The Ins and Outs of Filmmaking
Have you ever really wondered what all goes into making a film? During my last year of school, I’ve been a part of a 20-some person student/independent film crew that has been working relentlessly to make a film.
While making films is inherently an artistic process, it strays away from traditional art forms in the sense that it is not one person who makes the piece of art, but rather a group of people who must work together to create something an audience will appreciate and enjoy. It’s also more complicated than an artistic vision: it takes organization, strict roles and most importantly, money.
Below, I’ll quickly list the steps to take to make a film. While a director gets to put his name on the piece of art, it is undoubtedly produced by a handful of other people.
Pre-Production
You can’t just go out and film right away. You need a lot of preparation before you can actually start filming. It starts at an idea. While the idea should be creative, it has to be practical, i.e. you can push for your musical rendition of “Star Wars Episode VII“, but your $2500 budget won’t allow for a great production.
Once an idea is chosen, screenwriters write and rewrite the script several times. The script is specific to filmmaking because it not only tells the story, but it acts as a guideline for all the other departments of the film crew: location people read it to find where film needs to be shot, the casting directors must imagine the right age/look for the actors playing the roles, production designers need to find what sort of props and costumes need to be in the film and much much more.
Producers (while split up into different levels of executive, co-, etc.) provide the financial means and make sure that production goes smoothly.
Production
Once the location people find where the crew can shoot and the actors have been selected, you can finally begin shooting, right? Well, not really. Directors and DPs (the camera operators) need to map out each scene of the film shot by shot—if you’ve ever seen a story board, this is what they create. They envision what the film will look like to the audience.
Then assistant directors, who don’t necessarily direct, create a schedule of shots that the crew must follow. They act more or less as a liaison between the directors and the rest of the crew.
When you’re finally on set, it’s a chaotic process. If you’re shooting in a house, for example, the lighting people need to make sure the sun coming through the window isn’t too bright or is tinted the right way.
The sound people need to mic actors and hold boom mics.
Directors prep the actors for the scene while production design is making sure that whatever is in frame looks just right.
The camera operators make sure to set up the shot exactly where it needs to be.
In fact, there’s so much preparation involved, it’s almost baffling how little filming there actually is. A five second shot in the movie, for example, could consist of 30 minutes of preparation. Everyone is depending on each other.
Post-Production
While it is the more lackluster section of filmmaking, post-production is probably the most important. The editors (or as Tarantino will call them, the second directors) have to compile all the footage into a cohesive narrative.
The sound editors augment the dialogue and folly sounds (or the natural sounds we take for granted in real life: doors squeaking, birds chirping, cars driving). They need to make everything sound normal.
A composer creates orginal music, while a music supervisor will find pieces that fit the soundtrack for the film.
Marketing must promote the film anywhere they can, so that people know about your film. Distribution makes sure it will get out to audiences on time.
Figure in the poster designers, the DVD designers, the website/social media designers and voila, you finally have a movie.
This is only a recount of how our film group operated and we only had 23 people or so whom did more than one job. On a production valued at Hollywood standards, you are looking a film crew of huge proportions: see the full cast and crew of Transformers for example.
If you like geeking out about film and film production as much as I do and you don’t know already, check out the International Movie Data Base; it is kind of the greatest thing ever. Also, if you are ever looking for new films, try Movie Lens, it has you rate movies and then suggests new ones that you’ll probably like.