While I've given some ideas on making independent film look less cheap, today I'm going to lay it on thick. Too many indie productions spend a lot of money making movies look like garbage out in the world. A Cleveland perspective, considering the scenery around us isn't exactly pristine L.A., California, is kind of bleak and weather isn't always nice. The camera equipment available to us at prices we can afford isn't exactly perfect, either. So, how can we minimize the damage of limited outdoors, equipment, tiny or non-existent crews, and no budgets? Here we go!
First off, the script should be checked over a few times and locations may have to influence the script writing or a budget to go shoot elsewhere must come into play. If neither are applicable, perhaps some greenscreen compositing magic can help, situation permitting. Assuming the script doesn't require climbing to Mount Everest, everything may be fine. Funny thing is, computer programs, such as Infinite Vue and other applications, can simulate environments that look photoreal. So, if you are good at greenscreen/ bluescreen compositing, your script may not need changing of the settings. Of course, some of these programs are gosh darned expensive or a few are free at promotional times.....if you need them. In any case, make sure your location matches the script or vice versa, or things could come out looking mediocre.
Camera equipment can be a concern. Back in the day, you would have to adjust camcorders to work like professional camera systems. This has now progressed into cellphones, which many have 4K high-end cinema, yet lack depth of field and other lenses. In order to make either work well, you have to get adaptors and other equipment to stabilize and alter what is filmed/recorded.
The style of shooting. Too many indie films have shakey camera work and flaws. Use a tripod whenever you can. If not, try rigging a steady cam setup, so you can smoothly move around with the camera attached. Minimize zooms, unless the shots call for them. You can always fake a slight zoom in post production to keep things in motion. Laying down smooth surfaces or creating a railroad style track can allow you to create a wheel based movement system for simulating dolly and other styles of shooting. For instance, if you had a tripod with wheels and a large enough platform for your actor to stand on with the camera setup, you could wheel the camera around your actor while the background is spinning. You can simulate a lot of these things with greenscreen setups too, but that's trickier than just going out and shooting it for real. You can buy, rent, or build a crane setup, so that you can lift the camera in a smooth motion up over the trees or down to your actors. These are all traditional styles and help make your movie look more professional. Beware that camcorders still have a problem with fast side-to-side movement, creating digital artifacting instead of smooth motion blur. Playback results of a shoot on set, then determine if you need to change anything to fix it.
Lighting impacts everything. One of my friends/ colleagues is a lighting nut, after many indie film experiences. I agree that creative lighting is important. Look at any large Hollywood production and you can tell they didn't just whip out a camera and shoot in front of them. They carefully placed lighting to create moods and highlight certain parts of the set. It's an art unto itself, and indie productions generally forget about it. While my first film, Blood Donors, was intended as a horrible spoof on indie horror films and their lack of quality, using minimal lighting helped prove the case in point. Also, don't forget to light your cast in different ways to get a desired look, aside from the background. If I'm correct, George Lucas uses a lot of "back lighting" techniques to get the classic film serial looks of the old days of motion pictures. Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and more are built on such styles. They wouldn't have that powerful feel without the lighting being what it is. You can change the color of your lights, using gels, and set a tone/ mood for your movie, on that alone. Just don't leave out lighting in making things look more professional.
Acting can be altered to make things a bit more professional, too! Let's assume your cast is what it is and can't act. You are wondering what you can do to enhance their performance within your production. Well, using all the other things mentioned will help, but there's more you can do. In post production, you can do slight zooms to back up the emotional context of what they are saying in the dialogue or facial expression. Also, quicker cuts can minimize audience agony. also, placement of edits can affect viewer perception. Be creative and use the acting performance as raw material to be manipulated, rather than totally important unto itself. Chances are, your cast is not as good as hiring A list stars, so you have to work within your means.
Sound is equally important in making a production seem good or bad. We'll assume you have audio connectors on your camcorder to capture sound with the video. There are different types of microphones and techniques for capturing your cast's dialogue. Hollywood has typically used Boom microphones, where a person holds a pole with a fuzzy coated mic over the cast and the camera keeps it out of frame. The fuzzy part keeps static noise and other outside noise down, while the microphone inside pretty much captures sound it is aimed at. For my latest film, Salvaging Outer Space, which was all greenscreen shot for computer generated backgrounds, I used clip-on microphones, which are generally used for interviewing. It helped me keep a very consistent dialogue volume level and reduced noise because the proximity of the mics to the mouths was closer. The only downfall of clip-ons is when the actor moves around and the clothing rubs against the microphone, creating a scratchy sound or popping sound. Wireless models allow for all types of shoots, but the clip-on problems have to be monitored at all times, but seems worth it to me for many reasons, including not having to worry about a boom mic operator.
Other sound improvements are done in post production. You have noise reduction tools in many Non Linear Editor software to reduce unwanted sound. Also, you can enhance the dialogue and I even know how to fix bad acting in dialogue, but that's my little secret. Sound effects are important and there are tons of free libraries to use for enhancing the audio experience for your audience. Sometimes, replacing bad sound effects, like bad car door closing sounds or crappy footsteps, and anything else you can think of....can all have a positive effect. If your actor has a part where they scream and it sounds like garbage or is distorted, you can replace it with a more professional one, whether you recorded it or someone else did. Always watch out for copyright infringement and don't use stuff that you haven't obtained rights for.
Music is very important. Get someone to score your movie or get the rights to some songs from local bands. Make it fit the scenes and mood. Music can enhance a mood or detract from it, depending on what you are doing with it. Always make sure you have the rights cleared, or you could be in a world of legal hurt on your project. You don't want problems like that and many productions have been stopped in their tracks. Distributors won't take a project they know is illegally using someone else's intellectual property.
Editing software is important. I recommend Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or Avid if you can afford it. I've worked on Premiere and it allows for doing tons of professional things you can only imagine. You want as many editing and effects tools at your fingertips, as possible. I'm sorry, but many of the generic programs out there that come with computers just don't cut it. While Microsoft's Movie Maker software has a few powerful features, it just can't do what these big boys can. Once you work on one of these other programs, working on a smaller platform seems almost impossible to do what you want it to. If you can't afford the full versions of the software, there may be free programs that are comparable. However, I would recommend you pony up some cash to get something like Adobe Premiere Elements, instead. Premiere Elements has most of the features to get you through a production, properly. The Pro version of Premiere will leave you drooling, and leave you satisfied.
Titles and credits are an area to work on. A rule of thumb is to limit the amount of text your audience has to sit through. I've worked with kids editing video at a daycare and noticed a trend that needs serious fixing. They would take the easy route and use text and title generators throughout the whole project, and the writing would stay on the screen for what seemed like an eternity. Adults have this tendency too, from a few projects I've seen. A few words can help set a scene up, but too much just gets in the way and pulls you away from that "suspension of disbelief" we are used to when watching something. Opening credits have to be interesting enough to captivate your audience, as well. How many times have you watched opening credits and wondered when it would all end and get into the movie, itself? Make them interesting and watchable!
Color correction can help make a mood for a production. By taking your final raw movie and filtering it's look through color correction, you are smoothing out all the shots and scenes by glazing the final footage as a whole or in segments. Every project's color correction needs are different, but just like sound, the video should be mastered in this way to finalize the story. Sound should go through a mastering process, as well, to keep all volume levels even and to compress things in a way that works well on any audio system it's played on.
I hope some of this helps make people's productions a bit better and future proof. The less quality your product is, the less chance you have in a saturated industry, which is right around the corner. It takes time to make a movie and every day brings changes all around us. No one ever said this stuff was easy, but once you adopt some of these principals, things will go smoother for you.
Best, Kenny
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