What do most people think of when you mention making a feature film? Why, production, of course.
There is a good reason why most people think of production first when it comes to making a feature film, and that’s because when a feature film is being promoted, that’s virtually all that anyone sees, other than clips and trailers.
In all of the “making of” featurettes out there, they always show everyone on set, with the lights and the cameras and the microphones. They show people laughing and smiling and having a good time. And, why not? Production is a good time.
Production, or Principal Photography, is the shortest part of making a feature film and that’s because it is also one of the most expensive.
Remember, there are three main parts to filmmaking and they are pre-production, production, and post-production.
You will spend way more time in pre-production and post-production than you ever will in production, if you’re doing most of the work yourself.
That’s probably another reason why people like it so much.
Pre-production consists mainly of all of the planning and organizing that you do to allow you to successfully complete the other two parts of filmmaking.
Production is when you gather everyone together with all of your equipment and you shoot all of the video and collect all of the audio you will need to successfully complete your project.
Post-production is when you gather together all of the pieces of the puzzle that you acquired during production and you then turn those pieces into something worthwhile and assemble them into something meaningful.
I have found that there are four main pillars of the production process: staying on schedule and budget, getting your shots, getting your audio, and backing up your shots and audio.
I’m going to tell you about each one of these in detail along with the rules that I’ve learned to follow that enable me to get through production on time and on budget.
Stick To Your Guns
Pre-production is now over. You’ve made your schedule. You’ve completed your shot list, your diagrams, and your production board. You know what gets shot when and how you are going to do it. All you have to do now is stick to it.
This is easier said than done. It is very tempting to get creative and try out different shots, especially early on if you’re ahead of schedule.
The problem with this is that you can’t foresee the problems that may occur somewhere down the road. Just because you are ahead of schedule now, it doesn’t mean you will be later on.
And if a problem does arise and you are no longer ahead of schedule because you were being extra creative early on, what you will find yourself left with is being behind schedule, and this is not a good place to be.
On an independent film set with a very tight budget, you are going to have a very limited number of days to actually shoot the film. Also, you’re only going to be able to afford the equipment for those certain number of days, or maybe a couple of extra days, if you’re lucky.
So, if you get too far behind schedule because you were busy getting shots you really didn’t need, you take the risk of running out of time and not getting all of the shots you really need to be able to successfully complete the project.
Remember that a feature film is like a puzzle, and you’ve got to get all of the right pieces during production in order to be able to complete it.
If you don’t get all of the right pieces during production then you won’t be able to assemble the complete picture in post and your project is doomed.
So, don’t let that happen. Refrain from getting extra shots and more takes than you really need.
If someone wants an extra take but you know you’ve got what you need, say, “No.”
This will keep you on schedule, and, if you get ahead of schedule, great. Keep that cushion and carry it with you all the way to the end. Once you’ve gotten all that you need and if you have time available, then let loose and get creative.
Go back and shoot whatever you want until it’s time to return all of the equipment. The more shots you get, the better. You’ll have more options in post.
As far as the budget is concerned, don’t spend any more money. That is to say, don’t spend any more money than you have already planned for production. You have other money, sure, but it’s been allotted for post-production and beyond.
If you start stealing from post-production and beyond, you take the risk of running out of money before you complete the project. So, don’t spend any more money.
If a problem does arise, you’ll just have to find a creative solution to the problem other than spending more money. Make something if you have to. Borrow something if you have to, but seriously, don’t spend any more money.
After the initial panic wears off and clearer thoughts prevail, you’ll be able to find a creative solution to the problem and the production and the budget will be sparred.
Now, Get Those Shots
For most of the shots in a feature film, everything has to be set up differently in terms of camera placement, mic placement, and lighting.
So, I send the actors off to rehearse while I set the shot. I use stand-ins for the actors, if available.
A stand-in is just another person, who hopefully resembles the actor in the scene, who sits there while you adjust the lighting, tryout different camera angles, adjust the focus, and anything else you want to do.
I don’t want the actors doing this because it could diminish the imaginary world that they are trying to inhabit, or, quite possibly, it could just annoy them.
And I like to keep my actors happy at all costs.
You should have already prepped the camera and there are certain settings that, once I have set them, I do not change them.
