Student Filmmakers - June 2008 - (Page 30) Production Common Mistakes Every Filmmaker Will Make In a Perfect World, You Would Know Better… by Chris Cavallari Mistakes help us to grow. What’s true in our personal development is also true in the development of our films. Making mistakes allows us to see what we did wrong and forces us to come up with creative ways to fix the problems. And, because of the fluid nature of filmmaking, mistakes can often lead to what we lovingly refer to as “happy accidents.” Mistakes aren’t always bad. It just depends on how you handle the situation when it presents itself. The following “mistakes” are in no particular order or category, and the list is by no means exhaustive. to point B. I’m serious. This will give you a two-fold learning experience. First, running headfirst into a project can sometimes free your mind from external distractions and allow your creative ideas to spill out onto the page. In a sense, it’s free association, where your mind is free to wander without self-imposed restrictions that can hinder the creative process. Aristotle wrote about the tabula rasa, or blank slate, where people are born with no innate mental content, and so are affected by the world around them. People fill in what is necessary as they go along, learning. This premise can be applied to filmmaking, whereby you start with nothing and fill in the blanks as you go along. Don’t put anything down on paper or on the computer before you start shooting. Go out and shoot, bring back what you have, and cut it together. Your ability to tell a story naturally will guide you. On the other hand, not having some sort of outline will show you how much more difficult making a film is without at least knowing something about how you’re going to get things done. One of my early short films was a disaster. I brought in high school friends (who had no experience making movies) as crew, and worried more about Craft Services than about what I was going to shoot. I didn’t have a finished script, I didn’t rehearse, I didn’t have a storyboard. I didn’t even have a shot list. While there is a time and a place for wing-and-a-prayer filmmaking, this wasn’t one of them, and the final product shows it. It’s an orange mess (I did a bad white balance) with nervous firsttime actors. It is now locked away in the confines of my apartment, and no one – not even the actors and crew members – is allowed to see it. To this day that film serves as a constant reminder that concentrating on the inconsequential, while ignoring the Mistake #1: Don’t Plan Ever. Go ahead, do it at least once in your life. Go into one of your productions without the slightest idea of how you’ll get from point A 0 studentfilmmakers June 2008
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.