, Data Rates and Disk Usage for Full Size PAL video

Video Quality Compression Megabytes per second

Minutes per Gigabyte

VHS/8mm minimum 15:1 1.4 12

S-VHS/Hi8 minimum 10:1 2.1 8

S-VHS/Hi8 recommended

7:1 3 5

DV 5:1 3.6 4

Non-linear editing software - Software usually comes bundled with the card. Get a powerful, flexible package that is easy to work with. Names to look out for include Adobe Premiere, Ulead MediaStudio, Judgement, EditDV and Avid. I prefer Premiere as its pretty powerful stuff and there's a lot you can do with it.

The Setup

Apologies for the above diagram - if at first glance it looks like a mess of cables then you're right...it is!! If you start wiring your computer equipment up to your video equipment its not long before everything disappears under a mountain of leads and power cables.

 

Digital Video Edit Suite (the RED lines)

Using my setup as an example I have my camera (a Sony VX700) connected to my computer with a Firewire cable. MiniDV cameras compress the picture before recording the signal to tape producing broadcast quality pictures and CD-quality sound. The picture information is stored on the tape in a series of 1's and 0's (ie. its digital). To get the most out of DV, clips are transferred to the computer's hard disk using Firewire (also called IEEE 1394 and iLink). Firewire consists of a cable and an interface card (Radius's MotoDV in this case). You can control the camcorder from the computer and capture clips to the hard disk to edit.

After editing the final movie can be sent back over the firewire cable to the camcorder. The movie file is of the same high quality as the original captured file. Digital In. Digital Out. Sounds great...in theory.

Unfortunately there's an extra hurdle to cross if you're in the UK. The big selling point of DV was that there was no need to buy a DV VCR to record your final movie on - the camera could do the job through firewire. First the bad news - UK Firewire camcorders had DV IN deactivated due to EU import taxes. The only solution at the time was to buy a £3000 DV VCR (ouch!). Now the good news! DV IN can be reactivated on some camcorders by reprogramming the camera's memory. Thankfully we can skip the science bit as companies like Datavision produce a widget that connects to your camcorder and allows you to switch codes to enable DV IN. And the even better bit of good news is that in recent months camcorder manufacturers have seen sense and released UK DV camcorders with DV IN as standard. Remember to check before you buy.

The final step is to transfer from the MiniDV master tape to VHS using the camcorder's phono outputs. Tadaaa!! One edited VHS copy of your movie.

Analog Video Non-Linear Edit Suite (the BLUE lines)

What if you have a analog camcorder?...a Hi8, 8mm or S-VHS. You can still edit digitally but first you have to capture from your camcorder. If you are using a hi-band camcorder (Hi8, S-VHS, S-VHS-C) and your camcorder has an S-video output use a capture card with an S-video input for the best quality. Low-band camcorder users (8mm, VHS, VHS-C) might as well save themselves the expense and use the phono outputs.

The quality you capture at depends on the quality you want your final movie. There's a couple of settings you can vary including the screen size (smaller if your final movie is for CD-Rom or the internet), frame rate (again fewer for CD-Rom or internet movies), audio sample rates and image compression. The capture card

DV camcorder(Click for a closeup

of the firewire socket)

samples the picture and sound data and compresses it to store on your hard disk. The files produced are called M-JPEG files (Motion-JPEG).

Again you edit non-linearly using software such as Premiere and produce a final movie file. The final movie file is transferred to directly to VHS (or if you have access a high band tape format such as Betacam or S-VHS). Here there is generation loss. The original image and the final image suffer slight degredation as the image has had to be sampled and copied. However this effect is minimal.

Now we know what kit we are using we will look at non-linear editing in practice. Next time we'll get our hands dirty; capturing and editing some footage in Premiere, going from our rushes to a final edited movie, all within the digital realm.

 

How compression works

Suppose you had a shot of your main character finding a dead body in the snow (hey! this sounds like a good movie - let's call it Fargo). The camera is on a tripod and pretty steady so the only thing moving in shot is Frances McDormand. Compression works by mathematically describing reduntant areas so instead of the computer's file saying 'snowy white pixel...snowy white pixel...snowy white pixel...snowy white pixel...snowy white pixel...' it says 'bunch of snowy white pixels this big' and the file takes up less

space on your hard disk. The only real work it has to do in a scene like that is say 'Frances McDormand moves up a bit'. Unfortunately the more the compression ratio is increased the greater the chance of artefacts appearing. Artefacts may include blockiness, especially around the edges of objects.

