While you and I may not be in this position of global distribution in the traditional sense, we are in a position to leverage one of the greatest communication tools ever known – the internet.

The internet is such a revolution for artists and business as it stands right now. You are able to get your goods up on the web and then pretty much anybody can come and see it.

This isn’t to say that it will always be this way. Who knows how the web will look in ten years from now but it will probably be based around much more video and moving picture content than written text pages. As browsing become integrated more and more with visual content and individuals get more organized with their own channels. Here are the advantages to having your own shop window.

• Get a website or video blog now and upload your latest masterpiece.
• Start making content on a regular basis and build a following.
• In two-five years time you have your own massive channel with a back log of quality material.
• Follow some simple search engine optimization rules and you can become an established presence on the internet!
• You can be a TV channel of the future.
• People will come to you for content, entertainment, advertising and perhaps even offer you work!

Start now and get organized for your future by becoming your own multimedia empire. It may seem like you have a long way go but you only need to take one step right now, followed by another one after that. Keep making movies and great content and be in it for the long run.

Why do we need lighting?

Lighting our films creates depth, atmosphere and a type of ‘reality’ that engages the viewer’s brain and helps create the believability necessary to sustain the world we’re depicting. Flat, dull and lifeless scenes just give the viewer a reason to stop downloading press ‘eject’ on the dvd player.

How do use light?

Light is used to ‘model’ the subjects or actors we shoot. Next time you watch one of your favourite movies check out any scene with faces in it. Chances are you will see a shadow on one side of the nose and a patch of brightness under the left or right eye. This indicates a light source placed in front of the subject, a bit higher than their height and also off to the left or right side by about 45 degrees. This is an important position for a light in order to create good ‘modelling’ on an actor and will probably be their ‘key’ or main illumination in that particular shot. This modelling is then built up with side lights, back lights, top lights and so on all helping to separate the subject from the background and realise that all important feeling of ‘depth’.

Two dimensions or three?

Film and video lighting is about creating three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium. Without the contrast of light and shadow, shooting with a camera – even if it’s the best camera in the world – will produce images that are flat and uninteresting. It is up to the film-maker working with a DP (and everyone else) to create that interest and bring the film to life.

Do we need lamps?

If you don’t have access to lights or don’t know how to light properly, you can still work with what is available naturally. Some directors of photography only work with light found on location, practical lamps and so on; some use combinations of mirrors to direct sunlight into the correct positions without any electrical lamps at all. You might say you are only limited by time and your own inventiveness.

Use what’s available.

If you don’t have room in your budget for lighting equipment then sunlight and location ‘house’ lights will be your sources. You will have to position your subjects in the most favourable positions. For example, when shooting outside, a good rule of thumb is to keep the sun behind the camera and off to one or other side (similar to the 45 degree key light); this will create at least some basic modelling on your actor. It is always a good idea to avoid having the sun in front of the camera lens or behind the subject that you’re filming in order to minimise under-lit faces, flares etc although this is one way to achieve any silhouette effects.

Sunshine and rain

If you are outside on a cloudy day there isn’t a great deal you can do to make things look good if you’re lacking in lights; everything will be pretty flat and shadowless as the sky is one big source of diffused light. However, sunlight will create very bright and very dark shadow areas in the same shot and exterior shooting almost always involves the generous use of reflectors; these are specially made or improvised highly reflective surfaces that can be used to direct light into shadow areas making them less dark. This ‘fill’ in or ‘bounce’ light makes the contrast less noticeable and the ratio of light (the range of exposures) easier for the camera to deal with.

Lighting styles

Lighting for film also involves choices such as what ‘style’ to use to best express the story we are telling. Soft and hard lighting, high key and low key and high contrast/low contrast and others all help to generate different reactions within the viewer by communicating visually, the various aspects of the human experience.

