Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?

[Josh Bass]

Im pretty sure Ryan was the lead, yes. He’s credited in the cast and said he only operates on the opening location shot.

[Greg Miller]

I have a friend whose brain has been overrun with cooties. She needs surgery to remove them. We can't afford to hire a surgeon and nurses, and we don't have a contract with the hospital so we can't use a real operating room; we need to do it at home. Please tell me how to hold the scalpel (what is a scalpel?). And sutures? No, we don't have ten dollars to buy sutures, we'll just hope the patient will assume there are sutures. Where can I find some volunteer nurses? And what should I tell them to do? Oh, we need an anesthetist. But nobody I know is willing to do that for free. So I'm going to do that too, at the same time that I'm performing the surgery. Darn, one of the nurses couldn't make it today, so I will also do that, but just temporarily. Of course I don't have much experience being a nurse, so some of my actions will be jerky (I hope the patient won't notice). Oh, wait, we're doing this at home ... should I have someone boil some water and get some clean towels? No, never mind, that's for delivering a baby. Darn, the patient died. Are you saying I should tell the nurses to be better nurses?

Oh, OK ... the guys on the forum tell me I should start by practicing on hangnails and splinters. But those don't interest me so I will steer the conversation away from short operations. I have some other major operations lined up that I think will be more interesting. Where can I get some better nurses? Etc. etc.

Am I being too extreme, or is this a reasonable analogy?

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan - are you in charge, or are they? I've worked with plent y of amateurs and when they want to be in something, they're often more punctual and reliable than the pros doing it for money, who are always on the clock. You tell them they have got the part and you demand what you need and get them to confirm. So you send them the details, you tell them you have arranged everything and if they let you down for anything other than a family bereavement you sack them and let everyone know they let everyone down badly.

Let me pose a question. Let us say I was an experienced DoP who knew their stuff. A very keen amateur director/producer was paying me a token fee, and I agreed to do it. I'd do all my own planning, and get ready for the shoot. Then the Director/Producer starts to suggest things. Daft things. Then he interferes and repeatedly asks everyones opinions on every tiny little detail. He seems to think he is the DoP. He wants me to follow his plan, but the plan is faulty. He won't listen, and repeatedly changes his mind. I have a decision to make. Try to do his crazy plans or walk. Me, I'd walk because doing things badly reflects on me.

Honestly - you rewrite everything because the actors are messing you about? You really must be short of talent in your area.

re: the colour. It looks grubby, not clean, and changes from shot to shot. Also - the person the wounded soul guy is talking to looks so ill? Pale, wan, tired? Was this intentional? He looks like he's been up for three nights solid and has bags under his eyes and in desperate need of a makeup person.

I don't think the comments were intended to say the camera is bad, but the camerawork is bad. Your camera is capable of decent images, but what we are seeing is far from the usual look of that camera (or any other, really) What did the actual clips look like before they were grunged up? It looks so much to me like an available light shoot. It's not about tungsten vs something else, but the look of the lighting. It looks like there either is NO movie lighting, or its been applied badly. You ask about grading. The grading needs to have consistent results, so if that means the same result but by different methods each scene that's fine. If we look at the movie we have, the problem seems to be that there is no overall 'feel' just lots of different tweaking. I CANNOT ever be a colourist or do proper grading because it requires subtlety and not the hamfisted approach I am capable of, and of course it needs calibrated monitors so that the subtle stuff can be seen and tweaked.


That is NOT what he's saying. You don't have the ability to make their acting better because they simply are not actors. However, as Director, you can try your hardest to get the best out of them, but my understanding is you do not have the skills to do that. You read people in person and on here extremely badly. You misinterpret so much, yet the rest of use are now so good at reading you, we often answer the question you meant to ask, but didn't - have you noticed this. Every time you say "are you saying" we really aren't. You have put yourself in the position of needing to really understand people and what they do and what they need, even if they say the opposite - and you struggle so much. I had a friend similar to you, and he'd say "Let's do it one more time" and people would mutter "yep - right!" meaning NO NO NO, but he'd take their response as an affirmative and never understood why what followed was always terrible.

