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Erkki

Filmmaking

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Lately I'm trying to get into making extra short films/videos besides shooting photos. However, it seems exponentially harder and more demanding, as photography is just a tiny part of it. Any recommendations for learning material? I've been watching some YT channels occasionally, like DSLRguide.

 

Is https://www.masterclass.com/ a legit thing? A Werner Herzog class for 90$ sounds like a good deal, but for some reason they are declining my card, even if I go through PayPal.

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Good question. I'm not sure exactly. I'm currently stuck in not having a solid idea of what to shoot and what kind of films should I do. I want to make short films of maybe 3 to 5 minutes, but I don't have a lot of extra time so I don't want to just shoot garbage and then think what kind of film to put together from it (which is what I've done so far, mostly).

 

One idea I have is to do a very short city symphony film of Tallinn, a'la "The Man with a Movie Camera". But I only have some vague ideas what I'd like it to be like and I don't even know what to do to put together a plan of shots.

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I don't know if anyone will be able to teach you what kind of films you want to make...

 

If you want to do a 'city symphony' film, I'd say the best thing to do is think of stuff you find interesting in the city, go out and film it, then try editing it to a piece of music. Do you have a message about the city or a particular element that you'd want to highlight? If so, use that to hone in on what would be good to shoot. Maybe spend a day walking round the city getting ideas.

 

If you want to do narrative stuff, a good place to start is what resources you have - locations, actors, etc, then write something simple around that. 

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I know I can't directly learn all that from someone, but I can get inspiration from taking a class. I actually already took a real world 4-day class last month, and it got me moving forward, but it was kind of expensive.

 

I went ahead and bought this. I at least like to watch Herzog speaking (even though I think he was pretty vile when using animal torture in his movies), I might learn something, and I think the assignments will give me some momentum.

 

[edit] From the second lesson the first watch recommendations are mostly to early racist films like Birth of a Nation, The Mask of Fu Manchu, which I've avoided so far... I hope it gets better.

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Keep us updated! I'm definitely curious as to how good those Masterclass things are, as I've seen them advertised for a while now.

 

I'm guessing those watch recommendations are because those early films are credited with being the first to use certain editing techniques etc..?

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Ok, well, so far the Werner Herzog masterclass is a bit overwhelming. There are PDFs accompanying the short video lectures and in the first one they recommend NOT to watch the lectures in one row, skipping the assignments. And they give a suggested schedule of 7 weeks. However, the first week with 5 lectures seems to contain a tremendous amount of work if you really want to do the assignments properly and also watch the recommended films.

 

Firstly, the PDFs give some recommendations on what films to watch, and the first one recommends 7 Werner Herzog films (of which 2 I've already seen).

 

The second lesson recommends The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Beast of the City, Sporting Blood and Birth of a Nation. These are more of a recommendations, but the assignment is to dig into film culture of Iran, silent era Germany & Italian neorealism and finding commonalities. I'm not sure exactly if it should mean reading about those eras or also watching the films.

 

The third lesson assignment is to read The Peregrine, copy 5 pages by hand and then write 20 pages about something in similar style.

 

It seems to me that it will take me more than a week to do all this and then I'll be over the hump of week 1. Maybe I'm a bit overwhelmed because I almost haven't read any books in several years and the third lesson is all about READ READ READ. And I also haven't written anything for a while...

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God damn, this homework is too much to start off the course. I'm unable to really focus on the book, I've only read about 1/3 and it's already 2 weeks since I started... :/ Well, at least during the time I've made a couple of dumb shorts (both filmed and edited during a single day or a half), no thanks to Werner Herzog.

 

 

 

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Still struggling to read the book. I'm about 40% through, but looks like in the end it will have taken me a month to do the first homework... I'm still determined to do it, though, instead of skipping the assignments and just watching through the video lectures.

