How To Make a Film

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how did the first motion picture look like and how are movies made today what is shot who are the people engaged in movie making? what is the job of: director, script writer, actors, director of photography, costume designer, scenographer...

. . L earn

Learn:

. ..

.. L E A R N

to make your own animated and documentary film to write a script to make shooting script to gether your friends and to select actors for your movie to direct your first movie

Radivoje Andri}

HOW TO MAKE A FILM

Try:

Radivoje Andri}

&

How to make a

FILM

T RY

..

.

.

Radivoje Andri}

HOW TO MAKE A FILM

.

. . L earn

&

T ry

. ..

.. L E A R N

Radivoje Andri}

&

How to make a

FILM

T RY

..

.

Radivoje Andrić

HOW TO MAKE A FILM Illustrated by

Andrej Vojković

5 . . . Introduction 6 . . . The First Films 6 . . . Photography 8 . . . The first film 12 . . . Classification of Films 16 . . Film time 18 . . . Framing Shots 22 . . Film settings 24 . . Scene plan 26 . . Ramp 28 . . Crossing the Ramp and Camera Movements

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CONTENTS 35 36 39 42 44 45 46 48

. . Composing Your Shots . . More about the Camera . . What is needed form making a film . . The scenario and Shooting Script for a Short Feature Film . . Continuity . . Editing . . ReÄ?nik . . Index

INTRODUCTION Hi, future movie-makers!

You watch films almost every day and have probably asked yourself if you could also make one. Perhaps you have already tried your hand at making video recordings with a camera, but it all turned out shaky, incomprehensible, boring and altogether pretty awful.

I am here to help you.

My name is Radivoje ‘Raša’ Andrić, and so far I have managed to direct three feature films (Tri palme za dve bitange i ribicu, Munje! and Kad porastem bicu kengur) and it is my pleasure to try and show you the basics of movie-making.

A famous director once said that you could learn everything about making movies by spending four hours learning and ten years in a cinema. My opinion is a little different: in four hours – reading this book – you can learn the basics. Of course you also need to watch films, but learning is best done by doing.

Don’t let this frighten you – making a movie does not mean that you have to film a complicated story lasting two hours.

In fact you can make a good film story that lasts just two or three minutes.

Let us begin.

Believe it or not, the world’s most popular film festival is one that shows very short films, takes place in Berlin and is seen by 20 million people.

How is this possible? “Whoever heard of people going to a cinema to watch short films?” you say. Whoever said that the festival takes place in a cinema?! The films are shows on video screens set up in subway trains, buses and trams and each lasts exactly 90 seconds – the average time between two stops on the journey. This means that the films are seen by the millions of Berliners travelling on public transport.

The most popular Serbian festival of ‘shorts’ is the so-called ‘March Festival of Short Films’ – although for some reason it always takes place in April…

Believe it or not, there is now also a world festival of films shot with mobile phone cameras, a real festival, with prizes and all. But forget festivals – the road to them is a long one. Let us begin by making movies that will be watched by your family, friends and schoolmates.

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THE This book also contains an optical illusion. Look at the bottom righthand-side corner. You will see a series of stick-man images. They are quite similar to one another, but not exactly the same. Hold the corner of the book between your thumb and forefinger, as shown, and flip the pages fast.

It’s interesting, isn’t it?!

FIRST FILMS

Let us begin with the theory and practice of ‘moving pictures’ and their invention.

Throughout human history still images were easy to record in drawings, paintings and ultimately photographs, but movement was much more difficult. The first successful such attempt was attaching a series of still images in a booklet, which one then flipped to get an impression of movement. The human eye is a bit lazy, so when you run a set of still images in front of it quickly, it cannot distinguish between individual images but sees a series of pictures that seems to move.

Researchers discovered that when you run a series of 24 still images before the human eye in one second, the eye sees them as a single moving image rather than as a set of still images.

But what was needed in order to develop films as we know them now was the invention of photography.

photography

You could also make a similar toy yourself. All you need is an old exercise book and a bit of patience. Starting from the last page, draw a simple stick man in the corner. Now turn back one page and trace a new figure over the preceding one, only make it slightly different – for example by raising an arm slightly. Continue the process. For example the little man could gradually lift an arm and bring it down again, and then a leg, and so on... When you flick the pages the little man will appear to be dancing.

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Ask your mother or grandmother if they have any silver jewellery and whether the silver gradually tarnishes (darkens).

They will tell you that it does, and that they have to wash it with bicarbonate of soda to bring back its shine. Now ask them why the silver tarnishes. They will probably tell you that it simply has to do with the passage of time.

