Student Filmmakers - June 2008 - (Page 31) important, will only hurt the production in the end. fiction. Some of the best fiction comes from real life. And don’t just read books; watch as many fiction and non-fiction films and television programs as you can as well. Mistake #3: Grab a Hot Light No matter who you are or what position you hold on a film, if you’re on a set, you’re likely to grab, graze, or bump into a hot light at some point in your career. Hopefully, it will only be once. What can you learn from this? There are potentially hundreds of things on a movie set that can jump up and bite you. This is not to say that all movie sets are death traps waiting to devour you the moment you let your guard down. The point is to be alert and know your surroundings at all times. Your superiors will appreciate that. So will the Mistake #2: Pick Up a Filmmaking Book and Be Done with This “Reading” Thing. This is a doozy. There are hundreds of filmmaking books out there, many of them really well-written and very interesting. Great ideas from the masters of filmmaking are just waiting for you to grace them with your presence. Do not, however, limit yourself to just film related books. Read fictional novels. Read sci-fi, romance, comedy, and teen novels. Read lots of non- Go to art and science museums. Read the newspaper and scour the Internet. Sit in a nearby park or mall and people-watch (just don’t be creepy about it). Try to absorb as much of the world around you that you can, and take notes on what you’ve read and seen. I don’t think that there are any truly “new” ideas; instead, I believe there are original and unique versions of ideas, seen from your singular life perspective. So absorb as much information as you can, and let it synthesize in your mind. What comes out may surprise you. June 2008 studentfilmmakers 1 http://www.beachtek.com
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