Independent Films and Movie Making
Independent Films, learn about Independent Films. Independent films are not just films made by people not from Hollywood. Independent Films are a different way of looking at film making. Hollywood lived by a strict set of rules when it came to film making. An editor had little lea way when it came to editing. An Independent Film Maker try's to find ways to break these rules so as to give a new and inventive angle to his films.
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Movies Can be powerful.
Movies have been used, as in the case of WWII to move people to desire the extermination of a certain group of peoples. Movies have caused riots were hundreds have been killed. They have caused movie goers, as they left the theaters, to start fighting and killing each other.
Movies also can help join people together to do great things. Movies have helped to end wars, end conflicts, and make people more loving and compassionate.
Movies can have a far more powerful effect on us then real life.
Movies
can have a profound effect on the human psyche.
You will notice I said movies "can". Most of the time it requires
great talent to produce these effects, or a bit of luck to be able to
record natural happenings that will cause these effects.
Understanding
the road map to creating these effects can greatly increase the effectiveness
of your movies.
Why
great talent or a bit of luck?
Because
real life is three dimensional, it also has had a life time to develop
a relationship with your brain, it is also, to a point, interactive. You
can get up at any time and walk out into traffic and cause traffic to
react. Don't do this!!
Recorded images are two dimensional and they need to develop a relationship
with your brain on the fly.
If this
is so what gives movies the edge and so much more power to move us than
real life?
For
most of us, life is not the movie we wanted to be actors in. It's mundane,
boring, repetitive, and we are forced to do things, just to survive, that
drive us crazy. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Most of us are
begging for relief.
Ask your self, would you rather go to work today, or become invisible and go looking for private conversations, of others, to listen to. You will be provided with a comfortable chair, soda and chips.
Of course this couldn't really happen, that's why the soaps are so popular.
Soaps are real life episodes presented in an unrealistic person. The "I'm sitting on my couch listening to other people bitch and moan about their pitiful lives." person.
We are all driven by a desire for something different.
Movies must have an unrealistic twists to the scenes or the scenes must contain happenings that are not normal to our regular life. Remember we are sick of real life, we want realities created for us that stimulate us differently.
Here's what happens.
When you watch a movie your mind goes into a hypnotic, almost dream like state. You whole body begins to react to the stimuli created by the movie. Your brain begins secreting chemicals that effect your hormones, muscles, nervous system, the whole body.
You really begin to feel hate, love, sadness, fear, the effects to chemicals released by the body in reaction to the stimuli created by the movie. Stimuli your body and mind are not accustomed to, because the movie has been created, in some way, not to simulate real life.
This is why most home movies aren't that desirable for anyone other than the camera man. The camera man is trying to record life as he sees it. Who on God's earth wants to see life through the a camera man's eyes who's life is probably just as boring as one's own life? Unless it's an event that's of interest "TO OTHERS", most will react to the home movie with the sentiment, been there done that.
Here is the key.
When you look through the eye piece of the camera don't look for what's in the camera's lens! Look for what's in your head. Major productions will have story boards, directors, camera men, millions to spend on sets but it's still the same. The scene must be created in some ones head first, then it must be created for the lens.
Here's the big point.
The scene created in your head is not the scene created by the lens, But must have the viewer in mind. It has to push and pull all the buttons of the viewer that will cause the viewer to react the way you intend the viewer to react.
The scene created for the lens must contain the story and the code to push and pull the buttons of the viewer on top of all that , it must be interesting enough to subdue the viewer into dream land.
How this is done.
A good example is Love Story.
The story is; Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl dies. Boy cries.
The rest is the code to push and pull the buttons of the viewer and to keep the viewer interested enough to keep him or her in dream land.
Also calculus is the manipulation of algebra.
Now you know how to do both, create great movies and how to solve calculus equations.
What you need to do to become a movie maker.
First you must learn the basics, there are rules and techniques that as viewers our minds have learned to except from years of watching movies. The basics are a must know. You can find all this at a great web site called "video 101" at http://www.video101course.com/
You need to analyze as many great classics as possible. By analyze I mean examine each take of the camera and determine what is being done, and why. For example, when a character has just been told his wife has died, the camera may slowly zoom in for a closer shot of his face and pause for a moment. This is a bit of that code that I was talking about. It tells your mind to dig deep and imagine the worst this man could be feeling. You reflect on your own past and painful moments in life, you grab that pain and put that pain in the movie. The camera even pauses to give you the time it would take most people to do this. As the camera closes in on his face, tears come to your eyes.
Now you can begin to understand that a movie needs that relationship with the viewers mind to become a movie.
The more you involve the viewer the more the movie becomes his or her movie, and every one love their own work.
A closing note.
Low budget productions have done an incredible job of stealing the hearts and minds of the viewing public form the major production companies.
How can a low budget production do this? Well remember I told you that people are sick of the humdrum of reality. It seems the advantage that the huge budgets these major production companies have is also a disadvantage. Because of the huge size of the productions a close adherence to the standard way of shooting a movie must be invoked to keep everyone on the same page.
A large production may have 20 30 cameras all going at the same time, and not in the same place, with a number of directors and editors and so forth. These different parts of the movie may never even talk to each other. To keep everything running smoothly everyone need to stick to the standard way of doing things, which leads to humdrum.
On a low budget production the director may also be the editor. It is very easy to stray or even experiment with drastically different ways of filming. This can lead to realities that no one has even thought possible, and has.
I just watched a low budget spanish movie from spain the other day that broke all the rules. But it caused my mind to pull out feelings so intense there were a couple of times I had to leave the room. It was your standard "Girl gets kidnapped held for ransom then released." movies. No cheep nude scenes or outrageous behavior, just an incredible understanding of how to use, what I call, code to push and pull my emotional buttons. which made this movie one of the best I've ever seen.
It takes years and a lot of hard work to become great at anything. Movie making is no different.
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If
you enjoy great choreographed dance or you do independent music videos,
check out this Japanese Music
Video with some really great young dancers. Goto
Mini Moni Music video...
Independent Films requires a Tripod with Fluid Heads
Almost as important as the camera is the tripod. If your interested in shooting videos, without a good tripod with fluid heads your not going to get past the "home movie look" . It will be most noticeable when you use the telephoto capabilities of your camera. The big difference between pictures and film/video is that pictures are static, an independent film is action. You don't want that action to be you shaking the camera. There will be a lot of panning ( turning the camera as you follow the action ) and zooming ( as you go in for close ups, and out for wide angles.) Important is a very stable tripod that can easily handel the weight of the cameras, wind, changing focus, and other aspects of the camera while shooting. And fluid heads are going to be needed for panning.
What are fluid heads? The head of a tripod is where your camera is connects to the try pod. The head allows you to tilt up and down, and pan left to right. Fluid heads are made for films / videos, they give the handler a certain amount of resistance against his actions so as to smooth out the turing of the camera. So when you pan left or right or tilt up or down you get a smooth action, not a jerky motion that you would get with just plane heads.
The quality of your tripod, among other things, will determine how professional your Independent Films will look.
The quality of your camera will not determine if the Independent Film you made looks like home a movie or a professionally Hollywood style work of art. What will determine that are a few simple rules. One of those rules is you must have a good tripod with fluid heads.
What kind of Hosting is needed for Independent Films
Your Independent Films files are larger then text files, and use a lot more Bandwidth. These factors are going to play a big part in deciding what hosting plan you choose. Your going to need a server that offers a lot of hard dick space and a lot of bandwidth for a good price.
Written by
G. Parsons copyright © 2005 711net.com
