Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?

[Ryan Elder]

From my past posts on here, I was wondering what others thought, cause a filmmaker I worked with says I way overthink everything.

However, in past shorts I posted for input, I was told I didn't think of several things while shooting, so I thought therefore, I was underthinking things, and needed to really think about a lot of thing more.

Or perhaps not?

[Paul R Johnson]

You have asked this question so many times, within other topics and everyone tells you you overthink so many trivial elements to a ridiculous degree yet fail to even consider at all vital things.

You worry about some things to an almost obsessive degree, refusing to even consider people's advice, while wiping to one side things we think you need to real concentrate on.

You do it repetitively and continually. You also suffer from memory loss, if you don't remember this. Look at your topics and see how many last just a few pages because you got and answer and moved on? Most run for HUNDREDS of pages. Have you seriously not noticed?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh sorry, perhaps I was talking about so many things with filmmaking, perhaps it's just become information overload. However, when people point ou things that bother them, which seem like the smallest things, how am I overthinking, if I keep neglecting those things I wonder though?

[Paul R Johnson]

Every post that starts "I've been told ......" starts a catastrophic chain of events with you going off and trying, often fruitlessly, to analyse the process and try to make a decision - which you rarely do.

Look at the topics you've started recently?
The aspect ratio
The star filter
film maker money
Multiple Mics

All this ran to pages and pages proving your question without any doubt at all.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Yes.

Which raises the question, "Do people tend to over-post to Ryan's filmmaking threads"? ;-)

[Paul R Johnson]

Yes I think I for one do - but I'm on a quest. Most people post a question and loads of people jump in with hello and suggestions. Sadly, but understandably, most people run a mile with Ryan's post, thinking, I guess - Oh no, here we go again. I've made an effort to stop posting back, but I can't seem to let him shout to an empty house. With Ryans topics - look at the post count, but the view count is amazingly high compared to other topics.

[Seth Bloombaum]

To Ryan:
Planning is good. Experimenting is better. Doing is best. That’s how we figure things out.

Asking for opinions on the internet... well, it can be super helpful. But not always.

Many of the threads you post I refrain from answering, because my answer would be: “Maybe. It depends. What are you going for? There is no right or wrong, there’s only how a method or decision supports the storytelling. What story are you trying to tell? Does it further it? Does it distract?”

Let’s see. “Should the pitch of a voice be changed when the clip is slowed in post?”

My answer, which I did not post to the thread in the audio subforum:
Maybe. It depends. Does non-pitch-accurate dialog distract from or support your storytelling? What are you going for? It seems to me that pitch shifting is for effect. Is it an effect that you want to call attention to? If viewers recognize it as an effect is that good or bad for your story? It could be either. Not knowing the story and context, I don’t know how to do anything other than to speculate.

Should the (pitched) sound represent the subjective pov of one of the characters? Should it reflect in some way the style of cinematography for that scene? Is the action isolated or embedded in the experience of other characters? If the scene is standard coverage of an ensemble, say WS, OS(OTS), CU, CU, OS, etc., what would be the motivation to pitch the dialog? Would that motivation read to viewers? Would they find the dialog treatment credible?

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. It seems that you don’t either, but I can’t answer them for you. If it were me, I’d shoot a simple! test, try some pitch shifting, try some not, and try to experience the result as a viewer would. If it wasn’t clear from that I might share the test with others. Maybe I”d post it to dvinfo.net and ask how people there find it.

A really good question to ask yourself is: “Would my grandmother understand this?”

One test is worth a thousand internet opinions. And, you learn so much more!

[Brian Drysdale]

Ryan, often there is not set answer. Other filmmakers may point out things, but that's what they tend to do, you have to make a judgment call on the relative importance.to the film.

It could be you do know, but you'd no other option at the time or you didn't notice it. For the latter it could be lack of knowledge on your part, but now you know. However, it may be so small that the audience may be unaware of it or you may deluding yourself that it's going to work. You have to decide which, that's the director's job.

The questions you often ask are ones that you should be working out in your own head or by testing, not on a forum.

[Ryan Elder]

Well I guess I just feel I am doing a lot of things wrong based on what other filmmakers tell me and I am not sure what is acceptable and unnacceptable. I am planning a feature film shoot again, now that covid is starting to die down more around where I live, but I feel that because of money mostly, I have to shoot it, in a very unconventional way, and I have tried coming up with new ways of doing so, but not sure if they are acceptable or unnaceptable, and feel like there must be some way of finding out beforehand, rather than finding out the hard way, of what works and what doesn't.

[Paul R Johnson]

This is where it gets worrying. You are going to spend money doing things unconventionally. If you had the courage, the skills, the experience and the ability to take a sensible gut reaction approach it could work, but you've shown that you cannot make decisions with inout from as many people as possible, which you usually ignore, and then try to find repair fixes.

You say acceptable or unacceptable - but to whom? You have to live with it, not us. There is a way to find out - it's your experience. Your list of things not to do, because they failed is huge. Your list of things that work is more undeveloped.

You're really talking like a junior doctor, convinced he can be ready next week for brain surgery. I'd suggest that you adjust your project to ONLY use techniques and processes you have mastered well. Anything your friends suggest, or tell you to do should make you very uncomfortable, because most of your problems arise from the absolute rubbish some of your friends suggest, while ignoring the advice of the ones who seem to be experienced. Doing anything unconventionally normally means you are experienced in the conventional way, and want to experiment. You choose unconventional because convention - tried and tested processes - are too hard, too expensive, too intensive, too skills dependant or too equipment dependent.

I bet you haven't even cast it yet? Will it be the same group of terrible actors, with a terrible script, in terrible locations? Please confirm you've got this sorted first, or it will be a train wreck again.

[Brian Drysdale]

I suspect what you call unconventional has been done many times before, it just has to be used in an a manner that is appropriate for the film that you're trying to make.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay but if I do not recall some of the things I have to do, done before, how do you know if they have been done before?

[Brian Drysdale]

Given the vast number of films made under different circumstances, the odds are against you coming up with something original.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, it's just in the past I am told I do things unconventionally, as if it's a bad thing, but how do I make it good then?

[Brian Drysdale]

Doing things unconventionally isn't necessarily a bad thing, that only applies if it doesn't work. There are directors who use unconventional methods, but they work.