Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Brian Drysdale]

You seem to be more concerned about the shots, as if they alone carry the emotional content, rather than the all the other elements combining together to create the emotion..

There seems to be a far amount of B.S, in your argument.

[Paul R Johnson]

What you seem to be saying Ryan, is that when it gets tough, you take an easier route, and that has always been a route to averageness. Compromised locations, scripts, actors, lighting, sound, the list is comprehensive. If you go to a location - if you abandon the storyboard and improvise, why bother with the planning at all and wing the entire thing? If you plan properly and go equipped why would you be unable to make a shot work? Just means the planning was crap doesn't it?

All your comments are the kinds of rubbish my students used to come out with when their real issue was lack of skill, over confidence, poor understanding, laziness, willingness to accept compromise, and critically important a personality that encouraged lack of respect. They'd turn up and discover all their cast and crew were late, or didn't turn up at all. The good students would NEVER be let down, and always managed to get good performances from their crews. You seem to sadly be on the losing team permanently. You lose cast, crew, locations and your attempts to fix it are inept.

Look back at the time wine movie. Everything we've commented on in the months it has been brought up - it was just a train wreck before you even finish shooting. Have you completed ANY movie that has been well received? Everything so far has been trouble.

If we could convince you that your skills really need developing and your person in charge status toughened up, you'd do much better. In one of the thousands of posts you mentioned somewhere 2001 A Space Odyssey. There are dozens of youtube breakdowns. every scene and perhaps shot looked at under microscopes. The Director was wanting very strange things from the cast and crew, but he managed it. Don;t copy his movie content - study his way of working. Study how and when he changed tack and sc rapped the plan and where he rigidly stuck to it and why!

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I got a lot of well received feedback for the Battle Damaged Souls one so far.

The thing about me unwilling to compromise though; whenever I have compromised before, it hurt the movie though.

The timewine for example, the location was crap, as pointed out, because I compromised. So is compromising a good thing, if it's going to come off as compromised on screen?

For the next project, I figure if I don't get top notch actors and a top notch DP, then I am not going to do it, cause otherwise it won't be good, but is that the way to go, stop settling for less? Or at least this is what I was told by other filmmakers I worked with before, that I need to get people with better acting and DP experience, for a better product, if that's true.

Or is up to me to make the DP better and make the actors do a better job, rather than get better ones for next time?

[Brian Drysdale]

On the budget you've currently got there will always be compromise, it's more a matter of knowing if it's a good compromise or a bad compromise/

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Well I was hoping to cut down on establishing shots again as a compromise. For example there was one person who's movie shoot I helped out on where he wanted to have protesters in front of a building protesting, but instead of showing the protesters, the whole movie took place inside the building and you could just hear the sound of them outside the windows.

Since my current script has some protesters in, would the same effect work as a compromise?

[Brian Drysdale]

How should I know? I don't know the story or the context.

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah I know what you mean. How does a director know if something will or will not work in context of the their story, if their are no rules? Do they just do what they feel, and hope for the best, when it comes to audience reactions?

[Brian Drysdale]

There is a structure, the world of the story (this will have it's own rules) and the needs of the characters, the director presents those as they see them in a production and based on their experience of what works and doesn't. You don't know what the audience's reaction is actually going to be until it's presented in front of them, at which point shows can die or be a huge success or be something in between..

What works at a certain time may not work 10 years earlier or 10 years later or be rediscovered a 100 years later as a truly wonderful piece of work.

[Ryan Elder]

Is there any way of being more sure what will work, and what will not compared to just showing it an audience, and blindly hoping for the best?

[Brian Drysdale]

You have to do the 10,000 hours and even then you can be wrong.

[Josh Bass]

PS I read that whole "10k hours" thing was based on a single study of like 20 Cello students.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, I probably done that many hours or more over the last near decade, but I can keep trying and just try to guess what will work as much as I can.

[Paul R Johnson]

Guess? That's silly. there is a big difference between guesswork and logical reasoning. If you guess, no wonder things go adrift. You learn from experiences and then use this to make decisions. Guess work is futile when time and money is involved.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I’m guessing he’s not good at filmmaking.

[Brian Drysdale]

If you've spent 10,000 hours learning, combined with the type of questions you're asking, I would reconsider your plan to direct a feature film.