Cameras don’t yet match our brains

We are blessed with an incredible image-making system built into our brains that helps us interpret the world we live in; it is very difficult for a recording medium to reproduce that to the level we’re used to. It’s getting closer all the time but we still need to build those three-dimensions to transport our audience out of the cinema, bedroom or beach hut and into our film’s reality. The most important part of filmmaking will always be the story and if that’s good enough you could shoot on pixel vision and still make it compelling for people to watch but the art of cinematography and the skill of the D.P. will enhance and complement your movie-making immeasurably and produce a more satisfying and memorable experience for everyone.

Usually the AD, the Assistant Director, will take charge of getting everybody ready for the shot. Any final make-up touches and powder will be applied to bright, shiny faces and last minute hair adjustments will be made. Continuity will be checked. Props will have been set in place and lights will be tweaked. On set, mobile phones should always be switched off whilst filming.

Unless you are on a sound stage, the sound recordist will wait for the numerous planes to pass by overhead and cars to disappear before giving the all clear.

Going for a shot will go something like this:

The Assistant Director will ask:

• AD: “Everybody ready?”
• EVERYBODY: Yes / yo / you bet / Do it, do it! / yeah / fuck yeah!/kiss my ass.

Everyone is ready to go.

• DIRECTOR/AD: “Roll sound” or “run sound.”

The sound recordist (opens eyes/puts down newspaper or porn mag) switches on his gizmos and announces:

• SOUND RECORDIST: “Rolling/running!”

The AD or Director will then say:

• DIRECTOR/AD: “Roll camera” or “run camera” or “turnover.”

The camera operator or his/her assistant will start the camera. (This depends upon the crew size,budget and whether shooting film or digital).

• 1st CAMERA ASSISTANT: “Rolling” or “Running” or “Speed*”

The 1st or 2nd camera assistant will then hold the ‘board’ or ‘clapper board’ at a distance where it will appear in a central position in the camera frame. You can determine this by either looking at the size of the shot in the monitor or the viewfinder or through experience, by judging the distance based on the lens focal length. The Operator will then say:

• CAMERA OPERATOR: “Mark it!“

On ‘mark it’, will declare:

• 1ST/2ND/CLAPPER LOADER/CAMERA ASSISTANT: “slate 1, take 1.”

The camera assistant may also sometimes announce the name of the production before snapping shut the board.

• DIRECTOR: “Action.”

The Action takes place.

• DIRECTOR: “cut!”

The director will check with both camera and sound departments for their feedback on whether there were any problems/issues with the shot. If shooting on film, the camera gate will be checked straight away for dust and small particles which could have scratched the film’s surface.

The Director will confer with the actors on their feelings about the performance and give them his/her comments. It’s rare to have a one take wonder so there will generally be another couple of takes to improve any or all of the elements involved.

* The term ‘speed’ comes from the camera operator announcing when a film camera had been started and run up to the desired amount of ‘frames per second’, its proper speed.

Learn to understand actor’s eye-lines and the implications of “crossing the line”.

The basics of this are that if two people are talking to each other, one of them should be looking right-of-frame and the other left-of-frame so that it feels like they are looking at each other. If this is cut wrong – i.e. both characters are looking to the same side of the frame – from the audience’s point of view it will feel like they are stood shoulder-to-shoulder and talking to someone unseen on the other side of the room.

Try to think of it as though you, the audience, are standing directly between the characters as they talk, then take a step backwards so you are not impeding their vision of each other- their “eye-line”. Now, when they talk, it should feel like you are looking back and forth as the conversation progresses. If you now walked across this eye-line, you would have to turn 180 degrees to see the conversation properly, and it is this “crossing the line” that disorientates the audience.

Eye-lines can be a very complex business – if you have four or five actors in a scene you can sometimes have upwards of fifteen, maybe twenty eye-lines going on at one time. Just remember that on general, the audience need to feel like they are staying roughly in the same place as they watch the proceedings

- the more you throw them around, the less they will absorb because they are trying to work out who’s talking to whom instead of listening to what they are saying – sometimes the change is not as obvious as this, but on a sub-conscious level it feels wrong to the audience, throwing them.

