The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap (Paperback)
by Stu Maschwitz
ISBN: 0321413644

Price: USD 31.49
86 used & new available from USD 15.50

Summary

A guide to doing things with your indie film that all other books tell you not to do. You will learn the basics of color correction, the basics of safely using guns, the basics of story, more than the basics of production value, and much more.

The Good

The DV Rebel’s Guide is very easy to read. There’s a lot here and you will likely put the book down with a plan to try almost everything in it.

Editing is introduced well, as is cinematography. I learned some new things about editing, something I tend to read books on and go, “I knew that already.”

This is the only book I’ve read that goes into production value in any depth. The entire first chapter (and the rest of the book) is devoted to this subject. Get that and story down, and you have the “killer action movie” specified on the cover.

The Bad

Occasional mild language. The section about faking a shooting is rather gory, as is the brief bit on blood. Tons of action movies I’d never seen (I likely will never see most of them) are referenced to explain effects.

I walked away from the section on squibs with plans to up the amount of objects destroyed in my next film. Guess that should be in The Good, since that sort of thing is the book’s mission.

Parts I Couldn’t Review

The book is supposed to include a DVD with bonus chapters, After Effects files, Excel spreadsheet calculators, and other stuff. I got the book from the library and they didn’t have the DVD.

Overall

As stated above, the book fulfilled its mission. I’ve been thinking about production value a lot more lately, and I’m excited about the possibilities of effects I had previously ruled out.

Genre: Science Fiction Action Drama.

Setting: Modern times, so we don’t have to deal with castles and spaceships.

Planned Length: Feature, so at least 90 minutes.

Summary: Joshua is a teenager who has run away to another dimension, where he goes to work for an agency trying to catch a gang leader. Back in our world, three kids discover Joshua’s portal and accidentally interfere with his mission, causing an adventure nobody was expecting.

Working Title: None yet, leave a comment if you have ideas!

Last week, we finished the first draft on our treatment, which will be expanded into a script later on. There’s not much else we can say at this point, but stay tuned for more!

Some people learn slower than others. That’s got to be the only explanation for why we decided to throw not one, but two musical numbers into our second movie. Wasn’t iSundae I hard enough? Maybe we’re gluttons for punishment. Or maybe the songs just begged to be written. But however it happened, we wound up with two scenes that involved singing. Singing in the middle of the woods, no less. Are we nuts or what?

I have it! We were lured into thinking it would be easier because the basics aren’t that hard. We create the music for the song first, then pre-record the vocals and burn them and the music to a CD. When we want to film the actor singing, we play the CD and the actor sings along. This lets the actor get really close to the original timing of the song and makes the lip syncing look even smoother. Once we have it all filmed, we erase the sound from the visual clips and replace it with the pre-recorded audio. How easy! But wait until you try to film it. Things can get out of hand really quick.

Although we are by no means competent (much less comfortable) with filming musical numbers, here area few tips we want to pass along to anyone who is . . . uh . . . (crazy, nuts, intrepid, confident . . . what do I say?) . . . bold enough to try it.

Make sure the actors can sing the song in their sleep

(And I’m not referring to dream sequences.)

They need to know the lyrics and the tune so well they can sing them backwards! Well, maybe not that well. (Yes, we can sing parts of Cheese Soufflé backwards.) They need to be able to sing the song at a moment’s notice and sing it well. Trust me on this one. As a director, it’s so frustrating when you lose every other take because the actor who is supposed to be lip-syncing can’t remember the words. As an actor, it’s very discouraging when you have to concentrate so hard on remembering the words that you forget little things like moving your mouth and singing to the other characters instead of the floor.

Double check everything, but especially the batteries in your portable boom box

We got caught with this one the day before we were going to film. No C batteries to be found in the house. And the adapter power cable for the cigarette lighter in the van wasn’t going to work.

Streamline your storyboards

If your number has been arranged as a whole song, and you’ve been practicing it as a whole song, try not to film it one verse at a time as you move the camera around. You lose your place very easily and get a lot of messed up entrances and exits. Things flow best if you do them the way they’ve been rehearsed. Set your actors up for success! Put the camera in position once and film the whole song. Move it to a secondary location and film the whole song. If you need an angle that’s weird enough . . . I mean, different enough that you only want one shot of it then it’s okay to just do a piece of the song. I’m not trying to force you into filming the whole song a gazillion times. Just keep your (and your actor’s) patience in mind.