Well, that is not so! In fact silver gets darker because of the action of the light to which it is exposed. This was noticed in the 18th century – and that was the first step towards the discovery of photography. Now look at the things around you.

Some are lighter and some are darker, and if we were to place a plate made of silver in the spot where you are sitting, in time

images of the things that stand in front of it would be formed on the plate. The objects which are the lightest would appear the darkest, because the tarnishing of the silver would be greatest where the most light fell on it.

In this manner we would get the negative of a photograph.

A little later I will explain how we get a positive image from a negative.

But the silver plate took a very long time to darken – it took hours and hours of exposing to light.

People found it very tedious to sit and to wait for hours for each photograph – especially those who wanted their portraits taken! For that reason certain chemical substances were found which when mixed with the silver made it darken faster. A mixture of silver and those chemicals was then spread on a transparent base material (it had to be done in the dark so as not to expose the silver to light), and that is how light-sensitive film was created.

If you put a piece of such film into a box that is completely sealed except for a tiny hole opposite the film and open and close that hole for an instant, you will get a film negative. Initially people used just such a pin-hole, but now a set of glasses - a lens - is placed there instead. Its purpose is the direct the light towards the film as accurately as possible. If you were to take the film out of your box to take a look at what you got, the silver would simply continue to darken and ruin your image. For that reason you need to take the film out of the box in the dark and dip it in a chemical solution (so-called fixer) that will stop the silver from continuing to tarnish.

How do you get a positive image? By passing light through your negative onto a new piece of film – in this way you create the negative of a negative: a positive – an image identical to what we see with our own eyes.

This process is still used to make photographs.

It might all sound a bit complicated, but don’t be dismayed!

You are probably in a hurry to read on and see what happens later, but when you have finished reading the book you can return to these pages and everything will be much clearer.

The sealed room where you take your film out of your camera and develop and fix it is called a darkroom.

When films are shot away from the city, say in a desert or forest, a special lighttight box is used to load and unload cameras.

People who did not have such a box even used their jackets for the purpose!

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NOW SHAKE YOUR HANDS, AND WE CAN SET UP THE CAMERAS!

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tHE FIRST FILM Believe it or not, such a device was first made because of a bet! Two friends in America who loved horse racing often asked themselves if a running horse ever had all four legs in the air simultaneously. Horses ran so fast that it was impossible to see it with the naked eye, so the two made a wager in order to settle their dispute.

So they invited a photographer to help them.

The photographer, a certain Maybridge, set up a row of still cameras, tied a string to the shutter of each camera and stretched them across the racing track. The strings were thin so as not to trip the horse.

A horse in full gallop then passed in front of the cameras.

As soon as the horse touched a string it broke it, but not before tripping the shutter.

When the negatives were developed they formed a set of still pictures of a galloping horse.

If you set up the photos in an optical illusion booklet and flicked it, the horse would appear to be running.

This was almost a movie as we now know it, but making it was extremely difficult and took hours and hours. You would have to set up rows of cameras and tie a lot of strings where an actor was walking – but what would we do if the actor was, say, sitting down? So this was definitely the wrong road to motion pictures. However, it did not take very long before a feasible means of making movie films was developed.

The inventors responsible for taking that major step were Louis and Auguste Lumière, two French brothers who made the first movie camera and projector and gave the first public demonstration of a motion picture in 1895.

Lest as I forget, the bet was won by the horse-loving friend who claimed that all four legs of a horse would be up in the air at the same time.

The Lumière brothers produced a long transparent foil (film) and coated it with a mixture of silver and some other chemicals.

They then wound the film on a reel and put in into a box with a lens – a camera. The film was cranked by hand to pass behind the lens and a mechanical shutter ensured that a series of still images was recorded on it.

It was the first-ever movie camera!

Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor, developed motion pictures the same year as the Lumières, but his was an inferior system.

Instead of projecting the film onto a large screen where hundreds of people could see it, Edison’s device was a large box into which only one person at a time could peer and watch the film.

That is why the Lumière brothers were called the fathers of cinematography – the art of making motion pictures.

Interestingly, the word ‘lumière’ in French means ‘light’ – and that is exactly what is needed in order to make photographs and movies.

.

T ry &

.

how did the first motion picture look like and how are movies made today what is shot who are the people engaged in movie making? what is the job of: director, script writer, actors, director of photography, costume designer, scenographer...

. . L earn

Learn:

. ..

.. L E A R N

to make your own animated and documentary film to write a script to make shooting script to gether your friends and to select actors for your movie to direct your first movie

Radivoje Andri}

HOW TO MAKE A FILM

Try:

Radivoje Andri}

&

How to make a

FILM

T RY

..

.