Transcripts
1. Trailer: [MUSIC] Hello. Today we're going to go on a journey with me, bad Boy Julian. That's my name, aka your film teacher for the day. That's me. When I started making movies, there was no YouTube, there was no Skillshare. I went to film school and I was like, "I want to be a director." Then I still didn't learn how to do any of that stuff at school. Then when I left school and I tried to make my own movies, they didn't come out how I imagined them in my head. Because movie making is so much about the details and so much about watching and learning people. I eventually had to become friends with a lot of filmmakers, go to the school of hard knocks like screw up, make bad movies to learn how to do the right stuff. Now look at us, we're here. I am hoping that I can share what I'm passionate and excited about, which is film making. I taught one Skillshare class before and that was called 'How to make dope low budget films' from writing to directing to post-production, which is editing. Right for this class, I just want to focus on directing. I think that's me massaging directly. I don't know what my hands do sometimes, I apologize. There's a lot that goes into that directing. It's very technical sometimes. But it's also really immersive and is always this back and forth dance that one needs to learn the intricacies of. That's what I'm here for today, is to really focus on that directing part of film making. That's why I'm super excited because we're going to learn. Prove your mom wrong. She doesn't think you can learn. Anyway. I'm sure she does, or maybe she doesn't. We'll prove someone wrong.
2. Introduction & Class Overview: Hello, my name is Julian. Today we're going to go on a journey where we learn the basics of directing and how to direct onset. What's really cool about this special class today is you're actually going to see me as I make a special movie just for you in this class. We're going to watch as I go behind the scenes and shoot a movie and we're going to cut that with what I'm saying now. That is cool. I'm a fan of immersive learning and this is like my first opportunity to do that with Skillshare. I'm excited. The title of this class is Directing 101: the 5 Shot Film. That is because we are going to learn how to make the film in five shots. Then we have a couple more in there. But really the heart, the meat, and the juice of our film is going to happen in five simple shots. I'm going to take us through that process and we going to learn everything that goes into directing. That's how to set up the camera, how to work with a director of photography, how do you direct the actors, what is the sequencing that you do, all that fun stuff we're going to learn today and we're going to see it. Yes, let's be excited. Let's do the roll by. I don't know if that's going to help you direct, but you can do whatever you want. Thank you.
3. Class Project: [inaudible] So let's talk about the class project. You're going to write a script or make an outline of a shot that involves two strangers who come in conflict with each other. Then you're going to film that piece that you have, whatever it is, and you have five shots to make that film. You can do it on your iPhone, you can do it on a nice phone, you can do it on whatever you want as long as it records stuff. Don't do it on your grandma, you know that doesn't record stuff. Oh, and one more thing coming up right after this video is my class project. See, I did my own, I drink my own Kool-Aid, and I made a short film where the bulk of the story is told in five shots. I did a couple extra, don't say anything. Write a header. We don't like rules here. Anyway, enjoy it, and then we're going to reference it later on when the class happens. Thanks.
4. Project Example: The Moment: So this is the finished five shot film I made specifically for Skillshare so you guys can watch as you see the process of me, Julian, direct and create a film. Note, It just took it about an hour and a half to film it, one day to edit and just a little bit of rehearsal time. You can do something like this yourself. Go forth, watch, I said enough. Now, if I don't say something. I'm going to burst because that was crazy. Maybe I'm misinterpreting. Because I think we had something just now. No. What? Don't play coy. You're playing coy. I don't even know your name. So I'm crazy. Is that it, I'm crazy? Okay. I think we just had a moment. That didn't happen. All right, we just had a moment. We did, didn't we? We had a moment. That's great. Moments, I love them.