Audio capture works by taking slices out of your sound files. The greater the audio setting the more slices it takes. For example 44KHz is CD-quality sound whilst 22KHz Nicam stereo sound takes up half as much disk space. Done sensibly sound settings can be lowered considerably before you can hear the drop in quality. Again compression can be applied to decrease file sizes.

10 Things you need to become a Film Director

1. A beard - all great film-makers have beards - Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola etc. etc. Note, this isn't sexist, women can have fine beards too. Don't worry if you can't grow a beard, you can always borrow one from a responsible adult.

2. A stupid name - Scorcese, Tarantino, Zefirelli. You don't hear of anyone making films called Jones*, so change your name to something daft. How to come up with that perfect moniker? Try hitting a keyboard and seeing what it spells. If it looks really strange you are are obviously a foreign film-maker - well done! Alternatively try adding -berg to your name eg. Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg for that directory touch.

3. A baseball cap - Directors always wear baseball caps. If its a cold shoot they have a cap on to keep warm, if its a hot sunny shoot they have a cap on to keep cool - presumably this is to keep their brains in optimum condition. Caps can also double up as advertising space for your latest feature or as an alternative revenue stream. Man to take tips from - Spike Lee, he's made a career out of the baseball cap.

4. A press photo of yourself behind a camera pointing - This is directing,...pointing - presumably just after saying something like "Try shooting that bad guy over there Arnie" or "Blow up that building Sly".

5. A quirk - so people can remember who you are in interviews eg. Tarantino - 'speak-very-fast' quirk, Scorcese - eyebrows quirk, Tim Burton - quirk of nature.

6. Friends - no, not your ordinary pals, or even the US comedy six pack, but real life celebrity mates. Be seen hanging out with Eric Stoltz, throw a barbie and invite Winona and Brad over. Yeah as if! Alternatively find a couple of lookalikes/cardboard cut-outs, get a photo done and casually leave the pictures around your abode/send them to film mags. An even easier method (although not recommnded) is to shoot the breeze with Charlie Sheen, Sean Young and other has-beens.

7. A guess spot directing for TV - Spike Lee's done it (Red Stripe commercials), Quentin Tarantino's done it (ER) even David Cronenberg's done it (Nike).

8. Umm...one of those chairs, y'know the director fold out ones that are made out of wood and canvas with DIRECTOR on the back. Don't make the mistake of using a deck chair instead. Sure its similar, but it just won't do.If you're ever on a film set for a laugh try sitting in the Director's chair. A wannabe film-maker friend of mine did this and he directed half of Batman and Robin before anybody realised.

9. A megaphone. Okay, so close your eyes and try and imagine a film-maker and you've probably put one of these in their hands. Why??

10. And finally, a damn famous film. You can go one of two ways, you can either have Hollywood's cheapest film...

- "Hi I'm Edward Burns, I've just made 'The Brothers McMullen for $25, 000" ,- "Yeah? well go swing Mr. Burns. I'm Robert Rodriguez and I've just made 'El Mariachi' for $7,500",- "Is that so Robert? I've just made a coming of age/romantic-comedy/sci-fi epic for £7.50!"

...or you can make Hollywood's most expensive film.

- "Hi I'm Jim Cameron and I've just spent more money than any other person in history on my latest film - 'True Lies'"- "As if, Mr. C. I've just made 'Waterworld' and spent more money than most small country's own and I didn't even have to pay for Schwarznegger."

Got all of the above? Congratulations, you are now a Film Director!

* No, Spike Jonze doesn't count, he's had to spell it wrong to get some attention.

How to make a Costume Drama

Costume Drama!! Ruddy Costume Drama, that's all we seem to get nowadays, so if you want to see your film on screen then it seems like the way of the 'your impertinence astounds me Master Jones' is the way to go.

OK...Number One - The Costume

Go rent a load of frilly clothes - tops hats etc.

Buy a job-lot of stick on sideburns. Remember, two for every actor, if after that you have any spare stick 'em on the actresses, it'll keep the audiences interested.