These settings include the frame rate, shutter speed, and ISO setting.
The frame rate for feature film will be set at 23.976 fps or 24 fps (frames per second).
The shutter speed is set at one over twice the frame rate, or 1/48.
I like to keep the ISO setting set to the native ISO of whatever camera I’m using at the time. I just research what the camera’s native ISO is and then I set it to that.
On The Devil’s Instrument, the camera I was using had a native ISO of 850, so, I set it to 850 and then I didn’t touch it again.
The reason that you shoot at 24 fps with a shutter speed of 1/48 is because that’s the way it has always been done and this is what will give you what people refer to as the film look, and what people have become accustomed to seeing when they watch a movie.
The reason that you want to shoot at a camera’s native ISO, or, at least, close to it, is because this will give you the cleanest image and if you start increasing the ISO too much you could start to introduce graininess in your image and you could possibly start to see some digital artifacts, and you do not want that.
Something that I will change is the aperture, or the F-stop/T-stop setting on the lenses.
A higher setting means that you are closing the aperture (or the opening of the lens) and letting less light in. This will bring more of the background into focus along with your subject and give you a deeper depth of field.
A lower setting means that you are opening up the aperture and letting even more light in. This will blur more of the background and bring greater focus onto your subject while giving you a shallower depth of field.
It really just depends on what you are going for in your shot and how the story can benefit from the choices you make.
I also like to shoot in Log, and what that does is it tells the camera to shoot in a neutral profile so that you will have more information and more data in your picture that you can work with in post-production.
When it comes to lighting the scene, I usually use either 3-point or 2-point lighting.
With 3-point lighting you will have a key light, a fill light, and a backlight. The key light is the strongest light and will be off to the side and pointing directly at your subject.
I always position the key close to a light source that has already been established, that is, the audience has already seen it and knows that there is a light there. That way, everything seems natural, even though it isn’t.
The fill light is less intense than the key and it is placed on the other side of the subject to fill in the shadows created by the key while still providing some interesting contrast.
I usually raise and angle the backlight so as to outline the head and shoulders of the subject to make them standout even more from the background.
With 2-point lighting, I just use a key and a backlight. This setup will give you a darker and moodier result, and with a lot of my projects, that is the look that I am after.
You can control the light further using scrims, gels, diffusion filters, egg crates, bounce cards, and black wrap just to name a few.
I’m going to write more about how I did the lighting for The Devil’s Instrument in upcoming entries and I will write more about lighting and lighting controls then.
After you’ve set the camera(s) and lighting, you can return your actors to their places and tweak things, if need be.
Then, shoot the scene and repeat the process.
Audio is the Most Important Thing
I don’t know if audio is really the most important thing or not because everything about a feature film is important.
But if there is one thing that is overlooked more than the others, it would have to be location sound.
So, if you remember that audio is the most important thing, you sure won’t forget about it.
A couple of important things to remember about location sound is to make sure you put your microphones on a boom pole and utilize proper mic placement.
Use a small diaphragm condenser microphone with a hyper-cardioid or super-cardioid pick-up pattern for indoors and a shotgun microphone with a super-cardioid pick-up pattern for outdoors.
Set your recorder to record at 48K and 24-bit audio, unless your recorder now has 32-bit float capability, and in that case, use that.
Also, make sure your recorder has good internal pre-amps, if not, purchase some pre-amps and plug them into your microphones.
While tweaking your set-up, have your actors read some lines to check your audio levels. Don’t go above a recording level of 60 on your digital recorder and dialogue spoken at normal level should register -12 dB on the levels meter of your recorder.
Then, record your audio and use a clapper board at the beginning of each take as a backup for syncing your audio with your video in post-production.
There are a lot of great books on location sound out there, as well as a wealth of information online if you are interested in learning more.
Backup for a Minute
At the end of each shooting day, I make it a habit to download the video and audio files for the day onto a laptop or desktop.
I then save those same files to an external hard drive.
So, at the end of each shooting day, I sleep better at night knowing that I have the files saved on a memory card in the camera, on a computer, and also on an external hard drive.
I can’t stress the importance of backing-up your files enough. Do it right and do it often.
Repeat all of this every day until you wrap production. Then, all that’s left is post-production.
