How does a filmmaker decide which aspect ratio to shoot in?

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan - did you ever see the Star Trek Next Generation episode where the aliens spoke in metaphors? We use an analogy or a real event to try to explain, but you take it literally. We are NOT setting rules. You cannot do this because we say so - you must balance the decision against what YOU want.

I'm talking about BIG blocking errors. Do you walk your actors through the scene? Then they know where each other is in 'real life', then when you reset for reverse angles, you have to rotate everything, so their right hand, if it pointed towards the other actor is STILL pointing at where that person is, even if the camera is now there! If you are shooting me, looking at the camera, and I look away to my left, then reset the camera as if you were in a studio with tow cameras, you have to shoot me turning the same way to the new camera position to make the edit work. In yours, it went in reverse which really makes you sit up and ask what happened. You don't need to see all of a room, but you MUST give the audience clues.

In the silence of the lambs clip look very carefully at Hannibal - he is looking upwards to her - his eyes eating into her soul. She in return is looking at him. It works beautifully - the odd framing is a rule breaker normally, but here it's incredibly powerful because they got the angle absolutely spot on. it works. This is the mark of a great director. It wasn't luck ands was planned in advance. The director would have explained the intention, got everyone to understand - cast and crew, and then checked in the viewfinder, or watched the remote intently.

EVERY decision you make matters. you do NOT make them because we suggested it - it might be totally a bad fit. Breaking the fourth wall is not just looking into the lens, it is looking past the lens, into the viewers space, rather than the playing space on set. It can be eyes, but also a change in the actor's demeanour/appearance. I was doing a stage play with Sir Laurence Olivier. At an intense moment, he suddenly straightened up, turn around and hurried down the stairs and asked the audience to forgive him, but a really important plot point had failed to happen, and it would spoil their enjoyment, so he asked permission to do it again - the audience murmured agreement - he went back to the bottom of the stairs and suddenly morphed back into his character - everyone saw him transform. That's an actor for you. If you need the actor to look into the lens you can do it. As long as it works.

In your time travel movie - I still have a question. There was a laptop, and then a hole in the ground. Is the laptop the time machine or is that in the hole and we didn't see it?

A while back you said your money was short, so you didn't want to do more shorts, but go straight for the full length movie. If money is tight - spending it before you have successfully directed, written and produced a short is very risky. Do a skills audit on all the things you personally are in charge of. Are you ready? Have you conquered all the problems? Have you earned the respect of the credit and cast, have you sorted the locations, and have you got a contingency fund - because you'll need it.

What I'm suggesting is that I don't think you are ready yet. We can help you waste your money, but we don't want you to go both feet in yet.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks.

But I feel there must be some guidelines to follow because when I have someone leave the room, without showing them and I only show the other actor in close up as they turn to react to it, I've seen this done before in many movies, and the shot is the same. OTS shot, of person leaving the room, then the actor who's camera is over the shoulder of, turns to react, so I just want to know what I was doing differently so it won't happen again.

As for the time machine, when the woman watches the man from the trees, you see the man put he wine bottle in a case, and then put the case in the hole. That's the time machine. The laptop is controls the time machine remotely, so the guy will not have to get into the hole with it, and can distant himself from the time traveling.

There are no close ups showing this since it's from her point of view. But how do movies like Rear Window for example, show the events from Jimmy Stewart's point of view, without doing any close ups, and the audience still understands what is going on? Or what did I need to do differently to portray the time travel from her point of view, since I want her to figure it out, from her point of view, along with the audience?

As for doing the movie, I just have other filmmakers and crew I have worked with before, very interested in doing it now, and I think since they are all interested, now is a good time, compared to waiting. I already waited over five years to make it, cause I felt I wasn't ready years ago, and people who were interested in it before are either gone or too old now for the roles, acting wise, so I feel that if I don't do it now, I will again loose interest and not be taken seriously if I am not willing to take the plunge on it.