5. Writing Your Scene: So I don't want you to focus on writing too much. Because, we're like, "what is my story? How's that going to be?" There's too much that goes along with that. There's a basic template that we're going to follow that's going to allow you to make a five shot film. First, our story begins with two strangers and then some conflict between these two strangers arises and that's where the meat of our story happens. We start off with strangers, then there's tensions, there's a conflict, and then we have a resolution. Your resolution doesn't have to be like a sketch comedy show where it just resolves and they hug. It can be an anti resolution. I want you to focus on interesting storytelling. This is like the Mad Libs approach to screenwriting and I think we can fill in whatever our heart's desire and it's broad enough for you to make something interesting. One thing that's important about our stories, make sure there's subtext in there, okay? There's something left unsaid, so there's tension in the conflict, but maybe that tension is really about something deeper. Maybe a character's waiting online and he's really angry and really he's not angry that he's waiting online. He's angry because his friend is sick and how we reveal that maybe comes through when there's a fight between two people, who knows. Subtext is really interesting and it makes a scene just pop. That's the first thing that you need to do.
6. Pre-Production: So this is a directing class. Like I said, this is not a writing class and it's not really a pre-production class, but we need to go over a couple of things before we make our movie. First, you write the film. That's what we talked about in the class project. Then, you must cast your film. If you know someone who's an amazing actor, maybe tailor your scene to them or ask your friends who they know is really super talented or go do a Craigslist or a backstage post and try and find someone that way. Use every single resource you possibly can to make your film interesting. For the film that I made, I'd heard about Theo and he was such a weird, interesting actor, and I was like, I know I got to work with this guy somehow. I wrote the script and I was like, Theo would be really good. He read the scene with me. We did a rehearsal and he was amazing. Then the other role, I put up a casting call on Craigslist where people submit a video of them saying; no. I really got a good sensibility of who he was. I called him. We talked a little bit and I cast him because we really connected that way. Simple as that. That's cast. Number two, rehearsing. If you have the time, rehearse the scenes with your actors. With my film, with Theo and I went through the script. I saw that what he was really good at, which was being very honest and vulnerable and it changed the direction of what I wanted for this film because of that. Location scouting. There's many different ways of doing it. I always say write a location that you have access to so you don't always have to be tiptoeing around someone's location that you don't really have access to. It's a weird experience. You want to feel comfortable and free while you're making movies. Not like you're in some prison. Maybe that's your job. Maybe that's your house, and maybe that's somewhere outdoors like a park. I shot our scene specifically on the stoop because that is where I live. I was originally going to shoot it in a vintage shop. But the vintage shop didn't have enough space and I wanted to make sure I could take as much time as I possibly needed. If you are going to go reach out to a place to shoot your scene at, I say offer them, see if you can get away with just 50 bucks or maybe 75. People are often really happy to help out, but you just have to go around. Be confident. Ask people for a location. Locations are important and you want to make sure that they can add to a scene. Shot-listing. You write a script, and then you must understand which shots are going to correspond with which lines of the dialogue. Maybe you have a master shot, a medium shot, another medium shot, and then two closeups. Okay. That's exactly what I did for the film that I did. Then you may fill in with close ups or any other details that you need to round out your five shots. Now, if you're doing stuff like, kind of cutaways. For when we shot a film, we'd cutaway of some of the stuff that's on the ground or that's in the scene. That's fine. I don't even call that a shot. Okay. So I just meant that the bulk of our film is going to happen in five shots. Really plan out five shots that you're going to make your film in. Like I said, you could shoot this on your iPhone and it could just be you doing that. Or you can hire out people to make your film. When you hire people, you hire a director of photography for the most part. They are the person with the camera. You pay them or don't maybe they are your friends. That would be super cool. They will compose and shoot your scene. You have to have a working relationship with this person and you have to clearly communicate exactly what you want. They are there to execute your vision, but you're also collaborating with them. So you can't be a dictator to them because it's a push-pull. You kind of tell them what you're looking for and then they help to achieve it. Then you give them notes. But you also should not be subservient to this person. They shouldn't be like,"I got it", and then do whatever they want. You're in charge of the film set and you have final say. You are the director. So work with your director of photography to create a vision of what you're seeing and what you want it to look like. What do you want it to feel like? When you make your film, know everything about it. I want you to know all your beats and I want you to know all the wording. You need to do as much prep as you possibly can before so that you can have a very specific vision in your brain of what you're scene needs to look like. All of that is important because that's going to help you be the best director you can be. So the more time you think about it, the more stuff you plan, the more stuff you write down, even like references. All of that really helps to craft your scene and give detail to it. This is the time where we talk about the class project. Just to recap, there are five things that you need to do before making your film. Casting, rehearsing, location-scouting, shot-listing, and hiring crew.
