Difficulty level: 2
INTRODUCTION:
"A Dimension of Mind: Film" is a facsimile of the "Sight and Sound: Film" course at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. However, "A Dimenstion of Mind: Film" differs in some important ways because it can be replicated at home.
The End Result of this course will be five high-quality short films in black and white, and a deep understanding of the tactile process of making a film by hand. You will have done acting, cinematography, location scouting, production design, editing, and any other part of the process you can think of.
Work in groups of four. Everybody will make 5 short films of 1-4 minutes in length. So as a group you will make 20 short films in total.
You rotate jobs so that you will each:
1. Direct a film,
2. Edit the film you directed while the rest of the group shoots the next film
3. Act as Cameraman/Cinematographer on the following film
4. Act as Continuity Manager. Take notes on who is what and where, and maintain a checklist for the shots to make sure that nothing is missed.
For every film, the Director is expected to produce the following written materials:
Storyboard and/or Shot List: A list of all the shots required for making this movie. Drawing the shot list out in storyboard or comic form will prove very helpful to the cameraman.
Call Sheet: A list of all the props, characters, actors, and special effects needed to make the movie. It contains a schedule that explains who and what needs to be on set, and when.
"Production Notebook": The director writes about his or her original vision or purpose for making the film (a bit like an artist statement). Then the director writes about the process and notes any challenges, setbacks, or lessons learned on set. Finally, the director draws a conclusion about the final product and whether it came out as he or she wanted it to.
After a movie has been produced, it is screened to your peers (upload it to youtube or play it on your computer to a room full of friends). You also turn in all three of your written materials to receive evaluation on your success from your teacher (or in the case of Open Art School, your network of peers)
EQUIPMENT:
The ideal piece of equipment (the one used in the official film school environment) for this course would be a 16-mm film camera equipped with a wide-angle lens, a telephoto lens, and a normal lens. You would be able to change the focus and exposure on all three lenses manually. You would be able to run the film forwards and backwards, and change the speed of the film. You would each be given a budget of exactly 8 2-minute-and-40-second reels of black-and-white film (21 minutes total) and you would not be allowed to go beyond that budget. You would also get a light meter so that you could accurately pull exposure to the proper setting before shooting. The film camera has no capacity for sound. You shoot your film MOS (Motor Only Shot) which means that you do not have a synchronized audio track. When you eventually need sound effects you must record them separately using a stand-alone microphone and recorder.
If you can’t get access to this kind of equipment, try to mimic it as best you can. For example: Use a digital camera that lets you change the focus and exposure in real-time. If using a tape or memory card, make sure that you never shoot more than 21 minutes of footage DURING THE ENTIRE COURSE. Do not use the LCD screen on the digital camera, only use the eyepiece. Convert your footage to black-and-white, or shoot it natively that way if possible. Get special lenses for your digital camera. Ignore (or even cover up) the microphone on your camera and shoot as if your video were silent. When you import the footage, delete the native sound. Use your computer's microphone or foley effects from the web to acquire sound effects. Or, you can use your digital camera as a sound recorder and go on an additional "sound scouting trip"
Or you might want to invest in a Super-8 camera if at all possible, because that way you still get to work with the physical film.
WHY THIS LIMITED/ARCHAIC EQUIPMENT?
Just so you know that I’m not making bizarre rules for “tradition’s sake,” the REASONING behind these rules is as follows:
Lenses: Having three lenses allows you greater control over how a shot looks. Wide angle lenses take in more of the space, and when used in close quarters, minimize motion. Telephoto lenses act like telescopes and provide good close-ups from a distance and make motion look erratic. Normal lenses are… normal. There are numerous other effects yielded by the lenses, but we want YOU to figure out most of them on your own.
Film, Reversing, Speed-changing: These allow you to do all your special effects IN CAMERA. There will be no “adding things in post.” This means that you really have to put thought into your movie magic tricks and make it actually appear to happen.
21 minute footage budget: This forces you to THINK, THINK, THINK about what you are going to shoot before you shoot it. To save on film, it’s recommended that you rehearse everything very well so that you can get the vast majority of your shots accomplished in 1-3 takes. You learn to make less mistakes, you learn to compose your shots carefully, you learn to be more frugal, you save resources, it is better in many ways. This is my favorite of the limitations.
Manual exposure and focus: You want to be able to control these things, otherwise your picture will look like crap and you won't be able to change it. You don’t want to just set these things up before you shoot, either. You want to be able to pull focus and exposure in real-time so that you can do things like fade-ins, fade-outs, overlaps, rack focus, blurry drunken hazes, lightning flashes, and all those other clever tricks in-camera. Being able to rack focus while filming is VERY important.
Black and White: The world of color is a very confusing, chaotic place. Before you can master composing shots with intentionally brilliant color schemes, you need to make films with intentionally brilliant lighting schemes. Working in black and white forces you to think of light and dark, chiaro e oscuro
MOS (Silent) Camera: Like the world of color, the world of sound is quite complex. If you want to be a good filmmaker, you ought to be a master of image (by doing silent films) before you learn to be a master of image WITH sound. Many beginning filmmakers treat sound like an afterthought, secondary to the images, but as movies like Star Wars have proven, the sounds DEFINE the film. So we want to make you think, think, think about what choices you make with sound. You will add sound to your last two projects in this course, but you will have to record this sound seperately from the image, so that the sound aural layer you create is as meticulously layered and planned as the visual layer.
ALSO, No sound from any built-in mic is allowed under any circumstances. We want you to know what it's like to record and mix sound by hand.
With these rules in mind, it's time that you get to work on your movie magic experiments! On to Part 1!
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