Know your characters. Know their personalities, their habbits, their vices, their hobbies, their desires, their fears. You should know what a character would do in any situation, even if that situation isn’t part of your film. You need to be able to communicate these things things to the actors who will bring your characters to life. This is a HUGE part of that thing they call “Directing”, and an area that so many filmmakers neglect.

While we’re on characters, let’s talk about plot. There is a lot of debate about which is more important, character or plot. But in my opinion, you need both. Plot is character and character is plot. The plot should be pushed forward by the decisions that a character makes, and a character should be forced to make tough decisions based on the situations that arise. There is nothing more uninteresting than a couple of unique characters that nothing happens to. Likewise, the world crumbling to pieces around a group of characters that you could care less about is lame storytelling.

Know the character’s arc. How does a character change from the beginning to the end? What are the lessons learned? What does your character want? And what does the character need? The want and the need are usually two very different things. You should always know how the characters feel. It’s kind of cliché, but you really do need to know their motivation. If you don’t, you are at a disadvantage.

You should also know how the film should make an audience feel. Story is all about making a connection with your audience and taking them on an emotional journey. Action, comedy, drama, thriller. It doesn’t matter. This is true for all films. In order to take an audience on this emotional journey, you need to have an emotional connection to the story.

Use this emotional connection to your story to make decisions about shots, colors, set design, cuts, pacing, music, so that you can make the audience feel the way they should feel. Don’t just come up with cool shots because you want an homage to your favorite director. Quentin Tarantino does it all the time, and he makes great films, but I can assure you that he knows exactly how those shots fit into and progress his story.

The difference between good films and bad ones is that a good filmmaker pays attention to all of these little emotional details about the story. If you want to have an effect on your audience, you need to hit them with your story on multiple levels. you can’t do that without knowing the inner workings of your story and what you’re trying to say.

Don’t just point the camera at your actors and hope they will do great things. It is your responsibility to bring all of the elements together to tell the story. Bad acting is one of the biggest giveaways that you don’t know what you’re doing as a filmmaker. A great filmmaker will get the performances needed out of anyone. Take a look at Soderbergh’s film, Bubble. There is not a single experienced actor in that film, just regular folks who had never been in front of a camera before that.

If you have bad acting in your film, all of the shallow depth of field in the world doesn’t help your production value the way that you think it does. It actually makes it worse since the only thing in focus is the bad performance. When a performance goes bad in a shallow focus shot, the audience can’t drift into “Wow, what great art direction” mode.

You need to know your theme. Theme should be the foundation for all of the creative decisions that you will make while producing your film. Know your story, or else. Or else what? Know your story, or live with a mediocre film that doens’t hold an audience’s attention. A film that satisfies no one but yourself. If you want to make a self indulgent film that only you and your friends will enjoy, fine. But please don’t put it out there for the world to see.

If you have something to say, and want to make art, you need to appeal to an audience. Whether it’s a small niche, or a wider general audience. This doesn’t mean that you need to follow a formula or remake someone else’s story and play it safe the way much of Hollywood does it. The people that are spending their money, or their time watching your film want to be entertained with meaningful content.

The reason to tell a story and to make art or entertainment is for people to “experience” it. It is our responsibility as filmmakers to create a meaningful experience. If you take your filmmaking seriously, you should study storytelling.

All of this story business helps you decide where to put the camera, how to light a scene,  focal length, movement, wardrobe, color, prop choice, set dressing, locations, music, sound effects, how fast to cut, which angle to cut to, and so much more. Story is the most important tool in a filmmaker’s kit, and is really worth spending the time to learn. No matter what your function is on a film, you will benefit from some knowledge of story, and bring value to the production if you understand basic storytelling principles. Because story is so important to films of all types, it is worth spending some time learning more about. We spend so much time reading and watching Final Cut Pro and After Effects tutorials and looking at camera test footage. If we spend a fraction of that time learning about story and story structure, it would take us so much further than any software tutorial or lens test ever could.

If you want to learn about story, I recommend the following books and blogs.

Books

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting

Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need

Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting

Blogs

Unknown Screenwriter

The Story Department

Story Fix

I am a student of story, and always looking for learning resources. Do you have any story resources that you would recommend? Leave some links in the comments.

Part 1 of the Lighting Segment from “Cinematographer Style” Directed by Jon Fauer.

The industry’s best talk about proper lighting and equipment know-hows. Films are much more than a good story or good laughs, its technique and supremely efficient execution is what makes our eyes wander the screen and our minds when we think about a great film.

