Basic Tips - add yours

Have an expensive lighting kit? Maybe even a cheap kit?

Tape those feet up! Duct tape, masking tape, tape of some kind.

Prevent the scratches to floors. Ceramic, wooden, whatever.

When pulling favours, you don't want to damage what you have access to.

Nice looking floors? Don't be the one to have to fork over the bones to replace it! ('cos the expensive-looking floors are the ones that are expensive to replace!)

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Add some damage-prevention tips of your own, here. :)
 
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Even if you're going to "wing" shots on the fly, plan out transitions between different scenes, locations, or some shots, so even if the master and the close-ups don't match, at least it won't screw up the flow of the overall film.
 
Vegas hint

If you are using Sony Vegas for video editing, I discovered a work-around for a problem I was having. Let's say you're doing a widescreen project (1.2 pixel aspect ratio). Even if your source clips have that aspect ratio when you drag them onto the timeline they will act like standard 4X3 aspect ratio (1.0 pixel) clips. In order to get the entire video track to show the proper aspect ratio, right click on the a clip, select "Properties", select the aspect ratio you want and make sure to click the Save button! (It's a disk icon). After that, every clip you drop on that track will look correct.
 
White Balancing Tip

To get your color spot on, head down to your local grocery store and find a translucent lid (I found that yogurt lids are usually a good size, if not you can buy a large coffee can and cut it down).

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Place the lid over your lens, aim it at the light you want to adjust to and set your custom white balance. The results can be just as good as using a grey card or white paper!

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When your script is complete, call together a group of actor friends for a day, read it through and then workshop each scene.

Workshopping is when you ask actors to take the central ideas of the scene and then ask them to improvise alternative ways of playing the scene.

Get them to try playing out the emotional journey of the scene without any dialogue, ask them to rework the dialogue so they're giving the precise meaning behind the line rather than the line itself, then ask them to play the scene again where they use alternative dialogue that hints at the meaning without anyone actually saying it. finally get them to go back to the actual dialogue.

So, in the first pass the actor needs to get over the fact she hates Rick, but without saying anything -- on the second pass she simply says "I hate you Rick!" and on the third she says "The daffodils have bloomed so late this year" but we all know she means "Rick, I hate you!"

Tape the whole day on a wide shot, take lots of notes and cut at least 50% of your dialogue -- then take what you've learned from the day's workshop and rewrite the entire script from scratch.

Then go through the whole process again and again until the script is actually worth filming.
 
nice one clive, I whole heartedly agree...we did this on a friends short and decided that we could sum up a page a dialog with the antagonist simply turning his back on the protagonist and walking away.
 
Adobe Premiere 2.0 Tips

If you are running a Creative Labs X-FI sound card and using Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 in Windows XP, do not load the Creative console and other associated resident utilities. These will cause Premiere to crash intermittently. If you don't have your autosave feature setup for 2-5 minute intervals, you can lose a lot of time. Also, make sure the sound card is not sharing the IRQ with your video card or else you will see pulsating color artifacts during playback. These artifacts won't make it into the final render, but it is definitely annoying when you're trying to judge output quality.

Do not capture DV data directly to your primary system drive or the drive containing your swap file. Have a seperate, dedicated hard drive. A seperate partition will not help because it is still stored on the same drive and you will be fighting other applications and tasks for seek priority. If you're in Windows, turn off system restore to the capture drive. All this will help avoid dropped frames during capture because the DV data stream will have exclusive access to the drive.
 
When you're first selecting locations, take a digital camera with you, stand in the middle of each location and take 360ยบ worth of pictures. Then make a note somewhere as to which # pictures go with which address. That way, a week or two later, when you're discussing shots with your DP, you can show them the photos and he/she can point out different lighting concerns and staging questions that you may not have thought of while in the room.
 
During the preproduction process include your DP, Sound Designer, Set Designer/Props, Make-up/Hair/Costume, etc. These people can offer amazing insights into your script and story. As a "sound guy" I approach things differently; not better, I just have a different perspective; I hear the story rather than see it. As an example, I worked on a short several years ago where the producer was (and still is) a preproduction fanatic. It was a boy-meets-girl story centered on an introverted isolated high school aged writer who never lets anyone read what he has written.

The opening shot as originally scripted showed him sitting by himself outside the school writing in his journal, his friends walk up, he shuts the journal and the dialog begins. I suggested that we open with the sound writing. The DP suggested fading in with an over-the-shoulder shot of him writing in his journal. I responded with we could slowly fade in the school yard sounds, to which the DP said we could pull back to reveal the school yard. I mentioned that then he hears the sound of footsteps, and upon hearing the footsteps he slams the journal shut with a big "Smack!" then looks up, and the Set/Props gal mentioned that it should be a big hard-cover journal and that he should use pencils. The Dp said that we should still just see feet and legs when we hear "Hi Gary", who looks up; next shot reveals "friendly" faces.

All these suggestions gave a lot of insight into the character in a very short period of time. Before we see anything we know that he is a writer. Pulling back to reveal him alone in a corner of the school yard shows that he isolates himself. The approaching footsteps without seeing the other characters provides tension. Forcefully shutting the journal showed that he didn't want anyone to see what he had written, as well as defining specific props.

The conversations moved on to many other details such as making sure that when sitting at a table or in a room Gary should always be a bit removed from the other characters to highlight his self-imposed isolation. Later that would change as his love interest pulled him out of his shell. His room would be full of books and have posters of famous writers. His dress would, initially, set him apart. The Set Designer/Props gal suggested different locations for some scenes. The lighting would be a little on the dark side and brighten as he advances in his new relationship, and the audio ambiences would do the same. All of the visual and auditory clues eliminated quite a bit of unnecessary dialog, enhanced the visual look of the film and provided insights into the characters. After the first preproduction meeting the script was almost completely rewritten.

The point is to allow your department heads to contribute to your project. They are not mindless automatons who do just what you tell them; they are artists who have much to contribute to your film. Take advantage of them.
 
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