When you are editing conversations, do not cut back and forth every time a character finishes speaking. Like real life, a good actor will begin reacting before the end of the lines, taking their cue from a particular word or thought process. It is these rhythms that should dictate the editing, not the dialogue.
Learn how to overlap dialogue, this is the invisible backbone of pacing a scene.

Though equally, don’t feel that you have to cut together a performance at exactly the same pace as it was delivered on set. The speed of different slates – often different takes – is different, and it’s up to you to decide what is the correct speed to carry the scene.

Remember, the disjointed job of film acting is to provide as good a performance on as many takes as possible; it is the director and editor’s job to take these pieces and construct a convincing performance which will complement all the other performances. As many actors fail to realise – THIS ISN’T THEATRE – the final performance is created in the editing room, not on the set.

If you want to look at different ways to edit an actor’s performances, here are a couple of good examples:

The first is the scene in “Heat” in the coffee shop when Pacino and DeNiro face each other. Michael Mann shot this entire sequence with two cameras – one on each actor – and just let the scene roll. Any given point you’re seeing the exact reaction to the line.

The second example is the scene in DeNiro’s living room in “Raging Bull” when he accuses Joe Pesci of sleeping with his wife. This scene was shot with a single camera, first on DeNiro, then on Pesci. The editor Thelma Schoonmaker then had to go through the miles of differing, improvised takes from both angles and construct a piece of drama that looks like it has taken place in real time.
The main difference – on a sub-conscious level for the audience – is that in “Heat” you feel as though you are simply watching – over-hearing – the exchange as it happens. With “Raging Bull”, you are placed much more inside the heads of the characters; the editing allows you, the audience, to see tiny nuances of mood and motivation that even the characters (and to an extent the actors) themselves do not see.

‘Free-writing’ is one technique that should be used by the screenwriter on a consistent basis and not just for those moments when you are absolutely stuck or desperate.

What is free-writing?

Free-writing is the very simple technique of writing down whatever comes into your mind for a set period of time, say, about five minutes and no more. You do this without censoring yourself, which means you don’t stop after one sentence and make a judgement about how good that sentence is or whether it is worth continuing with. Forget all that until you have filled up half a page, or better still a page.

• Take an idea that you have in your mind; maybe about a scene or a character.
• Pick several keywords that relate to the idea or concept that you want to write about. For example, you have a sci-fi concept, so you decide on: planet, ship, and turbulence. It could be anything.
• Pick something that excites you. Remember we are trying to get those creative juices flowing so it has to be something that you can feel motivated about and this exercise is all about getting past your own critical censor. It is a good idea to incorporate the keywords into sentences when you start the exercise. Even though you have just plucked them from the ‘Ether ‘, using them somewhere in your following free-write will give you the initial direction you need.

So now you start writing and don’t hold back and don’t worry about the words coming out. How hard is that for five minutes?

What if everything I write is gibberish?

Just keep on letting all that subconscious material tumble out. Don’t judge your work or apply any critical process to what you’re doing until the end of the exercise. The idea is that letting this constant flow of words and ideas spill out onto the page is a way of bypassing the conscious, critical mind and letting the creative imagination have full reign.

Don’t be tempted to write for longer periods like this. Free-writing is a short burst activity which you can do over and over again, as often as you want but just make sure you have a break in between sessions.

Often, when we have been sat at our desk or computer most of the day and have written one paragraph, it is because we are putting too much pressure on ourselves to come up with perfect material and the perfect script from scratch. This is an easy trap to fall into and one of the main reasons for it, is the belief that the harder we think with our conscious mind, the better the lines will be. But, there is no point in spending hours or days on a few lines when we have the rest of the story to write. Of course, we will need our brilliant, critical faculty for those times when we have written tons of material that then needs pruning and shaping but you can’t be a perfectionist with the first few drafts of a screenplay. You have to get it written and fleshed out. If you take too long about it, the original and fresh idea you had may start to seem stale and lacking in life. Once the majority of your film is written and the big picture is in place then all those smaller details can be attended to.