But I want to get more experienced DP as and sound and actors, and the crew that are interested can do their roles, such as a good AD I know, from working under before, etc.

When it comes to establishing geography of a scene though, I watched this video, and this guy has the 3 + 3 rule, which he talks about at 4:30 into the clip:

Perfect your Film with Cinematic Motion - YouTube

However, he says to get a wide shot, or mastershot to establish geography, and then get a reverse of it. If I have a mastershot, of two actors, and then reverse it and put the camera on the other side though, wouldn't that be breaking the 180 degree rule, since the characters are both now on opposite sides of the camera?

[Brian Drysdale]

Set ups are the key to all these things. We know that James Steward's character can't move out of his room and his view (so our view) is restricted to what he can see from his room either with his eyes or using the telephoto lens on the camera. It's his limitations with the voyeur aspects and his need to find out what's going on (as displayed by his job as a photographer) that create the world of the character. His need to see more is matched by the audiences, but both are restricted yet are driven by curiosity.

I would read more of the scriptwriting books, because you don't seem to have understood them.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, but doesn't the audience understand that the woman has to wide in the trees, so the men she are watching will not see them? Isn't that a set up though?

What do the screenwriting books do, when it comes to using camera angles to set up geography though?

[Brian Drysdale]

The set up is in the first act, after that Hitchcock gets the audience to have empathy with characters. You see the action from the window and the danger has been put in the argument about going into the other apartment. Hitchcock likes the tension of the wider views, showing both characters, so he can tease the audience about the possibility of discovery by the suspect.

You seem to be so obsessed by the shots that you're forgetting that they serve the story. A well written screenplay will suggest the shots as you read it, good writers will almost have them there without calling them shots, just by how they describe the action.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I want the shots to serve the story, it's just that I am told that some of my shot choices don't establish enough, so I want to learn the best shots to serve the story for sure.

[Brian Drysdale]

You're running into the problem because you're separating the shots from the characters. You have to sense how the characters and their struggles within are revealed and served by the shots and how they join together. That's something you have to learn yourself, there are loads of resources out there to assist you in finding how to use them. It's self discovery, with mistakes along the way.

However, you won't find a solution in the short answers in a forum, you have to dig deeper than that if you want to progress. All this reminds me of someone I know who kept asking questions, after a while it dawned on me that he didn't know what a story was. The fundamentals were missing, strangely he could do short video documentaries, but they didn't have a story, they were descriptive, without any conflict.

5 years is nothing in the time scale of making a feature film, some take 20 years or more before they get made.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, I will try to do that. I have a money for the feature now, but not sure if I would have it in five years, plus I have people interested. I just feel I should do it now. Plus every filmmaker I worked for didn't have to take 20 years to do it though.

But I will try to imagine the shots differently then.

[Josh Bass]

Step back and realize that out of the contributors in this thread, 3 including myself have said you are clearly not ready. That number will probably grow to be everyone who's answered here. Again, you can spend the money and proceed anyway if you want to, but you should mentally prepare yourself to think of it as throwing that money away, as in, you probably won't have a saleable product. If you wanna do it just to do it and say you did it, that's on you, but going into it thinking you'll be able to win at fests or make money is another story.

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah but people always tell others they are not ready. Even if I waited another few years I still think people will say same thing and that is just something people say.

I even asked the filmmakers I worked under and they said everyone told them they weren't ready and kept telling, them and that's normal.

Some of the successful directors even say that people told that to them all the time, but they still made the movies. So isn't it normal for others to say that, cause they worry about someone not making it?

Plus the last short film I did, I got about 80-90% positive feedback on so I feel like I am coming along and learning.

I was told to just spend the money to get better actors and a better DP and crew. So what if I just started getting the crew and casting and see who I get first, then if the people are really talented, and I get others input who think so, maybe I can decide if the produce is likely going to be good or not and then know whether or not to proceed?