 

I'm starting to have some doubts about the usefulness of this masterclass.com format, though. For example, because of this

9114c219b3.jpg

 

It might seem ok for filmmaking, and other things which should be self-teachable more or less easily, but is anyone really going to learn tennis from a few hours of online courses, even if it's from one of the top athletes in the world? I doubt it, getting good at tennis should require years of practice (even with trainers) as far as I know and I don't see how a few online lessons could help much. Anyway, I'm now thinking the same might apply for such filmmaking courses by celebrities, maybe I was just blinded because I'm actually interested in it and like some Herzog movies.

 

I found another course that is more technical, more about cinematography, but might be more immediately useful https://www.mzed.com/courses/philip-bloom-cinematic-masterclass. I'm thinking it's kind of too expensive for me right now, though.

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Bear in mind that students going to university IRL get given mountains of reading and don't always get through all of it! I think you might need to give yourself permission to skim some of the reading and come back to it later.

 

Also, it's great that you're shooting more stuff on your own. Maybe try some narrative stuff too, use the things in your lessons as inspiration. If you don't know what script to write, maybe adapt a short story or ask someone here to write you something (again, bearing in mind what access you have to locations, actors, lighting etc). It might be helpful to see if there are any groups near you who meet up and make films together (a site like meetup.com might help), you may learn some cinematography stuff (as well as working within a crew, other disciplines) that way before embarking on another course...

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Thanks, that was good advice. I actually went ahead and watched the next two lessons and the next homeworks are way less overwhelming, while getting more practical. But I did get the feeling that this masterclass can only provide so much, with about 10-15 minutes video per lesson it seems to just summarize Herzog's view on how one could get started making films and how he did it. But I do find something motivational about it.

 

In general I'm now also getting the feeling that maybe I'm trying to move too fast - I got started with photography only slightly more than a year ago, and I felt like I got enough of a basic grasp on that so that I could move on to film, but actually I spent almost none of that time doing portraits, which actually might be the most filmic genre of photography due to the nature of the work, as it involves lighting setup, hair & makeup, and actually going on a shoot with people on a location. And also I didn't get confidence to photograph people really close up, which is probably a must to do a movie with people. So I'm kind of thinking I should go back and start doing portraits, while I can continue practicing video shooting and editing skills.

 

And another area where I'm lacking is reading and writing - I haven't properly read books in a while, and hardly even long form internet articles. The only writing I do is forum posts and code... I haven't even written a technical blog post for two years. And I haven't written any fiction in even more years. At least I have watched a lot of movies, but I can't say that I've gained some systematic knowledge about the structure of films from that. I got into film as hobby quite late and even as I watched a lot of classics I watched them for the first time and in more of an entertainment mode than to learn how they are made.

 

So the plan is to keep following this course at a probably rather slow pace, to keep doing short videos, maybe slowly starting to involve people and stories, and perhaps do some portrait photography, and start reading again and try to get back to writing fiction as well.

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Sounds good! Just don't go so slow that you never end up doing anything just because it's safer than making something rubbish ;)

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Well, Ben, I did go that slow. Actually I decided now that the Werner Herzog course is not helping me at this point. I just need to start doing and since there's no real doing without script I started writing a script and am now starting to realize how much goes into making an actual film compared to just editing some random shots together. I'll probably use various resources on YouTube and elsewhere to improve my writing. And also some local guy who has made some music videos approached me after I asked about some gear recommendations on a FB group and started giving me advice and that is also motivating me further...

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Excellent! As someone who came up with an idea for a modest short film in mid 2016 and is now still in the process of editing that film, my advice would be to work quickly and just bang something out. My professional friend who is helping me said that the credo of the indie filmmaker is "The next one will be better" and that means a lot more to me now than when I started. By the time anyone sees this thing it will be nearly 2 years in the making and as proud as I am of how it's coming along, it's hard to imagine a final result that will make that feel like time well spent.