Part 2 of the Lighting Segment from “Cinematographer Style” Directed by Jon Fauer.

The industry’s most talented and visionary cinematographers explain the importance of proper lighting and the techniques required for appropriate illumination.

Cinematographers in interview:
Vittorio Storaro: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005886/
William A. Fraker: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005710/
Fred Murphy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002320/
Bill Butler: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124832/
Gordon Willis: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0932336/
Bill Dill: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0226778/
Remi Adefarasin: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001899/
Daniel Pearl: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0669050/
Denis Lenoir: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003631/
Richard Kline: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0459660/
Russel Carpenter: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005665/
Vilmos Zsigmond: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005936/
Stephen Goldblatt: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003552/
Robert Primes: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0697543/
John Toll: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001799/

My usual ritual when starting work for the day is to set my Energy Saver settings to never sleep the system because there is nothing worse than trying to play back a timeline and having to wait for disks to spin up. I spend the day working, then I restore my settings to something that is a lot more energy efficient. This lets me have the performance that I need to work, but gives me the lower heat, lower power consumption, and eco friendliness that I want from my system when I’m not working in a demanding application.

I was getting tired of making these changes manually, so I turned to Google. After a little bit of searching, I found a set of AppleScripts for changing Energy Saver Profiles. These scripts are easy to install and run from the menu bar. The days of manually configuring the energy saver twice a day are gone now.

Every episode will have four filmmakers discussing three topics. One about the Mac, one about Media (film, TV, Web) and one about filmmaking tech.

If you are a Media producer that loves Macs and Tech, this is the podcast for you. You can find the podcast at Graphic Planet Creative, or subscribe in iTunes.

Step 1 – Mathematical Guesswork

The first thing to do is determine how much you would like to get paid per hour. It sounds simple enough, but this is a sticking point for many freelancers. There is a lot to consider here. A few factors in determining your hourly rate are your skill level, years of experience, location, overhead, market, education, and the clients that you work for. You don’t need a single rock solid rate. There is room for flexibility. For example, the rate that I charge corporate clients is different than what I charge independent filmmakers. But you should figure out a baseline rate, and work from there. Freelance Switch has a super-fantastic rate calculator to help you figure this out.

Step 2 – Creative Guesswork

Now that you have figured out your hourly rate, you need to try and estimate how many hours you will work on the project in question. Figuring out the amount of time you will spend on a job isn’t an exact science. Sometimes it’s nothing but an unlucky guess. But it gets easier with time and experience. I know this is vague, and may seem unhelpful, but only you can guess at how long it will take.

Step 3 – More Math

Once you have an idea of how many hours it will take… double it. That’s right, double it. It’s usually going to take you at least twice as long as you think it will.

Step 4 – Communicate

Let the client know that you work by the hour, what the rate is, and how many hours you think it will take. Make it clear that the total price is an ESTIMATE, and if you spend more hours it will cost more, and if you spend less hours it will cost less. This way it
is fair for everyone involved.

Sometimes you’ll have to do everything you can to come in under a certain budget because that’s all the client can spend. When this is the case, the client should know that because of the limited budget, you have limited time to accomplish what they want, so there will be compromises. You should work with the client on what those compromises should be and how to get the edit done under budget with acceptable results. All too often it is the editor that is making the compromise of time. Communicate.

This obviously does not apply to every situation, and there are many ways to bill a client. Some of my clients pay a day rate, and some pay a weekly rate. It all depends on the client and the scope of the project.

Setting rates gets easier with experience, but hopefully this helps a little. If you have any tips or ideas that work for you and would help, please share them in the comments.

What is that dream for most filmmakers? Telling stories. Story is the reason that I got into this business. What is storytelling? Story is a combination of entertaining, informing and most importantly, manipulating and evoking an emotional response from an audience. Storytelling (the filmmaker’s dream) is not depth of field, sensor size, cameras, editing software, faster computers, microphones, codecs, camera stabilizers, or anything else. These are just the tools that we use to create our art . Surely, Salvador Dali didn’t sit around with other painters for days on end and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the latest canvas and brushes. Photographers are even bigger gear heads than filmmakers(debatable, but bear with me), but their discussions always come back to the photo. I have never seen a comment thread on Flickr that focuses exclusively on the camera that a photo was shot with. The critique usually runs much deeper than that. So, why is it that filmmakers endlessly discuss, debate, and lust after these items that are nothing more than our paint brushes and canvas? The tools are important, we use them to guide our audience, but what we make with these tools is infinitely more important than the tools themselves. What defines you as a director, editor, writer, cinematographer? Is it your camera, NLE, writing software? No. It’s your story.