7. Directing On Set: Wow, do you know what time it is? It's time for us to actually do the directing part of this class. So you're going to watch me, this is an immersive, as I do the project alongside this talking thing that I do. Super exciting because we'll see from start to finish what it is to be a director. Step 1, tell people when to come and then greet them. Do like one of these, like shake their hands or whatever you do. But you're there as a director, you there as an ambassador, if you notice people, that's cool, obviously, just be regular. But you're there to make people feel comfortable, especially if you're director of photography in your actors. The more comfortable people are, the better they're going to work. So you have to create an environment where people are comfortable. It's often nice to have food, some bananas, a little coffee, and then slowly go into what you're going to do for the day. One pro tip. Lie to people about what time to start. Because people love being late. I don't know why. But people love being late. Actually, I do know why I'm late sometimes too, just because people are bad at time. Shaheem was like an hour late, but it did not matter because I lied to him about what time we needed the start-up. Pro tip. When everyone is there, you need to do a basic thing.You need to tell everyone what the run down for the day is going to look like. That's very important because people like to have an idea of what they're doing and how long something is going to take. Whenever one came, I gave a little pep talk and I'll let everyone know, first, we want to be outside, we're going to shoot our master shot. Then we're going to move into our close up to the bulk of everything was going to happen within our medium close-up. Then we're going to shoot five shots, and then we're going to be done. I let people have an idea of what's going to happen and then when they're going to eat. Because people actually all sorts of like annoying questions instead of focusing on the art, but it's like valid to them. But they're like, "when the food coming''. And I'm like, "why are you talking like that? Its a very weird way to ask about food.'' But they'll be like, "I'm hungry'' and I'm like, "okay'', and I'm like "I'm trying to make art.'' But anyways, if you tell people ahead of time, then they don't ask you questions. That's why I always say go over what you're doing. Once you go over what scene is going to be like, then go to wherever your location is and talk with your director of photography first, where's that going to happen? Then they'll start lighting the scene or setting up the camera, figuring out which lens goes along with the shot. We're going to talk about lenses a little bit later. That's an important technical thing. But you give someone that basic idea of what you want the first shot look like. I like to use Lavalier mics and [inaudible] show right here just because this is great filming, but often times you'll just tape a mike to someone's solar plex, this area right here. You can do it with gaffe tape or their special like making tape that you get and then you plug it into an external receiver like an H foreign, and you do that with the other character. I love lavalier mics. Some people don't like lav of mics. I don't understand completely why, but they sound so good and it really gives your character like a umph to their voices. You'll mic people up before the shot and if you have a sound person, uses a sound person if you can afford it, it's so helpful, okay, you should not be focusing on sound. I didn't have a sound person, but that's because I've done this before and I know how to mic people. If you also don't know how to mic there are YouTube videos, get two loves and a receiver, and then you just hit record. Then here comes a really important thing. You find your actors. You set them up sort of in the frame where they should be and you go over block. What is blocking?Blocking is basic direction about where, people should move within the scene. It's really important that your actors understand where to stand, where their marks are. Oftentimes be like, "where's my mark in this scene?'' That means exactly where they're supposed to stand and what they're doing. Action. To do blocking correctly, you have to look behind camera and you'd have to direct actors so they know exactly where they're standing in that rectangle, so it looks good. You're always give notes in between scenes about blocking often, but once an actor gets it, they get it. I knew in my scene that Theo would come walk up the steps, and you look through the stooped stale. Then his head would come up and he'd spot eyes with Shaheem. So I had to make sure that we set up our shot and that Theo walk perfectly. But then there he wouldn't be out of frame or he wouldn't be too far into frame. That's when I went over with Theo and I set up Shaheem exactly where he would be sitting and what he was doing. It's always important that people know what they're doing. You as director, your job is to make sure people know what they're doing because you're working with a team and you are the head of that team.Yeah, raised the boof. You the head of a team.That's cool. Room tone, it's very important that you get room tone. This is us getting room tone because there's a machine humming in the background. What is room tone? Room tone is 30 seconds of audio where no one is talking or it's just the ambient sound in