White Walls

Over the years we’ve been asked by our students what the “1 thing” we think they need to improve in order to make their films stronger. Well, usually when mistakes are made in film or video, it’s not just 1 mistake that’s made (especially when you’re first starting out).

There are thousands of possible mistakes to be made in each area of development. For example, if you cast poorly then your film is dead before you start filming. If you use an unskilled DOP (Director of Photography) to shoot your movie then your production value will be compromised and you’ll have a hard time getting audiences to sit through the mess that you put up on the screen. If you don’t work with a good producer you risk finishing your film, but then having it sit on a shelf with no distribution deal.

The point being, there are countless mistakes you can make during the entire filmmaking process. At Lights Film School we’ve always encouraged our students to start building with a strong foundation. This is why our first lecture is on the art of storytelling and screenwriting. This benefits both fiction and documentary filmmakers alike.  A great story and a great team (both behind and in front of the camera) are the two pillars of any great film. Without these two elements your film will have weak legs and will likely fall apart by the time you get to the end of the post production process.

That being said, there are 5 problems that we’ve noticed keep popping up in independent films time and time again. Working on correcting these 5 problems is a great start to helping you add a stronger sense of production value to your independent films. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Not even close to it. But it’s a good start!

5 Common  Mistakes Independent Filmmakers Make

1. White Walls

Production Designers are hired for a film to help create the environment for the actors and the story. Many Hollywood productions are shot in studios so the entire set needs to be built from the ground up. In this scenario production designers, set decorators and art directors are all needed to help build the world the characters will inhabit.

Independent filmmakers don’t usually work in the studio environment. Instead they use natural environments. For example, a independent horror film may use a conveniently located forest for one of their chase scenes. Or an independent romance film may use one of the actor’s living rooms for one of their love scenes.

Using natural environments is a great way to add a sense of realism into your film. It’s also a great way to save money. That being said, natural environments need to compliment your story, your film’s color palette and your design preferences.

Allow me to take this moment to invent a filmmaking phrase:

“Not every living room was built to be in your movie”

Not a great phrase, no doubt, but it communicates the point. It’s important not to be lazy with location scouting or set decorating.

In the realm of production design there is a lot that needs to be considered. However, one of the biggest issues I notice repeatedly with independent films (the lower the budget the more common I find this practice), is the use of white walls as a backdrop.

White walls are infinitely boring. They lack texture, they don’t hold shadows well, they lack a strong emotional element and audiences subconsciously associate white walls with bad filmmaking.

You need to design your background. Add mirrors, curtains, coat hangers, paintings, wallpaper (you can put it up with double sided tape so you don’t ruin the paint on the walls). Nurse your background into a life of it’s own that compliments the mood of your scene. At Lights Film School our students need to study color theory so they can actively think about a color palette for their set which complements their story.

One of the world’s best filmmakers, Wong Kar Wai, is a great filmmaker to study from a production design standpoint. Watch his films and notice the attention to backgrounds. I would recommend you watch the films “2046″ and “In the Mood for Love”. He uses both natural environments and studio environments. In both cases he incorporates his love for color, design and texture. Watch the following video  to see an example of how to design interesting backgrounds using nothing more than color, texture, lights, curtains, painted walls and wallpaper.

Continue reading about common film mistakes below:

2. Lack of depth
3. Lack of design (makeup / hair / wardrobe)
4. Weak story
5. Camera movement

1. It exposes story structure
2. It exposes the technical attributes to the film / video
3. It exposes compositional elements to the film / video

Today we have deconstructed the Bjork music video entitled “All is Full of Love”. It was directed by music video director genius Chris Cunningham. We hope you find our music video deconstruction helpful. The video can be viewed below:

Below, we’ve outlined how we’ve deconstructed the video. We’ve counted locations, scenes (i.e. edit points), we’ve identified the color palette, the length of each shot and the compositional attributes to each scene (i.e. whether the shot was a close up, medium shot or B-roll). It should be noted that some numbers needed to be estimated or rounded for simplicities sake. However, we’ve tried to make the numbers as accurate as possible. Enjoy!

Number of Shots:
There are a total of 60 edits points. The entire video is made up of 60 clips fitting within 4 minutes and 10 seconds.

Camera movement:
8 of 60 shots (roughly 13%) of shots are moving. The remainder (roughly 87% of shots are static).

Color palette:
There is a strong color palette composed of blues, whites and blacks with small highlights of oranges and reds.

Number of locations:
There is only 1 location with camera coverage from different angles

Length of each shot:
The shot length ranged from less than 1 second in length to 24 seconds. There were only 6 scenes that were over 10 seconds long (roughly 10%) and only 4 shots over 20 seconds in length (roughly 6%).

1 second in length: 20 shots (33%)
2 seconds in length: 14 shots (23%)
3 seconds in length: 8 shots (13%)
4 seconds in length: 3 shots (5%)
5 seconds in length: 4 shots (6%)
7 seconds in length: 1 shot (2%)
10 seconds in length: 6 shots (10%)
20 seconds in length: 4 shots (6%)

Composition of shots:
This music video uses great pacing and editing. The composition of shots is normal for a music video. Many interesting and artistic cutaway shots were used. We refer to these shots as “b-roll”. This includes shots of the equipment moving, the liquid hitting the floor etc. Most of the “b-roll” in this video is of the robotic equipment moving and really showcased depth, lighting, texture and movement.

8 close ups: (13%)
18 medium shots: (30%)
8 wide shots: (13%)
26 B-roll shots (mostly close ups / abstract etc): (43%)

We hope you find this exercise in  deconstruction helpful. As filmmakers it’s rewarding to watch the works of your favorite directors, DOP’s (Director of Photography) and editors to see how they design and structure their films and videos. It’s a time consuming exercise but you’ll learn a lot from the experience.

Best of luck on your future music video projects!