Make lists and prioritize

Time constraints are not good friends of mine. In order to combat them efficiently we need two wonder weapons. Checklists and Plan Bs. Think about it. If you have a checklist that says:

Full Front Shot – entire song
Close up on MC – entire song
Close up on Secondary Character – verses 9, 10, and 12
Wide Angle – verses 2 and 7
Character reactions – entire song

You can hand it to virtually anyone and they can instantly become sub-directors for as long as you need! That will leave you free to think about other things. No worries about them missing an angle or a line. It’s all spelled out. The more detailed the better. Comprehensive lists are your friends. It takes prep work, but it’s totally worth it.

The other necessity is Plan B. Or Plan C. Or even clear through to Plan Z. (I have never personally gone that far.) If you think you’re going to run out of time to film all you had planned, what should you do? The actors and crew are waiting for you to suddenly tell them exactly what they need to be doing to make things work. Do you know what to tell them? Do you have the foggiest notion? Be prepared.
If you know an actor has to leave part of the way through, film everything with him in it first. If you’re getting ready to film for an hour and you look at the clock and almost faint because you realized it took you a half hour to set up, how will you best redeem the situation? Film all the basic shots first?
I think you get the idea. A little thinking ahead never hurt anyone. Just don’t turn your plans into a worst-case scenario survival kit. No need to flip out over something that might not happen.

First: Check, check, and re-check

Never assume that you have all the props and equipment loaded into the car. Once during the filming of iSundae we got all the way to the park and started setting up when we discovered that Somindeo’s wig was still at home. It took twenty minutes for my grandma and me to drive home, find the wig, and bring it back. During that time the others had to film whatever they could.

Second: Know what you’ll be filming

I can not tell you how much time we lost by not knowing what angles we wanted to film. We would check the storyboards, film one angle, then everything would come to a halt while we looked to see what we needed to film next at what angle with which camera and with which actors. Repeat a dozen times and you can see what I mean. I’m estimating that we probably lost ten to twenty minutes out of each hour of filming time by not knowing what we were going to do next.

The easiest way to prevent this is to make a written list of shots divided by angle. It looks like something like this—

—Close shot Anthony:
“But what do we do?”
“Could we try the door?”
“Are you crazy? We’d be creamed!”
—Wide shot Anthony, Miranda, Charles (Zoe in the background):
Run through whole scene.
—Two shot Miranda and Charles:
Dialogue from Charles’ “Do you think we should try it?” through Miranda’s “Even a mouse would think twice.”

You get the idea. Experiment to see what works best for you. We’re still in the baby stages of this.

Third: Bring a repair kit

Things will always break. Whenever possible they’ll wait until it’ll be the most inconvenience to you. I put together a basic kit that always comes with us on a filming expedition.

• A needle and neutral thread colors
• Safety pins
• Tape of various kinds (Gaffer’s, Scotch, etc.)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks, if you’ll have an outlet handy
• Scissors

You might also want to bring Kleenex, glasses cases if your actors aren’t supposed to wear their glasses during filming, band-aids, and yarn for tying things.

Fourth: Remember that you’re filming out of doors

Plan accordingly. Camp chairs for members of the cast to use when not in front of the camera, sunglasses, bug repellant (I never thought of that, but I wish I had), bottled water, snacks, umbrellas, and a quick getaway plan if it starts to rain.

We were filming a section of iSundae under the threat of rain, so we kept a kid’s wagon ready and gave everyone instructions. Ruth and Jordan would grab the equipment and run for the cars, while the rest of us would pile any loose props on the wagon and follow. The moms were in charge of the folding chairs.

Fifth: The basics

Make sure you’re allowed to film in that location, know where the restrooms are, don’t say you’ll be there for one hour and stretch it into three. Keep the actors and crew happy, encourage as much as possible, and give peppermints freely. You might just have the most fun of your life.