Signs of an amateur

Michael Traven said:
Oh my god, awesome list! I'm one of the poor saps who dreams of pulling off the dolly out/zoom in move from Goodfellas. Or was it dolly in/zoom out?

I think Perrone Ford made a pretty damn good list of what makes a professional-looking film. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?220043-Being-Cinematic
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If it's the Hitchcock dolly/zoom... then it was:
(from the wiki on the "Hitchcock Zoom")
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The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman
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There are a number of variations on dollying and zooming...

These days, the watch word is 'subtle'... That goes for zooming, dollying... or most 'effects'...
 
I guess this probably falls under the category of art direction. Shooting in your friend's factory building-turned loft apartment. This is particularly important in New York where those places are extremely common among artists in general.
 
Provincial. Those are hard to come by here and I'd love to shoot in one. Just like basements, they simply do not exist in california. Reminds me of film school in Socal, 80% of the first films were shot in the desert simply because it was a novelty to the new students. Doesn't make it a bad choice, just trendy.
 
Nice little list there on the DUMPS article. Gotta disagree with "Look at me, I'm a director!" shots though.


The "Nothing Happens" short film

Oh man, I loved reading that one. I know a guy who spent his life savings making a film that was that. 45 minutes of ****. $75,000 (pretty much just on film costs/telecine/transfer back to film and marketing) and it got into film fests I think solely because it was shot on film. People were leaving the screenings at the local arthouse it was so bad. Real sad...I'm not going to name the movie to save him from embarassment.


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Good article though...a lot of which relates to writing/the story so good advice. But what I'd like to see is films by the writers of that article. Waldo, Keir, & Steve, where are your films for us to watch? Where are some examples of short films to us to devour?
 
Postmaster said:
I confess of beeing guilty in those points:

"the lone, slow piano"

"the lone guitar" (flamenco esp.)

The "impish" clarinet

The cello dirge.

and

Shooting into Mirrors

Frank
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Hahaha I've been guilty of a whole lot more!
Maybe its because i'm still a student learning the craft :)
 
j said:
Provincial. Those are hard to come by here and I'd love to shoot in one. Just like basements, they simply do not exist in california. Reminds me of film school in Socal, 80% of the first films were shot in the desert simply because it was a novelty to the new students. Doesn't make it a bad choice, just trendy.
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There are 'grimy' inner city locations in LA... it's just that the police don't allow you to use their substations...

But yeah, a lot of that 'inner city' texture is totally unavailable in So. Cal... now tract houses... got hundreds of square miles of those... just for some reason they don't look as 'artsy' as those row houses, or the like that are found every where in NYC... ok, Downtown LA has some of that, back alleys, dilapidated store fronts... but guerilla shooting in LA is just fraught with problems...
 
Barry_Green said:
http://www.filmmaker.com/DUMPS
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Great article, and I have been guilty of dang near all of that... oops. Live and learn.


The thing that gets me the most though, and it is not just a an amateur thang, you see it in low budget films everywhere, is the "Let's stop here in the good light and talk about it" scene. You know what I mean. Instead of doing creative blocking, with a possible dolly, or stabilizer shot, following the actors through a scene, we see the talent approach the camera, and stop in the perfect light, perfectly framed for a medium shot. They will then proceed to talk about what should be shown. I hate that.
 
if you want to experiment, experiment. wong kar wai, tarkovsky use these "forbidden" factors
 
pveal said:
if you want to experiment, experiment. wong kar wai, tarkovsky use these "forbidden" factors
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Experimentation is the "key" to both filmmakers you've mentioned. Not to mention that a big big part from the "meaningless moves" we see in Wong Kar Wai films have Christopher Doyle's hands all over them, who's probably the most radical, innovative and experimentalist contemporary DOP...

...And sorry but that's not the case with the majority of Hollywood films!
 
flaws are just excuses for the inability to feel your craft. everyone can study to become a decent DP, but to utalize the visual craft with the story you can never read into on some list or any literature. if you don't feel what is right through intuition, put your eggs in a different basket. life is too short to strive for something you will never achieve - deal with it, or leave it as a hobby.
 
Martin Oller said:
flaws are just excuses for the inability to feel your craft. everyone can study to become a decent DP, but to utalize the visual craft with the story you can never read into on some list or any literature. if you don't feel what is right through intuition, put your eggs in a different basket. life is too short to strive for something you will never achieve - deal with it, or leave it as a hobby.
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I must admit I have to agree on what you said, but on the other hand I also feel that the known quote from Edison "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration" have some saying on this matter too. Real genius have always strived trough awful ideas and works just to succeed on a very few of them... The only ones which came to light and gave them the reputation they have
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
-- bad writing (stories picked up from other films rather than real life thus one ends up with a script filled with screen cliches - dialog and interactions rather than descriptions of how the set up could play out in real life; lack of understating the story arch and story within the scene; bland dialog or dialog that is being written only because of its cuteness rather than because it's mean to add something to the scene; bland characters or cliche ridden characters)
-- bad casting (actors who don't look their part thus you have some high school prey kid trying to act like say a mafia boss - this can work in a way but is very hard to pull off)
-- bad acting (actors just delivering their lines, actors that are obviously a bit uncomfortable on the screen as they haven't done it that much, actors who use their understanding of other movies rather than life to inspire their character)
-- bad location (run of the mill places that we see everyday thus the potential of "let me show you this cool/unique place" on the part of the filmmaker is gone)
-- bad art direction (lack of understanding that the environment and how it's set-up can influence our perception of the characters/world they live in)
-- bad framing (conventional TV-like framing or lack of understanding that average frame has a meaning as much as weird frame too)
-- bad lighting (lack of understanding that lighting can be both realistic or highly stylized where realism comes about from the strangeness of the scene rather than because the light come sin through the window)
-- bad camera moves (meaningless moves that add nothing to the scene, or no moves at all when the scene call for some move)
-- bad audio (badly recorded on the set and never re-recorded, if needed, in the post)
-- bad shot selection (assumption that you are describing the scene with the camera rather than collecting important quotes, notes and descriptions for later interaction in the post)
-- bad staging (the most boring, TV-like staging of the scene so you have 5 pages of dialog playing out between 2 people sitting across each other at a table)
-- bad extras work (or often not enough extras to give sense of us being in that scene, likewise by forgetting about extras one doesn't have the chance to show quirks of the world surrounding us - thus potential to add yet another layer of interest to the scene is missing)
-- bad direction (not understanding how this shot or scene will inter-cut in whole film so "for safety" time is wasted to shoot typical coverage rather than shooting important shots brilliantly; likewise time is wasted shooting an unimportant cutaways that will be used only for fraction of the scene but only redoing a technicality that would never end up in the final edit anyway; not understanding that a scene has an arch just like whole film has thus shooting scenes that don't change something in the viewer or the character is pointless)
-- bad edit (lingering too long on lines, assuming that edit is juts an assembly of lines rather than search for actor's feelings that best describe the scene/character, lack of story arch)
-- bad sound design/mix (assumption that sound design is about being realistic rather than meaningful)
-- bad color grading
-- bad marketing
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Sign of an amature what??? Writer, Director, Audio, Casting Director, Art Director, Location Manager, Sound Designer...

I'm a DP, so I'll take responsibility for the lighting, framing, focus, exposure, and camera moves.

How many DP's have seen there work lose it sizzle by failures of those other departments?
 
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