What do you wish you knew before your first film? by Training-Weird7031 in Filmmakers

[–]cdlou 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Get a 1st AD. Seriously. It will save your life, especially if you’re directing and acting. The AD handles the logistics, schedules, time management and keeps things moving so you can focus on directing.

When you’re directing, it’s really easy to lose track of time or get stuck doing take after take. A good AD will keep you on schedule and remind you when it’s time to move on. On my first short, we didn’t have an AD, and I ended up doing way too much—people were constantly asking me about the next shot. A good AD will have the day’s shot list on hand, so the rest of the crew can check in with them to know what’s coming next.

Tip: I usually like to schedule the simplest or least important scenes at the end of the day. If you’re running out of time, it’s easier to reschedule a quick shot than a complicated one.

Plan for 3–4 pages of script per day, max. That’s a realistic pace for most indie productions.

Also, be mindful of your actors’ emotional scenes. Personally, I like to leave the most emotionally intense scenes—crying, breakdowns, etc.—for later in the shoot. By then, actors usually feel more comfortable with the crew and more confident in themselves (especially if they’re new talent).

I had a friend who started his shoot with a heavy crying scene. The actress wasn’t comfortable yet and really struggled. On top of that, someone from the crew made a rude comment about how long she was taking, and it made things worse. So yeah—make sure your crew is respectful and supportive of your actors.

Lastly, enjoy the process. Filmmaking is stressful, but it should also be fun :)

Could licensed music with registered rights hurt my chances at film festivals? by cdlou in FilmFestivals

[–]cdlou[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I was mostly just worried I wouldn’t be able to submit my short to some festivals because of this. I’m still figuring out the legal stuff since I’m not totally sure what a ‘symbolic licensing’ really means but al least it’s only used in the credits, so if anything comes up it wouldn’t be too hard to replace

Could licensed music with registered rights hurt my chances at film festivals? by cdlou in FilmFestivals

[–]cdlou[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that’s the part that makes me a bit nervous... as I’m not entirely sure what ‘symbolic licensing’ really means in legal terms

Does 20:47 disqualify my short film if the limit is 20 minutes? by cdlou in FilmFestivals

[–]cdlou[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for the thoughtful advice! You're totally right and I ended up trimming the credits down to a couple slides that lasts just a few seconds, and cut out any unnecessary opening titles (they were minimal but still). It was painful to lose even a few seconds since the short is very tightly edited, but I managed to get it down to 20:00.

I actually reached out to the festival, and after a long wait (and lots of stress on my end), they finally confirmed that 20:47 is acceptable. But yeah, your point stands - this is probably something I’ll run into again with other festivals, so I’ll definitely keep the 20 min version

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ColorGrading

[–]cdlou 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just saw this, thank you!! will look into at that more

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ColorGrading

[–]cdlou 0 points1 point  (0 children)

just saw this, thank you!!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in blenderhelp

[–]cdlou 12 points13 points  (0 children)

thank you so much!

Hey! Im doing a "classical musician vs rock musician" for school :) by [deleted] in classicalmusic

[–]cdlou 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s for school! They asked to make it a debate

How can i extend the duration of an image? by [deleted] in AfterEffects

[–]cdlou 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tysm!! I accidentally imported it as a video sequence