If you MUST use your actors club, because that's what it is, they're just a bunch of keen amateurs, and some I suspect not even that keen if they let you down - then you should write the parts for them. Some should have the minimum given to them. If your casting is deciding which of the six get the six parts, not deciding which 6 out of 20 get the role - then some casting choices seem a bit odd. The secretary person near the beginning seemed quite good - why doesn't she get a better role? The nasty scene never the end seemed to be a bit strangely put together. At the very end, when the girl was stabbed - the thing she was stabbed with was not shown properly to the audience, so it didn't have the same visual impact, the actual stabbing shot was OK, but what was it done with? I have no idea without going back. The other thing was the action on the bed. The angles didn't match. I mean the male to female angles. The scene being very Sharon Stoneish was so clearly simulated because physically they were in the wrong positions, unlike Sharone Stone's version. Clearly difficult to direct, but the kind of shot where everyone could say no - that doesn't look real.

Are we right that the character I thought needed some makeup was you? If so, that could also explain why some of those scenes didn;t work - you were too busy acting to see what the camera people were shooting?

Oh well as far as actors not being available, it actually was because of two bereavemeants that came up. So I felt I had to shoot around their absences while they tended to their bereavements.

Yes I did step in the acting role, because the role needed to be filled. However, as for how I was suppose to look, pale and in need of sleep, that was intentional because the character was suppose to be going through a really traumatized time because of his ordeal, but in the future, how do I make the audience tell the difference between someone looking ill and tired intentionally vs. unintentionally?

And I don't have to keep using the same actors, it's just that I was told to keep making no budget shorts on here before, but no budget, means bad acting and bad cinematography. So is it still worth making no budget shorts, if that is what the result will be instead of trying to pay for better acting and cinematography?

[Brian Drysdale]

" but no budget, means bad acting and bad cinematography"

No it doesn't, just you (I don't now about your associates) don't seem to have the skills and the ability to attract the people or make full use of what's available. I've seen films made by 18 year old media students which are way better than your films and that includes the acting and the cinematography,

No one gets paid on those and the students do the camerawork. The quality has nothing to do with the budget, if you've got the skills you can do amazing stuff with whats available today in the lower budget range and there's high end software available either for very little or free.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Perhaps the students are finding better actors and I need to do the same, or I can look in different places.

Or are they getting good performances out of non-actors? Because I would rather try to find actual actors rather than try to direct non-actors.

[Brian Drysdale]

Student films get their actors from various sources.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Well that is also one of the reasons I have not made as many short films is because I need to find better actors, and I am often not satisfied with the auditions, and don't think it will work.

[Greg Miller]

Assuming it's a reasonable size university, the film students can easily get actors from the theatre department. They might get their composers from the music department, as well ... I never thought about that.

[Josh Bass]

I have the impression there are simply no resources (actors, DPs etc) in Saskatoon where Ryan lives, OR there are and theyve all realized over time to avoid his projects.

[Ryan Elder]

I can keep looking but the short film we were just talking about I used actors from the University though. But I can keep looking. I think I can also bring in actors from other cities as well that are not too far away perhaps. As for a composer, I was thinking of utilizing one I worked with before for future projects, unless I should look for different ones..

[Greg Miller]

You say they were from the university (which is fairly big, 25,000 students). Were they students from the theatre department? Or just some random people from the university? The theatre students I've seen (not in Saskatoon, obviously) were a lot better than that. Of course maybe the best ones aren't interested for some reason.

[Ryan Elder]

A couple of them were from the theater department, the rest were not but just saw my advertisements and applied.

However, I was told that the acting was too theatrical, or too stage-ish, so is it wise to use theater actors if the they come off as too from the stage compared to experienced in acting in front of a camera?

But I feel I should look in other cities and just bring them in for the weekends, on their days off perhaps, if that's better, rather than relying on just my own city only.

But aside from the acting and cinematography, what about the editing and sound for example? Could I do any improving there? I didn't do the mixing, but did recorded the production audio.

[Brian Drysdale]

You can use theatre actors, but you do need to take the time during your shoot to tone down their performances. You may have to train them for film, if you're prepared to do that you can get good performances from them

However, you can't film a page every 30 mins with them while doing this, which also probably explains why you're currently getting such poor performances.

Regarding editing, you tend to over cut as if you feel every action needs a cut.

[Paul R Johnson]

Tell you what Ryan, If you produce something good, I'll do the music for you. Here's something I did for an aborted project from a couple of years ago. The funding dried up so it went nowhere, so the clip is a re-edit of the opening.

I'm serious. If you produce something that is good, I'll do it for you, but only if it's not cringeworthy.

timescape titles with audio on Vimeo

[Rainer Listing]

just curious, Ryan, do you actually have a film in mind? Or are you just getting ready for when you do?