 

If I had been less finicky about getting everything right and made a half dozen shorts in that time I would have learned much more and quite possibly a couple of them would have been better than what I'm working on now. They might have not been amazing but they'd at least have put me further down the path to making something amazing. My advice would be to take stock of what you have (equipment, props, locations, people who can help you), come up with a simple and VERY short story (or simple concept if you want to eschew narrative) about 3 minutes max and try to bang it out over the course of a week. Even if it's terrible it will give you a starting point to work off from, ideas of what you want to improve, what your strengths are, etc. 

 

And if you're doing a narrative thing make a shot list. The actual shooting of my short went really well because my shot list was a road map to the day's work and I was able to schedule our time wisely. And if you're going to work with actors, set some time aside for a rehearsal. Even if it's just running through everything a couple times with script in hand it will make you think about how to block and stage your shots in much more practical concrete ways. In my head my movie looked like Ozu and the blocking of my dialogue scene was very static. Then during rehearsal I realized that I'm not actually a brilliant screenwriter and the ineffable poetry of my words wouldn't be enough to hold the audience rapt with attention, so I reworked it to be much more dynamic and it made everything better. If I had realized my mistake while I was supposed to be shooting I probably would have worried too much about getting everything done on time and left it at the bad blocking. But if you don't have time for rehearsals, that's fine, just get it done.

 

 

As an aside, here is the only other film I've directed (unless you count a 30 second silent film I shot on 16mm as part of a summer school course). It was co-directed with my ex, but since it was for a school project of theirs they got sole credit. We thought we were being really Woody Allen but it's actually more like an early Eric Rohmer film, even though neither of us had seen his work at that point. Really rough on a technical level and my narration (our golden-throated narrator we lined up cancelled at the last minute, so I had to do it) makes me cringe, but all in all it's not terrible for an amateur movie made by teenagers with a camcorder and Windows Movie Maker.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Erkki said:

Well, Ben, I did go that slow.

 

But I told you not to!

 

I've written a short script if you'd like to film it, it's about someone who doesn't listen to the advice of his incredibly intelligent friend and ends up not getting something done as quickly as he might have otherwise.

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Send it to me, I’ll take a look!

 

Patrick, I like it! Will try to see some more Eric Rohmer also, I’ve only seen The Collectioneur or what it’s called.

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Oh, it's pretty short, I'll paste it here:


 

Spoiler

 

INT. ROOM, DAY

 

BENNEX

Hi Irkki, old pal! How's the film-making course going?

 

IRKKI

Well, the plan is to keep following this course at a probably rather slow pace.

 

BENNEX

(smiling)

Hmm, Sounds good! Just don't go so slow that you never end up doing anything just because it's safer than making something rubbish..!

 

IRKKI

Characteristically incredibly intelligent advice, thanks Bennex, old chum!

 

FADE TO BLACK

 

TITLE CARD: "FOUR MONTHS LATER"

 

SMASH CUT TO:

 

INT. ROOM, DAY

IRKKI now has a long BEARD and is covered in COBWEBS. BENNEX enters.

 

IRKKI

Well, Ben, I did go that slow.

 

Suddenly the wall of the room is blasted away to reveal a huge alien invasion in progress. BENNEX and IRKKI jump through the hole and in a continuous twenty-minute shot run through the collapsing streets, shoot down an alien fighter ship, ride to the mother-ship and destroy it, then park the ship back where they started.

 

IRKKI

Say, this might make a good film!

 

FREEZE FRAME

 

TITLE CARD: "THE END..?"

 

 

(Seriously, though, if it would help, I can knock something out that takes into consideration your available locations, actors, etc. Or feel free to use one of the scripts on my portfolio site which I've linked to in my sig- Body Swap would probably be the sensible choice, as I wrote it to be filmed in a flat with two actors and mostly natural lighting etc.)

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Thanks for the offer, I might take it up a bit later.

 

I currently just found a way to really make this script I'm working on personal and something that matters to me, rather than focused on the dumb joke that the idea grew out of. So I'm hopeful that I can get a good script from it. But I can already see that it's not going to be easy to shoot, as it has vehicles, action, crowds, probably some visual effects, and a weird machine that I've only heard about and that noone has seen yet (although this last thing is maybe not essential), possibly illegal graffiti and forged license plates.

