Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Aaaagh!! You're doing it again. You're making decisions about what is best, based on what is best for a no budget production. We argue about the cinematographic elements and angles, and grip kit when your scene has been written to allow you to do it with LESS realism because you can't pay for actors. You won't make video compromises but accept scen/set/cast ones?

This is just ridiculous. If you want quality but cannot afford it, then scrap ideas for a big movie with minimal unrealistic scenes because you need to depopulate it, and write a story that only has a small cast throughout. You are trying to convince yourself you can make quality products without content!!

Your split screen idea makes sense now - it's cheap.

Oh okay, but shouldn't I be trying to come up with ways to make the story cheaper to shoot, with less actors? Isn't that good though? Since the character I want to hear the testimony is a cop, I could have him flash his badge to get in, to listen in compared to the general public, if the audience will buy that...

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

You don't need to fill an entire court room, just pack the areas around the characters with extras, use longer lenses to narrow the angle of view if need be or mostly have walls/ceiling in the background by lowering the camera height,

Don't have a wide shot of the court room, just show the exterior of the building and cut to the scene.

Keep the scene short and to the point, not rambling.dialogue.

Again, do more shorts, this is the stuff you learn by making them

Well I don't have to show a wide of the courtroom necessarily, it's just in past projects, if I didn't show establishing shots, than I was told it was strange, and people asked where are the establishing shots. So if I don't show them, I feel it coudl be confusing or jarring, like it was in past projects, where I didn't show wides.

[Brian Drysdale]

The exterior of the court is the establishing shot. you don't need to see a wide shot of the whole court room, the audience knows where we are. Court rooms usually have furniture that reveal peoples roles eg witness stand, dock, judges sear and desk etc, so you can see the key relationships. without showing the entire court room. At the most, you can use the front of the court, that's the interesting part.

We know the character is a cop, so the audience will assume he can access the court, unless he's going to be a witness in the case.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks, as long as the audience will buy that a cop has special privileges for accessing a court hearing that is not open to the public, especially if that cop is not even part of the case and just wants to listen in.

[Brian Drysdale]

It'll work if it's been already established that he has some interest the case, even if he's not on it. However, he has to be there for a reason, if only meeting a fellow cop on the case for a drink after work.

The film "Hidden Figures" shows how historical reality and a feature film can differ, so don't get obsessive about minor details in telling a story in a dramatic film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah there is a reason why the cop has an interest in the case, it's just that the audience might think why is the judge letting him set in if he has nothing to do with it, and why doesn't the judge tell him to get out, this isn't a public hearing, etc.

[Brian Drysdale]

You're over thinking this, insiders get into places that the public can't. The judge may know the cop from a previous case, who knows. If the audience start thinking that you've got problems with your script, not with him being there.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. Do you think maybe I overthink a lot of things, as it was pointed out before that I am overthinking things sometimes?

[Brian Drysdale]

You're overthinking the wrong things.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, I can try to work on that. Am I doing something particular that I mistaken the wrong things for right maybe?

[Josh Bass]

Look, dude, all this stuff you obsess over with judges and public hearings and minor details like that...if I were watching not only would I not call you out on it, I wouldnt even think about it. I assume much of the viewing public would feel the same.

You know much legal stuff is inaccurate in courtroom scenes in every movie and tv show? How much police procedure is wrong in most CSI shows and police procedurals? A LOT.

Yeah, cops and lawyers are gonna know youre wrong. Guess what? Most people arent cops and lawyers.

A good litmus test for whether something needs overthinking is whether the GENERAL PUBLIC will know when its wrong.

You can have a gunshot blow people across the room cause it “seems” right even though (I think, I dont know crap about guns) its totally unrealistic. But if you show a gun shooting out beef tacos instead of bullets, thats gonna raise some eyebrows cause everyone knows guns dont shoot beef tacos.


Since your next questions is “okay thanks, but how do I know what the general public will know about?”, that comes down to common sense and if you cant reason that out on your own I dont think I can help you. A good hint is that if someone does not do a job or participate in activity, they are not going to know the deep details about those things. So if most people are not X or dont do X, they arent going to know the details of what X entails.

Thats why they still get away with scenes of people “enhancing” grainy low res footage til you can count a perps nose hairs, when anyone who uses photoshop knows its impossible...CAUSE MOST FOLKS DONT USE PHOTOSHOP.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, it's just that when I show my work before, other people spot all these little details and it may be a problem that I don't even think about before.

So I thought maybe I was therefore, under-analyzing, rather than over.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

What Josh said times a million. No one cares about these rules and legal stuff you obsess over. Your protagonist can do whatever is in his character. You have a habit of painting yourself into a corner.

Time travel isn’t possible now i’ve ruined your Time Wine movie. No I haven’t no cares that time travel isn’t possible!

[Paul R Johnson]

When you look or listen to something you decide extremely quickly of you like it or you don't. Even if you hate it, there's hope it gets better. At some point, disappointment sets in. Did you really pay to see this rubbish, or even you get cross at the time you wasted, hoping it was going to get better, but it didn't.

It's at this point when you start to analyse the product, whatever it is, and you start to pick holes. In a good movie, or a good recording of music you pay little attention to defects, because they don't really matter. For a long time, I've been interested in communications and it's my pet hate in movies. In the Die Hard movie I mentioned yesterday they have magic radios - ones that only talk to the bad guys when that is important, but can talk to the good guys privately too. Then they can switch between the two. For people that know, they're also the wrong radios for the people using them. That's not important because they move the story on nicely. If, however, the movie had been bad - I'd be using these technical failures very negatively, complaining how inept the producers were to not check these things and sort them. Everyone has a pet subject and spot these kinds of errors.

Police Officers watch movies. They watch P{police TV dramas. They only pick on procedural errors when the programme/movie is bad.

Make a good movie and you suspend disbelief. Make a poor one and everyone will put clips of these bad bits on youtube.

[Brian Drysdale]

If people are spotting details they're not being sweep up and involved with the story and the characters. Lots of films have things in them that if you thought twice about them you wouldn't believe what's happening on screen, yet they grab the audience.

You seem concerned more about if the cop should be at the hearing, rather than his need to attend the hearing, so far you've given a plot reason for him to be there. However, in story terms that's not good enough, it has to be either good or bad for him in achieving his need to be there.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, yeah he has a good reason to be there, it's more about the judges motivation, and why the judge would let him be there, since the judge has no real reason. So I thought it viewers may look to the judge's motivation.