[Josh Bass]

There' s a lot to unpack and there and I'm not quite sure where to start.

How do you know the filmmakers you've worked with are ANY GOOD? Do you have links or titles to their work? ANYONE can make a film. I was talking yesterday to a sound guy who's worked on features and says many of the cheap indies are self-financed/vanity projects from rich people who "always wanted to make a movie."

Here's a film we talked about that is just such one. You'll notice a well-known actor in it. Realize this does not mean anything. Does the trailer not make this film look terrible? What if people told this guy (lead actor by the way is the director) "you're not ready"? THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT. Seriously. Look at this thing.

Rogue Strike - OFFICIAL TRAILER - HD (Starring Eric Roberts) - YouTube

. Budget for this was stated to be around $50,000.

So the first question is "how do you know anyone you've worked with knows what they're talking about?" This entire industry, really, most art/art-adjacent fields are full of people who are full of crap. It's like they all went to the same school where they were told to make it sound like everything they've done/were currently working on is amazing, huge, destined for greatness. Honestly, unless it's someone already known, or I've seen the work myself, I now ASSUME by default that what they do is terrible. Jaded, cynical, not particularly nice, perhaps, but also true most of the time.

Your last short film...where was the feedback coming from? Strangers? Friends? Family? A mix? People are notoriously bad at being blunt/honest with folks they know and love. If I've grown any it's from the people who criticized or crapped on my stuff. Do you have this most recent film to post to get opinions here? Is it the Timewine movie? If it isn't, maybe the latest short shows significant improvement and you've been getting flak for an older film.

As for the last part, the problem with the final product won't be talent, crew, etc.,--if money is spent--it'll be the script and direction which will be coming from YOU. No amount of money can fix that unless you commission a writer and someone else directs, and you simply act as producer, which is not (I don't think) what you want. People here are saying that you lack some of the fundamentals involved in writing and directing; THAT is why we don't think you're ready, and again, money can't fix that.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, I see what you mean by the trailer not looking very good. Hopefully I can make something better.

When you say comission someone else to write the script, do you mean touch up points here and there, for rewrite the entire story?

The other filmmakers I worked for, non of their features found distribution yet, accept for one. However, I feel I have to, like them, at least try.

The last short film I was going by the opinions of strangers, not friends and family.

I feel I will always be told I am not ready though, but when it comes to selecting others, and being able to tell that they know what they are doing, can't I just ask other people's opinions on actors and a DP to judge their quality?

Or how about this? What if I took the advice given, and storyboarded the whole script, and judging from the storyboards, maybe other filmmakers can tell me if they make sense or not to make the movie with?

[Josh Bass]

Simply:

If this all goes south, can you stand to lose that money?

Being a director is really all about making decisions, including all the things you just asked about. That is why one directs, because one has concrete ideas about all those things.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, but can't a director ask other departments for their input though? Like when I asked about aspect ratio, one person said to discuss it with the DP, once I bring them on board. Is that bad, to ask about things, and I am to have all the answers myself, without any input from other departments?

As for losing the money, I was told I should make the movie for just 20K, cause then I wouldn't be loosing near as huge of an amount. But I worry that 20K might be too low and show on the screen, but I was also told I just got to make it look good for what it is, if that's true.

[Josh Bass]

Of course a director can and should ask for input from others but the way its come across here is that you want them to entirely make decisions, like all of them, for you. I would say you should have a fairly concrete idea of what should happen regarding all aspects of the movie (visuals, acting style etc.) and be open to input on some of the more specific things that pop up throughout the process, Youre like the “president” of the movie...you know what you want to do generally/big picture but you have advisors (other depts.) to offer input on how better to fulfill the vision you already have and warn you away from bad choices. But they dont create the vision FOR you. You should already know what you want to do.

As for the money I dont have much input on that. All I was getting at is however much you spend, understand that statistically theres like a 90% or better chance you will not make it back. Its basically like gambling.