 

But I really want to get this to a state where I have a finished screenplay and accompanying notes and I could put it in a drawer and think that some day I could shoot this. And when I'm really sure that I'm currently not equipped to shoot it with no budget, then I'll probably be open to going with an easier to shoot script.

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But now I’m realizing that my story might work better as a feature or at least 40-60min movie and leaving something big out seems to leave it less effective. I don’t know if I should try to finish it anyway to see how many pages it comes to or find something smaller immediately...

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If your immediate aim is to make a short narrative film, I'd say find something smaller immediately. You can always work on the larger script at the same time or at some point later, even if it's just a writing exercise and you never intend to make it. But for your first narrative film start very, very small. Start with what you've already got access to. Robert Rodriguez did the same for El Mariachi - he had a pet turtle, so he wrote a scene into the movie about a turtle crawling down the road. I did the same with Body Swap - I had access to a flat, all the things in it, two actors and one camera, so I wrote (and produced, but it's horrendously amateurish) a short about two guys in a flat who body-swap and decide to stay in the flat instead of risking any hi-jinx.

 

You don't want to be getting into crowds and vehicles and shit when you haven't got even a little narrative film-making under your belt. You'll need to be very confident in what you're doing to make sure you're covering health and safety as well as just not wasting people's time. You need to learn about basic coverage, continuity, dealing with actors, dealing with crew, scheduling, narrative editing etc. I'd suggest making, say, four extremely basic short films, one a week (or a fortnight or a month depending on your life schedule), and then think about making something bigger. Maybe by the fourth one you'll already be feeling confident enough to involve some visual effects, a small crowd, stuff like that.

 

Speaking of Robert Rodriguez, some extra-curricular reading you might find inspiring is his Rebel Without A Crew film-making diary, which is where I remember that turtle anecdote from. There are probably a ton of books like that, maybe others can recommend some. Another one would be the early chapters of If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell, where he talks about all the silly short films he and the Raimis made to screen for family, friends, then the entire school, which became more and more elaborate until they made Evil Dead.

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When I was in my summer school filmmaking class there was a student who couldn't think of an idea that would fit a 30 second to minute long silent short film. My teacher put his hands on their shoulders, looked them straight in the eyes and said "Then do a water balloon fight. Everyone likes a water balloon fight. They can be any length and they look great."

 

I'm not necessarily saying make a film about a water balloon fight (it's February) but with a short film you really need so little context, so little backstory and your premise doesn't need to be clever. You could make a short about someone looking for their car keys and it'd be the valuable learning experience you need. Try searching "short horror film" on Vimeo . Even if you don't want to make a horror film, amateur/student horror shorts are nice because they're usually structured around a single gag, available locations, don't require much nuance from your surely amateur actors and are narrow in scope the way your first films should be. 

 

Here's a couple:

Shiva

Masterpiece

He Can Help

Whistle

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Thanks for the ideas! I think I should generally watch more shorts to get more ideas for them... I only see them occasionally on Mubi, I'm not used to seeking out shorts on my own. I think most people including me are more used to watching feature films than shorts. So at first it's kind of hard to wrap my head around what a short could be. There are so many possibilities... I think it's a good idea to stick to what I have available. Now I just have to come up with an idea that is simple to film that I would also believe in.

 

I just had another idea but it would require a somewhat bigger town than Tallinn... maybe Stockholm. I'm actually possibly going there soon with some people... But I'll try to think of some simpler ideas.

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I just wrote a first draft of the screenplay for this other idea I had, without any editing or camera instructions. The dialogue is probably shit, but I'd appreciate if you would like to read it and comment (in PM perhaps).

 

 

Copenhagen - screenplay.pdf

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Have PMed you (feel free to copy paste my message on here if you like, though).

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