Amateur Filmmakers
Star Wars – Reflections in Droids
Amateur filmmakers often make some basic mistakes during the shooting. These mistakes are made due to stress of shooting or limited time or lack of resources or sometimes lack of technical knowledge. These are some basic mistakes and can be avoided very easily.
1) Shaky Camera
Most of the amateur filmmakers face this problem. There is no point in operating camera handheld as it always become shaky. Shaky camera is a cinematographic technique used for only creation tension or increasing intensity of a specific shot or scene. Other than creating tension there is no meaning to the shaky camera. Most of the amateur filmmakers avoid tripods in most of the shots which is gives unnecessary dizziness while watching them.
2) Multiple Shadows
This is the second biggest mistake most of the amateur filmmakers make. The natural source of light is the sun and it gives you only one shadow. When we shoot on the shooting floor we should lit up the set according to that. Lets say a character is sitting next to window and watching outside, then the light should come in from the window and must make a shadow opposite to the light source. But in many cases you find three to four shadows around the room. If you are having difficulties in lighting ,the best way to avoid this is by using close up shots as much as you can.
3) Avoiding Log Sheet
Almost all the amature filmmakers avoid log sheet and consider it as an unnecessary task. Log sheet is a sheet where assistant director marks each shot as OK Take or NG (Not Good). If you are an amateur filmmaker then chances are your editor might be also an amateur. So this log sheet will help the editor to choose which shot to use and which not. There is also a continuity sheet in log sheet which helps production crew to understand the continuity such as costumes wore by the actors and their positions.
4) Reflections
This is also a major mistake made by amateur filmmakers. If you are shooting where water or glasses or mirrors or shiny props are involved there are fair chances of having shots with the reflections of equipments or crew members. When you shoot through view finder or the tiny LCD there are chances that you wont notice till you discover it while editing.
5) Over Or Underexposure
When you shoot anything with any camera you have to set your camera’s aperture for the proper exposure. Most of the amature filmmakers fail in setting a proper aperture, specially shooting with white color or light colors. I would love to share my personal hack for this problem. Most of the cameras have both manual and automatic aperture settings. When you are not sure about the aperture settings, just switch your camera to automatic aperture setting and your camera will calculate the available light and will set exposure according to that. Once your camera selects aperture set it on manual aperture mode and you have perfect aperture settings. Don’t put it on auto aperture because if there is a change in light such as a cloud covering the sun, auto aperture will again set aperture according to the light and due to this you will get a lightning in your recording.
Watch some mistakes in movies HERE.
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