When you are directing movies, you should have your shot list planned out ahead of time.
This is especially important if you are on a tight budget and don’t really have a lot of leeway in terms of schedule.
You need to be able to get your shots as economically as possible in terms of time and financial expense.
Meanwhile, you also have to keep you mind on the final cut of the film and how you will put it together so that it looks good.
Last time, I wrote about three shots that you MUST get, especially when you are starting out as a director.
In this post, I am going to write about an additional set of shots that would be wise for you to get, too.
I had one mentor who didn’t like the term “insert” because he said that the entire movie is one insert after another, referring to the clips with the actors talking as also being inserts.
But for our purposes, we will call them “inserts” (sometimes also referred to as “cut aways” or “cut away shots”) and we will define them in the following manner: shots that you put in the movie that you “insert” between the shots of the actors conversing.
If you don’t get them, its not a big deal… but it helps the final look of your film and can make editing easier.
Here are two reasons to get inserts:
1. Esthetically pleasing and interesting to the audience… tells the story visually rather than verbally (helps you avoid talking heads in your movies)
2. It is easier to editing if you have the option of using inserts and if there were mistakes or lack of continuity between shots while shooting, you can hide them with inserts
The first use of inserts is to tell the story visually.
When James Stewart takes a step up on the stepladder, Hitchcock shows a shot of the stepladder (22 seconds into the YouTube video). Not a necessary shot, but it makes it much more interesting to the audience.
Additionally, the shot at 36 seconds shows what he sees when he looks down from the top step of the ladder. We see his reaction first, but the story is told well visually because we get to see the height to which he is he is reacting.
The second reason is for editing purposes…
I’m going to use another Jimmy Stewart film:
Let’s say at the shot at 1 minute 40 seconds, Jimmy Stewart did that line a few times when he was by the sign of Bedford Falls (1 minute 35 seconds) but the director Frank Capra decided he didn’t like Stewart’s expression in any of the takes or the sound was bad on all the takes.
He could have gotten him frolicking in the snow (the shot at 1 minute 40 seconds) “for safety” and then ADR’d (recording the audio of Stewart to put over the visuals) the audio of Stewart later on.
But he still got the shot of him frolicking in the snow (with the tree in the foreground).
(As a side note, when getting these shots where you just need some action or a close up on something, don’t be afraid as a director to coach from off camera. As long as the actor isn’t saying lines, you can pull your coaching out of the final cut. This is also helpful when you are trying to get a reaction shot from an actor when the actor does not have dialogue. You can say things like, “can you blink a few times and look up and to the right?” and then get rid of your own voice when editing.)
Please give feedback on this post. I feel like I’ve explained it simply enough, but I might need more visuals to make my point.
This post is directed more to those who do not have a lot of directing/set experience…
To be efficient when you get to the editing process, you probably want to get the bare minimum of three shots when you are shooting your project.
The first is the establishing shot. Sometimes it’s a medium two shot. Either way, it’s the shot that lets the audience know where we are and where the actors are in relation to each other.
Lets say you’re doing a basic two person scene. You want to do a couple of takes where you have both actors evenly shown on camera.
Sometimes you don’t even need this shot, because the eyelines will tell the proximity of the actors, but when you’re starting out, it’s a good idea to get this shot.
Next you want to get a close up of each of the actors. This constitutes your two other shots (presuming you’re doing a two person scene).
You want to get these for a couple of reasons.
First of all, in this day and age, most people have been exposed to movies and TV most of their lives. After the wide shot you get first, most people are used to the camera moving in closer for a tighter shot with only one actor on camera (or if the second one is on camera, it is “Over the shoulder” or OTS shot.
Second, it makes the story you are telling much more intimate for the audience. In the wide shot, the audience gets a sense of what’s going on, but when you move in tighter, they are able to experience the ride of the story with the characters.
This is especially important in a lot of comedy movies where the comedy is based on the reaction of the actor. We need to see, close up, the reaction of the actor to what is transpiring around them. This adds the “oomf” in comedy that the audience needs to find the scene amusing.
This is also important in drama, though, because as actors on screen are thinking, we need to know they are thinking and reacting without them wildly gesturing, as they do in the theater.
If they are in a wide shot, they can make their movements bigger, but if the desired impact is for the audience to move with the character emotionally, the camera should be in a close up and the actor does not have to do much to have an impact.
I just found this video on YouTube. Watch Cameron Diaz’s reaction in The Holiday… She does almost nothing, but we can tell she is processing a lot. She’s in a close-up so we are moving with her emotionally (as well as with Jude Law, who is pouring his heart out.)
Another good example comes later in the vid when Drew Barrymore is also having a moment of revelation. Her reactions are small, and the camera even pushes in a little to make the moment more intimate.
This scene from There’s Something About Mary has the establishing shot. As the converse, they move to a close up. After the line, “I work with retards…” The camera takes a moment to get Mary’s reaction (about 45 seconds into the video)… A shift of the body and a scratch of the neck as she looks down… we know she has been affected by his last comment. We know she’s processing his last comment.
Obviously in the faster, more physical comedy, this is not necessary…
This is one of my favorite scenes from the Marx Brothers. Very little dialogue. Comedy is from the action… Thus a wider shot…
So to summarize, as you (director) are making your shot lists, include the basics…
1. Wider “two shot” with both actors…
2. Close up for actor #1
3. Close up for actor #2
If there are other actors in the scene, get close ups on them, too. Even if they only have a line or two, you’ll be glad you did when you get to editing, because sometimes you just need to cut away to them to get a reaction. (I’ll do another post on cut aways and inserts later)
In the process of creating new articles I believe would be useful to you, I have come to the conclusion that this blog has ADD!
