Anyone Ever...

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prexdealer

Well-known member
Shoot your short with like an iPhone, no props, lighting, etc. just to get a rough cut to see how it edits together? I have a short I really wanna shoot. Lots of people like it. I have written other shorts to practice to directing but this is the one I really want to focus on. But I do have a little of the 1st time director nerves. Then I thought, why don't I take a few hours and just shoot it. It would be my video storyboard. I already have like 60 storyboard images, so I have an idea on how I want it to look. But I just think this might teach me a lot about how to shoot my short when the time comes.

The lines won't have to be perfect. Like I said it won"t look perfect, but I'll get an idea and I can get some feedback.

Anyone ever do this? Was it as helpful as I think it might be?

Thanks.
 
Yes and yes.

I've done that in the past (not with a phone) but same concept... shot the whole thing handheld with standins reading the lines (not even in the same location, but with the same blocking).
We were able to cut the scenes together roughly and give us an idea of what was working and what wasn't - and where we might want to change up our coverage.

If your script is short enough, and you have the time, I think you'll find it very helpful (especially if you're directing for the first time).

The more techy stuff you have figured out beforehand the more confidently you can go into your shoot and spend your time concentrating on what matters most - performance.


Just my 2 cents.
 
If I had the time to do this and the stand-ins, I'd take it over storyboards any day. Especially in the location! Have wanted to but just can never carve out for it.

Definitely a good idear.
 
Thanks for the feedback! I might give it a shot, so just 2 takes on every scene and just keep moving. Be done by lunch!
 
I think on dvxuser i saw a link to a short film (western something). Before real shooting, they edited the whole thing with storyboard images, including music, V.O., SFX.

Tho, that short was about 3 minutes but nevertheless. Maybe it can help u.
 
You can also place scanned frames from a hand sketched storyboard into your video editor this way you can attach a sense of time to each frame.
Scan them as .png for minimum rendering, doing this process is called making an animatic.
We do this all the time in advertising when presenting concepts to the client or internally, long before creative goes to production.
 
Even from someone as inexperienced as me, I can tell you that it's a great idea. I'm now in the process of doing it for my first film. If you have the time, then you should do it with video rather than just pictures. With pictures you will get a 'sense' or an 'idea' of how your film will look when it's cut together, but if you shoot it roughly with your iPhone or whatever, then you're basically doing a first draft of your film. Some things you thought would work really well will turn out to look amateurish, or it just won't cut together properly. It's much harder to see that when you're cutting together still images.

Take it seriously though! Treat it like you will treat your real project. You'll surely give yourself a huge (and much needed) head start for when it comes to the real thing. Good luck!
 
iamWZA said:
If you have the time, then you should do it with video rather than just pictures.
Click to expand...

yes if you can but sometimes its not feasible, especially if it means visiting several locations, day / night, multiple actors or crowd scenes
 
Yeah absolutely. Not that I've done it, but I'm sure you could do a mixture too. Shoot as much as you can on video, and fill in what you couldn't get with still images. Whichever way you do it, I think it's very worthwhile.
 
If you can do it with the actual locations (or something extremely close) and the actual planned camera angles etc, the resulting previz will give you a good idea of which shots 'work' and which don't. And if you can record temp audio as well (even if just with temp actors sitting around a table) and cut that in, you'll also get a good idea of timing for each shot.

Basically, every problem you can find in preproduction is cheaper, faster and easier to fix then than during actual production.
 
kittykatro said:
Rodriguez shot some Desperado scenes first on video and then on film. He explains it here:

Click to expand...

Wow thanks, very awesome! I just got an iPhone 5 yesterday (early present to myself - I had such an old crappy blackberry with a rollerball). Now I am looking for some apps to make my practice run. Any suggested apps would be appreciated!
 
I love shooting on my iPhone, and it might work for you, but here's a piece of advice: be careful who you show a rough cut to. The people you show it to might not entirely know how to disregard poor production quality and may not be able to truly see past it to your concept alone.

Here's a real world example of how this has exploded in my face. I once edited a short film and showed near final cut to some people for feedback. Literally the ONLY thing left to be done was to have the sound effects and ADR added. I asked them for feedback and even included "don't worry about the audio. It's not done yet. The final audio will sound MUCH better." After they saw it, you wouldn't believe all the hems and haws. I got a lot of negative feedback. A month later, they saw the finished version with the audio completed (no other changes), and everyone loved it. I heard a lot of "this is so much better than what we saw before" and "you must have spent a lot of time fixing it."

If you show it to experienced filmmakers you'll be fine. Anyone else and you might be asking for trouble.
 
Thanks for posting that video, great stuff!
I think the biggest take away is that pre-production is key when it comes to shoot days. So many questions can be answered, and so many problems solved, by actually putting time & effort into your movie before getting on live sets.

Getting back to the original question posed on this thread, YES, shooting your movie (or parts of it) on an iPhone (or anything else you have handy) is a great way to pull the visuals together before actually filming it.
Like I said, you, as the film maker, will have the areas that work or don't work come into focus, plus often times, visuals help out others, when words fail.

Good luck!
Lee
 
Mike Wilhelm said:
I love shooting on my iPhone, and it might work for you, but here's a piece of advice: be careful who you show a rough cut to. The people you show it to might not entirely know how to disregard poor production quality and may not be able to truly see past it to your concept alone.

Here's a real world example of how this has exploded in my face. I once edited a short film and showed near final cut to some people for feedback. Literally the ONLY thing left to be done was to have the sound effects and ADR added. I asked them for feedback and even included "don't worry about the audio. It's not done yet. The final audio will sound MUCH better." After they saw it, you wouldn't believe all the hems and haws. I got a lot of negative feedback. A month later, they saw the finished version with the audio completed (no other changes), and everyone loved it. I heard a lot of "this is so much better than what we saw before" and "you must have spent a lot of time fixing it."

If you show it to experienced filmmakers you'll be fine. Anyone else and you might be asking for trouble.
Click to expand...

Good point, thanks!
 
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