Corsets - allows you to cast any actress you like and still have Kate Moss size characters - simple pull the cords tighter!

Locations - using a bit of black gaffer tape create 'leading' for your french window/kitchen window (y'know those black lines) - ta! da! instant Stately Home. Failing that, get in costume and pretending you're a bit strange go see a Stately Home. Pull the old video camera out and shoot a couple of scenes with authentic backdroppery!!

Period detail - remember, hide everything that might give the game away about when you filmed it, so digital watches and cellular's are out. Don't worry too much about haircuts though. If past form is anything to go by you can get away with anything. Check out some 70s costume drama and they all have 70s haircuts, in 80s costume drama they all look like Neil Morrisey etc. so you should be able to get away with a few dreadlocks and Jennifer Anniston Shag cuts. Besides if people get lippy you can always mention that it is a 'radical adaptation'.

...which brings us onto Number 2 - The Drama.

Nip down to the bookshop and buy one of those Penguin Classics. In the UK it should be 50 years old or more which means that it's out of copyright (75+ years in the USA), so for the price of your book, you've just bought the rights to a classic novel. Alternatively hit up Project Gutenburg, download your classic text and you don't even have to pay a penny - hurrah!

Now the tricky bit, the adaptation. Because these books tend to waffle on a bit (jaysus! I saw Little Dorrit the other day - it was six hours long!!) take a pair of scissors and randomly hack out about half of your book. Throw this in the bin. Now give what you have got left a good read through, if it doesn't make sense don't worry, remember its a 'radical adaptation'. If its looking a bit boring spice it up by inserting a few choice sex scenes or a bit of violence. Authentic period violence and sex includes hunting for wild animals, gardening at the Chatterley's or anything that takes place in a scullery.

If you're stuck with a scene or two that doesn't make much sense 'cos there's all this internal drivel going on with the character then give them a companion to talk to. They can basically splurge all the details about what they have been up to in India or how they are suffering inner torment to their companion. Sample companions include pet whippets, token Americans or mutes (remember, it worked for The Piano).

If you fell asleep during the Costume bit, or frankly reckoned that was way too much effort why not make your costume drama a 'loose adaptation'? This is basically like a costume drama with all the advantages of not having to pay for the rights but without all the frilly bits. See 'Clueless', described as a 'loose adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Emma' or the latest version of 'Romeo and Juliet'.

...and that's it! Get yourself a slot on BBC and watch the cash roll in.

Hey, if you've never heard of this invaluable aid its basically a (usually black)

cloth tape. Its damn sticky, super wide and you can rip it rather than having to cut it. Frankly its ace!

Loose cables on set? Lead actor broken his neck when he tripped on a power line? Dimwitted Director dragging cameras across the set by getting caught in cables? Then you need Gaffer Tape. Simply tape all your cables to the floor of your set and your world becomes a much safer place.

Picture the scene: an empty warehouse, a besuited gangster dances around a struggling victim, who then turns round and gives the gangster a telling off. Not so effective huh! Kidnapping? Do the job in style and gag your victim with gaffer tape.Any hey, why stop there. If you're directing and an actor thinks they can do the job better simply gag them too.

Wanna play sneaky? Cover that blinking red record light on the front of your camcorder and the actors need never know that you're filming their rehearsals. Remember, sometimes the good footage comes first.

Does you medieval epic need a slab of Braveheart gung ho? Use lightweight plastic rods covered in shock foam and wrapped up with silver gaffer tape and you've got instant swords, now your actors can happily swash and bickle to their heart's content.

Don't keep your actors up all night. We shot some saturday night interiors on a bright sunday morning. Simply attach black bin bags to the windows with your trusty roll of gaffer tape thereby preventing light leaking in, close the curtains/blinds and voila instant night.

Camera broken? Prop in pieces? Actor snapped? A couple of strips of gaffer tape and they are as good as new.

and finally...

In space they have no bras! That's official, George Lucas says so. During some of the action in Star Wars Carrie Fisher was experiencing the effects of inertia all too much, and as the Death Star isn't a Gossard stockist her breasts had to be taped down - ouch! Another triumph for Gaffer Tape!

It has no doubt appeared in every single film production ever, but it has never won an Oscar, never been to Cannes and has strangely never been credited...Gaffer Tape, we salute you!!

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