There is a fantastic short film on Vimeo called “Perya” that’s getting a lot of attention the past few days. But I think it is getting the wrong kind of attention. This film has been blogged about over and over, and the only thing that anyone cares about is the Canon 7D that it was shot with! Yes, the images are stunning, but there is a substantial story there as well. It is a really great short documentary. Not because of the shallow depth of field or the 24P frame rate, but because of the story.

After viewing Perya the second time with a technical eye, I scrolled down the page to leave a comment. As I read the long list of comments I found myself having another emotional response. I was shocked that not a single comment on that page complimented the filmmakers on the story or the subject matter. Why isn’t anyone talking about that?

A recent post on ProLost, Stu Maschwitz coined the term Bokake for the all too common, slick, yet devoid of story, camera tests like Reverie. Perya is unfairly being treated like Bokake, but it is so much more. Perya is not a good film because it was lensed with a Canon 7D. Look a little bid deeper. Are filmmakers blinded by technology? If so, I think we need to make a conscious effort to try and focus on story, structure, character, tension, drama, lighting, action, dialog, location, pacing, performance, composition, and all of the other important things that make a good film.

If your dream has alway been to own a 7D or a Scarlet, more power to you. If your dream is to make a movie, you should start paying attention to the things that are hidden by the technology blinders that I think we have all been wearing lately.

“Perya” – a Canon 7D Short from Bob Nicolas on Vimeo.

“Perya” – a short doc entirely shot with the new canon 7D camera. 108024p/premiere pro CS3

If you work on a Mac, this just got easier. Using the Mondrianum 2 plugin for the Apple OS X system color picker, you have access to Kuler from virtually anywhere in your system. Just change your preferences in any app that doesn’t use the system color picker by default (Adobe apps), and you have one of the most powerful design references available on the web right at your fingertips.

Now go design something Kul.

Building Implosion in Slow Motion from Paul Zadie on Vimeo.

An abandoned hotel demolished via dynamite implosion.

Now that you have an organization system that works, it’s time to move to the next step in the quest for video editing speed and efficiency – keeping bins organized.

Sloppy bins are just as much of a problem, and just as common as a messy file system. Few things waste time like fumbling around and searching for something that you know is there, but just can’t locate. This isn’t just a problem with novice editors. I have seen some very talented pros that are extremely messy. Artists, by our very nature, are a messy bunch. We put so many of our resources into being creative that we don’t think about the tedious tasks that we know we should handle regularly.

Organizing your bins is actually more important than organizing files when it comes to directly affecting your editing efficiency. While keeping your file system organized can save you time by making things easy to find or transport, keeping all of your assets in order in your working environment (i.e. bins) will save even more time because this is where the “hands-on” files that you use throughout your edit reside. It can be a serious pain to go scrolling through dozens or hundreds of bin items looking for a particular video clip, sound file, or a graphic. Even a 30 second spot can sometimes end up having more elements than you want to scroll through to find something.

Like file organization, bin organization should be made a habit. It should also stay consistent across projects for the most part. I say for the most part because I like to organize my bins differently depending on the type of edit I’m working on. Every project is different, but your method should make sense. For example, you probably want to organize a narrative or scripted project by scene number. A multi-camera shoot by camera number. Documentary by reel number, or; day, location, interviews, b-roll, whatever makes sense for that project. Just organize it so that your media is easy to find. Sequences, graphics, photos, music, sound effects, and any other elements should be filed away nicely too.

Just like organizing files, always keep your bins organized logically so that any other editor or assistant can work on the project without getting a headache. Facilities each have a system of their own. It’s usually very easy to find your way around a project at a facility because they tend to have consistently used procedures for everything. If you find yourself freelancing at a company that doesn’t have strict procedures, it is a good idea to leave them with a tidy project. You’ll save yourself the off-the-clock phone calls when they are trying to make sense of your work.

You don’t have to have your project and bins organized exactly the way a facility does. But if your project is destined to end up at a facility for an online, it’s a good idea to find out what the requirements are before you begin your edit. Or before you deliver to them at the least. Don’t deliver a sloppy project, or you will surely drive another editor nuts.

If you are a solo operation, and your edits never go to a facility or another editor, then maybe you shouldn’t worry about the hassle of organizing your work. Wrong! Keep in mind, this is intended to make you more efficient and give you more time to be creative.

L’ren C “Ain’t Nobody Gotta Know” Music Video from Paul Zadie on Vimeo.