the scene. We were outside and there were cars passing along, and also sometimes there's be a plane happening above. So we wanted to get 30 seconds or sometimes longer of that just happening, everyone would they're quiet and you record the room tone or it's outside tone, and you have 30 seconds of that. Then when you're editing your film, you put that 30 seconds on a loop. So that is behind the whole scene. Whenever you cut to another like, so I make up for my wide shot and a car is coming on by and then when I got to my medium shot, the car is not their coming on by and that can be really jarring. What you have is this room tone behind there to create smooth out the cuts between the scenes. It's very important. You need room tone. Pro tip. You mic people, you set them up, you go over blocking, your director of photography sets up that first shot, make sure that it's exactly what you want it to be. Then you're almost ready to hit record, that like how the movies are made.You can't make them without hitting record, but before you hit record, there's something that you do. Either you or your assistant director, and assistant director just helps to manage the set and make sure that everything goes on time. If you do not have the money for one, you are your own assist director, they will go in front of the camera and they will go-. Quite on set Actors are you ready? They'll turn to them and like give them a little nod or something and then they'll go. "Cameras, are you rolling?" And then that means the camera person hits record and they say back to you,"rolling''. It's very important that you have that exchange. I know that may not seem like much, but it's happened on like big sets where someone's like, "oops, I didn't record'' that oftentimes because they didn't have that verbal exchange. The other thing you say is," sound, speed'' and they go "speeding" that means they're recording too. Both people who have to do the most important thing, which is record video and record sound, they have to confirm to you that they are doing that. Once they do that, you go, "scene 1, take 1.'' If it's your first take, then the clap allows you when you're making post-production video, to sync your audio to the video because you have a visual reference and the hands will clap. Then there'll be a spike in the audio, and then you pair those two together. Oftentimes people will do a slate and it'll have that stuff written on there. That's why they do that. You do that clap, even if you don't have an audio recording to do, just do it anyway. It feels nice. Once you set up the scene and you walk behind camera, you make sure everyone is set and scene is quiet, you look behind the camera. That's a big pro tip. It's a must, you must focus all your energy and all your thought into that little rectangle. That what's happening in there? How does it look, is there too much light over there? That's where your energy and that's where your focus is, the rectangle. It's often helpful if you have a larger monitor, but if you don't make do with what you got. Once you're looking behind the rectangle, everyone set that's when you stop and you call, 'action'. I love hearing that, it feels good to call action.You are in charge, you in power. That's when the scene starts, when you call action, and your characters will go through their scene. They'll do the first run-through and on the first shot, which is your master shot, let them do the entire scene unless they completely screw up. Let them go back and forth, let them do it and let them get out that energy in that kings. When they do their scene, you're looking behind it. Don't interrupt them. When it's done, and this is another pro tip, give yourself time before you call cut, let it be completely done, and then you call 'cut'. That's when everyone stops recording. Just give yourself the time to make sure that you can get more. That's why you wait a little bit to call cut. That is your first take. This is where the art of being a director happens after your first take.This is where you make adjustments. Theo, I know didn't stand in the exact place. He was not centered for what made interesting composition for me. So I had to go over again about how he should do his blocking a little bit differently. I told him he should walk around the corner and stand right there. I wanted my other character, Shaheem to be a little bit more focused on reading, nonetheless engaged with Theo. So you're doing adjustments. You're you're working with the actor either adjusting blocking, you're adjusting the camera, you're adjusting how much light you're letting in, maybe you hear the sound playback and you adjusting maybe like levels or where it's mic, you're always making little adjustments. That's what a director does. That's how you make each tape better, hearing. Once you get everything set up and exactly how you want, do the same thing."Quiet onset" "actors are you ready?" "Cameras are you speed", "cameras are you rolling" and they say, "rolling"," Sound speed".They say, "speed". Then you say," scene 1, take 2" and you walk behind camera, everyone gets set and you call, "action" and it happens again, simple as that. Now, you do that until you get it right. But the thing is, you can't spend forever, especially on your first take. I hate to waste so much time because time is a finite resource, I was about to say infinite, and that would've been so wrong, you must be diligent with your time.
