Well, after trying for several months to shoot at locations outside of the farm where the climax of my 20-25 minuet movie takes place, I have already considered throwing in the towel. However, to avoid letting all the time and footage that we have already gotten go to waste I have decided to shorten my movie to a 5-10 minuet short. Unfortunatly I have no experience in making such short movies. Does anyone out there have any tips on how to keep the film going at a fast pace while making it all make sense to the viewer?
I need advice for some changes in my movie
- Thread starter nobudgetfilmmaker
- Start date
Pig in a poke & sight unseen, consider this process:
You will have to change your approach from spoon-feeding your audience to expecting your audience to fill in a few gaps.
A declaration of "I'm hungry" to "Mmmm" no longer includes walking to the refrigerator, opening the refrigerator, introspective examination of shelf contents, pulling each item out and placing them on the counter, opening lids and removing contents from bags, line by line assemblage of sandwich, returning items to refrigerator, counter cleanup, walk to couch, sit on couch, eat food.
No.
"I'm hungry" to "Mmmm." Done.
Edit the final short film strictly according to the TRUNCATED story.
FWIW, editors often begin with what's called a "fat cut" of a film lasting several hours from which they edit it down
for pacing to the desired time limitation.
Good luck!
You will have to change your approach from spoon-feeding your audience to expecting your audience to fill in a few gaps.
A declaration of "I'm hungry" to "Mmmm" no longer includes walking to the refrigerator, opening the refrigerator, introspective examination of shelf contents, pulling each item out and placing them on the counter, opening lids and removing contents from bags, line by line assemblage of sandwich, returning items to refrigerator, counter cleanup, walk to couch, sit on couch, eat food.
No.
"I'm hungry" to "Mmmm." Done.
- Write a one page synopsis of the ORIGINAL story. Use normal sentences and paragraphs.
- Identify the act structure or plot points, if at all hopefully applicable.
- Highlight or bold these points in time or whatever flagging system you prefer. (Doing this on a computer helps.)
- Separate all sentences onto their own double spaced line. IOW, what was a group of paragraphs is now just a series of sentences.
- Thoughtfully edit each complete sentence into a rudimentary short sentence bordering on primitive grunts.
- Note the spacing and timing of story events then adjust each sentence's composition accordingly.
Edit the final short film strictly according to the TRUNCATED story.
FWIW, editors often begin with what's called a "fat cut" of a film lasting several hours from which they edit it down
for pacing to the desired time limitation.
- Have you shot all of these scenes still remaining in this TRUNCATED story?
- Identify the shot scenes you do have.
- Identify the shot scenes you do NOT have.
- Can the scenes you have be cobbled together to make the TRUNCATED version of the ORIGINAL story?
- Will you need to shoot a few pick-up shots?
Good luck!
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