Master the Basics
I found this on the USC Film school blog about mastering the basics.
I always find these self-improvement, time-management, corpo-stuff rather funny, but I must admit they can be very useful.
My question, however, with respect to filmmaking, are: What are the basics? Can anyone tell me that? Does anyone know? Crossing the line - and that type of shit, is that what they mean? Or finding a worthwhile story to tell? Or a high-concept idea? Or placing the camera in the right place? Or lighting the scene well?
What basics? There isn't an articulation of what the basic elements are.
1 comment:
This is a way-broad question. What the basics are for filmmaking can be as deep as what they would be for airplane design.
However, without getting too pretentious, let me give a tiny Readers Digest version of some of the things I teach at USC.
First, the most important thing is to realize that we are telling stories. There are thousands of way to tell these stories, but the most basic basic that I can think of is to know what story it is that you want to tell. When you figure out what your characters want to do, when you can compress your story into a three or four sentence logline, then you have figured out what are the important things that your script must convey to the audience.
After that you can figure out what each scene needs to do in the context of that logline. Who learns what information, how people change in each scene, and how the emotions of the audience are twisted with each new beat of the story.
Then, and only then, you need to figure out how to convey those arcs using the basic tools of the craft. Do you use a wide shot or a closeup? Should the camera move and, if so, where? What type of performance best conveys those logline turns? And on and on.
This is rather broad, of course. Someday when I write the Great Pretentious Book, you'll all be able to fall asleep with it next to your bedside. If you're interested you can check out my week-by-week Graduate Intermediate Editing syllabus right here to get a little idea of what I mean by this.
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