8. The Five Shots: We went over everything that you do for your first shot. But I want to talk a little bit more about the master shot. The master shot is an incredibly important thing in filmmaking. Master shot is the wide shot that allows your full scene to happen. That means you're watching your two characters in this wide shot. Like just act out the entire scene that's happening, and you always start off with this shot because let's say something terrible happens like one time I had of bus backup for 45 minutes. I was a truck actually for 45 minutes and we couldn't get clean audio, but I got one master shot that was good or maybe you were behind schedule and you only had time to get one shot of one scene. If you get your master shot, you at least have your scene that's a pro-tip. Make sure to get your master shot first. Period. I though, don't love using master shots to do most of my filmmaking it. I like most scenes that I'm doing, especially between characters to happen in their singular shots that's just like medium or medium wide or close up on one of the characters. Because there's more editing that I'm allowed to do, more variants and takes. I don't spend an extra long time on my master shot. If it does not end up perfect, it's fine. Not every bit of it needs to flow exactly perfectly. You just set up this shot and that's always going to be your first shot but at the same time, you may want to perfect looking master shot. Woody Allen will do his scenes, will hold, just have entire scenes and one really beautifully well-lit master shot, and he just let his actors go. It all depends on what you're doing and what your vision is for me and for the scene that we did here today, I didn't not want to focus on the master shot because that wasn't where the bulk of the scene I knew how I wanted to look and editing. That's not where I wanted to focus on. I wanted to be there with the one main character. Master shots. They're important. Now, the sequencing of your shots, that goes along with why you shoot your master shot first. So shoot our master shot and then we move in closer. You move in closer and closer to your characters. So the second shot I did in the film, I wanted to have a medium close-up on Theo. This by far was the most important shot in the piece because Theo had the bulk of the dialogue. He was the person driving this scene and I wanted him to have as much time as possible in this shot to try out new things. So that's where I spent the majority of my time, and once I got that shot and I played that second, because once I got that, I knew that my scene could be good and I knew it was really good because Theo did an amazing job in that shot and that's where the bulk of my cutting was going to take place. I plan that as my second shot just to make sure that we got that and I had as much time as possible doing that. Then after that, because we were right there and we were using the same lens for the third shot, we just did Theo's close-ups. All I literally had to do was moving the camera there. So that was my third shot. Then we flip the camera around and we call that a shot, reverse shot, and we got shot Shaheen medium shot, the one that corresponds with the second shot of Theo. Mainly when they act back and forth, you're going to see Shaheen in that medium shot. That was an important shot, but he wasn't like he was a central character for the story, but he didn't have as much dialog. I can have him go after Theo shots shot has medium, medium close-up. Then we shot his close up. That was the bulk of the filmmaking. Period. That was the bulk of our shots. It was a five shot movie. We got everything within there and I was just able to take his medium close up and then just move in a little simpler. Once again, time is a finite resource on a film set, you must be able to go through and plan judiciously what you're going to spend time doing.
