slight problems emerging

[Dew]

Ive been planning to make a short film for quite some time, i have a (constently changing) script etc, all the basic equipment i need ( cameras editing equipment - well when i say have, i meen generously lent by my colledge - and when i say lent they dont realy know that yet but i know i can get it ) anyway ...

ive suddenly realised how i am very fast running out of excuses not to finally make it and came up with the logical idea that maybe i should actually make it. so now ive set my heart to making it happen all these nasty technical problems are coming up.

firstly the quality of the film is gonna be seriously impared by the fact its crappy equipment. are colledge course made a film say half a year ago now and the end resault looked like a cross between a crappy home movie and the blair witch project but with worse camera handling, ive decided on a few alterations to my film to cope with this, all sound will be music or various effects so it wont be cursed with crappy sound quality. ill use black and white to add class and also again to not show up the flaws of the camera as much.

of course now ive decided to make my film in stead of just dreaming it, alot of the things i planned seem impossible .... or at least need very very low budget cunning intelligent solutions from the cream (skint) of the british (mostly) independant filmmakers (and wannabes)
yes im looking at you

my first scene a camera panning across a feild at night in black and white onto a country road with a car crashed ito the side of it, problem 1 i wanted black and white with the excepion of the hazard lights flashing which i want to be in colour how ? can this be sorted in editing ?

next problem is i want the camera to smoothly move forwards and down skimming the groung up next to the car then to move out and up and round to face the door of the car

remember crappy camera, hand held would be way to juttery and i honestly cant think of anythoing other then a mixture of skateboards, invisible ramps and smoothing out a section of the countryside with perhaps the assistence of a bulldoser or big heavy hitting device, the problem is all the ground i am covering will be seen in the same shot
help

well please help a young aspiring filmmaker before a excuse to put it of comes along

[marti-c]

Your gonna have to face the facts that you need equipment and software.

the orange lights effect can be done either with a make up digital effect on your camera (if it has it) but more likely you could edit it in premiere and export it into a filmstrip file into photoshop and mark the orange individually.

As for the great roaming shot you describe, i think you may be into junior steadycam territory. There are a few sites that show you how to make your own makeshift steadycam and by what i read they work very well. They basically are a tripod with heavy counter weights on the bottom.

hope this helps

(if you hit a dead end then always think of splitting the one long shot into several shots)

marti

[eddie]

I agree, you simply cant be too ambitous, My first ever shot with a film camera involved what I thought was a simple pan, an actor moved into view, I pulled focus on him, he looked around and walked off.
It would have been a nice shot, and I thought fairly simple. As it turns out a shot like that needs about 3 people to pull off properly, as it happens take 4 was OK, but my point is that clever shots are a *lot* harder to do than you might think.

Can you get the effect you are after in a different way? Such as clever cutting, a zoom? A POV shot, a few close ups?

Now I have a couple of films under my belt My advice to you is to think around your lack of equipment - see it as a bonus, that makes you more creative rather than an obstacle.No body has the equipment they really want, everyone, even the pro's have to work within their means - thats what makes things interesting.

Dont give up on it, just cos you havent got a steady cam. Its amazing what a tripod will do to improve your shots (so they dont look shakey blairwitchhomevideoy). And a few well chosen and framed Tripod shots, even a pan on a tripod can loook fine.

Steady Cams are for people with more money than imagination.....

best of luck

[eddie]

Im not trying to talk you out of your cool long shot, but I recommend you read Film Directing, Shot by Shot, by Steven Katz, it might give you some alternative ideas, if you decide that you cant get the shot you really want.