This started as a way to empower actors by teaching them to produce. Or how to become an actor by producing.
In retrospect, what possessed me to get a domain name like yourfavoritedirector.com is beyond me. I think it was a wishful attempt to consider me as such, but the ironic thing is that I do much more than direct, so it’s a bit limiting.
It could also be about my (Leslie’s) favorite director… or directors… Like Trey Parker or Kevin Smith… which I have written about on occasion.
But I tend to write about comedy in general if I am going to write about a specific work that I like. And it’s rarely just about the direction of the film.
I added my first movie review in July… That’s a whole other direction this site could go.
And then there’s the vlogs that I create, usually about my own work. This was never meant to be a space for that, but it kind of turned into that because I started to write here more often than on my personal blog: www.leslielello.blogspot.com.
So what am I to do?
My first decision is to write more articles about movie directing, since that is the topic related to the domain name of this blog and I noticed that I only have one page up about directing, which I found pretty ironic.
So I’m going to write more about the basics of directing… basic shots, storyboards, etc…
I have always oriented this site toward the actor that wants to make the leap to production in order to empower oneself as an actorand to put creative control back in to one’s own hands.
A major premise of this site is getting the job done, which is why the emphasis has been on producing. Again quantity is better than quality.
The posts about directing will help with how your project comes out.
Another way to say this is… once you get the quantity part of the equation, you’ll want to start honing what you have created. You’ll want to greater control the outcome of what you are creating by understanding how to create an effect or have something implied to those who view your film.
Essentially, you’ll want a more effective, crafted film.
What I’m saying is producing=quantity on this site and directing=quality (along with other aspects of film that create the nuance you want to have in your scenes.)
So I ask you now, in addition to the new category I have added (movie directing), what else do you want to see here? Or are you liking the pattern of content I have been posting (despite the random, attention-deficient pattern to my post topics)?
Speaking of randomly switching topics, I’m not just going to write my posts in this post, I’m going to leave you with a couple of YouTube videos about how to make your own green screen. In the first video, the guy sounds like he’s reading of a teleprompter that isn’t scrolling well, but the content is really good. The second vid is shorter… also good information.
One of my favorite books is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
I have read it over a dozen times and it continues to benefit me in the moments when I feel unsure of myself as an artist.
I won’t go into the details of today, which were exhilarating. I experienced the whole range of emotion from joyful exuberance to utter heartbreak in relation to creating…
It was something I had never tried to create before, and so had to remind myself that I am a beginner.
Julia Cameron’s book talks of creation being a co-creation with God (source, higher self, universe, etc… whatever you call that big IT that is both outside of you and within you) and one of the things she states repeatedly is to keep telling yourself, “I will take care of the quantity, God will take care of the quality.”
This is important for artists to remember.
Here are two specific situations in which focusing on quantity is of the highest importance for artists:
Let’s say are a beginner at what you are doing. Why is this an important affirmation? Because often fledgling artists have expectations that their fledgling creation is going to be just like the creations of their heros and experts in their desired field. But the truth is that if they looked at the fledgling work of their heros and experts, it would be comparable to their own initial creations.
The point is that everyone is a beginner at some point. And when art doesn’t come out the way you see it in your head, it sometimes doesn’t feel good. But that’s what art is. If it were exact, it would be science (not that those two fields don’t often cross.)
Additionally, for someone like me, who can sometimes be pretty self impressed (fast learner, website with 100+ pages about filmmaking on it, doing this over 10 years…), to have to start at the beginning again with something that is related but different than the vast experience that I already have can be a bit frustrating. I just assume I will be awesome on the very first day, and I forget that that’s not always how it works.
Thank goodness Julia Cameraon reminds me.
“Gee wiz, I’m human and fallible.”
I forgive myself.
And the upside is that my related experience does speed up the learning curve a bit.
The second situation is the case where an artist is holding him or herself from doing what s/he wants to do artistically because s/he doesn’t have access to the quality of equipment, personnel, materials, etc that are necessary to make the artist’s vision a reality.
Often, these materials would be nice, but aren’t really necessary.
For example, say you want the $10,000 camera, but you’ve only got the $300 camera. Are you going to wait until you have the $10,000 camera before ever shooting anything?
I have, and trust me, it’s not fun. Creators need to create, and if they hold that back, it can be very uncomfortable.
Additionally, as you build your experience on the $300 camera, you might see in retrospect that perhaps it was better that you practiced on the $300 and got your chops working with a simpler camera, less doo-dats, less complication, and less expense.
And something weird sometimes happens when you keep creating (taking care of the quantity) despite the resources you may have. I have found that the universe tends to open up and bring you what you need at the right time, therefore, taking care of the quality.
My overriding philosophy is that if the tools I desire are not in my world right now, I should use what I’ve got until they come to me, and that they will come faster if I create a greater need for them by continuing to create with what is currently around me.
So the next time you are in the beginning, middle or end of creating something and you’re not feeling super-great about it, know that the important thing is that you are doing it. You are taking care of the quantity. That is your job as an artist.
You are showing up and doing it and that’s what’s most important.
(By the way… Here’s the link to the book. It’s awesome. I had Julia Cameron sign my copy and she was in awe of how tattered it was from me carrying around for what would amount to several years if you added it up.)
