Hello loyal readers! Welcome back to another week of filmmaking. First, I have a few things to get through. First, I want to apologize for skipping last week. I honestly had no idea of what to write about. But I looked over some older posts and found out that we need to talk about final techniques and tips. Second, last Wednesday was the one year anniversary of this blog. So for all of you who have been with me since the beginning, Happy Anniversary! Thanks to you, I have something I can stick with. So my gift is to keep going with posts. So let’s jump in.
We’ve talked about a lot of special effects items over the last few weeks. We talked about chromakey, puppets, miniatures and practical effects. I’ve thrown in some tips here and there, but today is all about tips and tricks that might help you out. I won’t have too many, but here’s the plan – first we’ll talk about financial tips, followed by workstations, tools and finally work ethic.
Since special effects are an expensive part of filmmaking, you’ll have to take the time to save some money. Low-to-no budget filmmaking doesn’t mean under $100. In the real world, it’s anything under a million dollars. Ok, maybe not that much, but you get the idea. So my advice here is this: start with the basics and work your way up. After Effects itself is relatively expensive (if you go for CS6, it’s $1000 from the Adobe site). You can make some money and spend it on After Effects and I guarantee you won’t regret it. But a lot of programs you can get do simple special effects. They may not be perfect (you’re better off avoided effects work until you can afford something better), but they allow you to pave the way for something bigger.
Workstations are, obviously, where you work. You should only have a handful of things within arm’s reach. The monitor (two, if you can afford it. Three is the max – 2 for editing and one for preview), the CPU, the keyboard, speakers (not necessary if you have headphones attached, but a nice addition), and a portable hard drive (1 TB drives are much cheaper these days and will be enough space for all your film footage you shoot). Other than that, you should keep your space clean and accessible. My big tip: try to keep things simple for yourself. If you happen to change anything, you could confuse yourself. If you can afford to, keep your workstation free of any personal use items.
Tools is a vague area, I know. By this, I just mean that your script, storyboards and the like should be kept in a spot you can easily reach and refer to. It’s not a big thing, but while you are editing, it’s a good idea to have all these “tools” somewhere you can keep them handy, in case something doesn’t go the way you originally planned or wrote. Big tip: production book. Keep it organized and with you at all times. It can save your butt if you need to find something quickly.
Finally, something I have touched on a few times in the past – work ethic. When you are doing your editing/special effects, you are going to be spending a lot of time on them. It’s bound to make you cranky. Since you will be working on a schedule you set, it shouldn’t be a big problem. But it is possible to get caught up in the work and therefore can get to your head. Don’t take it out on people around you. When you feel like you’ve been at it too long, slide back in your chair and take a break – get some coffee and walk around the room a bit. It will help calm you down. Big tip: No problem is worth losing your head. Especially when you are on your own schedule. Relax and try to enjoy the process.
Well, I hope these tips help you out. Like I said, not much, but enough to stick with you I hope. Next week, we’ll start a new process in the Postproduction lineup – music. Ooooh, fun. Wednesday, in honor of one year of posting to this blog, we’ll put the spotlight on the computer set up. Monitors and speakers and such. So until then, stay calm!