9. Directing Actors: Directing actors. This is crucial part of film making. You got to make sure that they feel comfortable and they're feeling good about what they're doing. So I always hype people up. Okay? You're there as a director, you got to keep stuff positive. Most people don't function well with negative feedback. Don't go, " I like what you're doing, but do you think we can do it just with a little bit more passion?" That's not helpful. Okay? Because the but in that clause negated everything that came before that. No one hears that I like what you're doing. They just hear the but, and then the negative feedback. So I would say take the approach especially as a director of yes, okay? I liked what you were doing. We really hit some important notes there and I'm wondering this time, be a little bit more fiery, give me a little bit more passion, but keep the passion in your eyes. I want you to really feel that. So that's how I love to give feedback to people, even whether it's my director of photography or for my actors. We're always trying to keep something positive. You are the leader, this is a fun process to making a movie, keep it positive. Even if you fake it, [inaudible] try not to fake it. But you need to be the leader onset. So I've had a numerous times where an actor just really gets down on themselves or something happens, and someone's just not there and they're not present. So here's my pro- tip in this scenario. Pull someone aside, take a little time, if they're not there, they're not present, have a conversation with them, engage them. Being a director is not just about barking your orders. It's about listening to other people. So let someone speak, let them be present, and then help them to redirect whatever energy, whether they're nervous or they're sad into their process. You're like a Tai Chi Master. You're there to redirect energy and let people be free. So that's always a good piece of advice that I can give to you to just corral the energy on a set. One of the biggest notes that you almost always going to have to give to actors is, they'll be a little big in their gestures or do something really grand, and most times a director always has to be like, can you do it a little less? That's not really helpful. What I need you to say is to be more specific. So if their hands are moving too much, I go to them and I'll say something really simply like, "Can you do that but more in your eyes." Take that confusion instead of you looking around like that. Just keep your body focus and still just show me that in your eyes. You have to be able to direct actors and be very specific about what you want from them. If you're asking them to do less, tell them do less, but make them have a focus. Okay? The other thing is, it's always important that an actor has something to do. So if I'm nervous or if I'm doing a scene, it's always helpful to do something with a prop. That takes away from me doing as an actor, this like large gesture, where I'm nervous and I'm like [inaudible]. That's a high nervous act. Instead, I can actually put it into a visual detail. I didn't do a huge amount of directing in the master shot because I knew that's not where I was going to spend most of my time. I did a lot of my directing in the medium close-up. That's why I'm behind camera. I'm looking at them and I let the scene just happen. Some directors, they'll call quite onset actors who are ready, scene one, take one action. If something screws up they go cut and they'll redo the same thing over and over again. I don't do that. That makes it a little bit more of a bitch for the editor because they have the catalog stuff. I let the camera just keep rolling. So after my actor in the medium closer-up, there're important shot that I know they're going to do a lot of the acting in, does one full tape. I then start directing them while the camera's rolling. So I'll be like, "Theo, try that line again, try that a little bit differently, try that maybe a little bit more in your body. Maybe use less hands." So I'll let them do like two lines or something like that, and then I'll interrupt them because I know when I'm editing, all I need is the two or three lines, and then I'm going to cut to something else. I'm going to cut to the other character. So you can kind of interrupt an actor to sort of help, coax them to get a better performance. That way you don't have to wait to the end of the scene and be like, Jack, can you change this? You can't just change that. No. You want to make sure it's happening. Well, it's happened, but you also give them earlier the freedom to do the full scene because some actors like to get into a rhythm. It all depends on who you're working with. But when I'm giving notes, I'm very very specific. We're trying new stuff out, but we're also trying to make sure that we're getting it one way. So sometimes the performance is a little bigger and I'm like yeah go for that or sometimes like fairly done, and we're going through the scene. Once we do apart enough, we just move on to the next couple of lines. That's how I'm directing my actors, I'm really letting them free flow and work with them but giving them specific direction at the same time. Be specific.Okay? Also, sometimes it's really nice to have like flowery language or you can give an actor something like, I want you to be more like a coiled tiger when you're doing the scene. I love that. I'm an actor too sometimes. So when someone allows me to just have this poetic interpretation of the words in the scene. You can really like set me off. That's a pro- tip. Be poetic. As an actor, don't give me too much information. Just one bit at a time or two things at a time and let me coak in. What's in there? A good take. Why? Because you gave me room to swing a cat. That's what I always say, I need a little room to swing a cat. There is a little brand that said that once and I use that line. Which is I need a little room. Also, I let my actors improv affair. But, we try the scenes once as they are, but then I allow him or her or them to do the scene in the way that they feel it's hitting them at the time. That gives spontaneity. You never know what happens when someone improvs. You're always are trying stuff up. Okay? One other important note about acting. A lot of times, people overwrite stuff and you don't need dialogue. So almost always I'll have my actors to one of their lines non-verbally. Non-verbal takes could just be like I'm pissed at you or Iie-cube that's such a good like angry face or I love ice cubes angry face. Like from that you understand that I'm pissed at you versus me being like, ''I'm pissed at you. " You don't need the words. Okay? Non-verbal. Here is verbal take of you smell bad like "You smell bad. " Versus like. Is that okay?Yeah, so that could be like you're fine or it could be like, was that bad acting. I'm unable to do that. That's why you do multiple takes because I'm a good actor, but at least I like to think so, but sometimes I'm not amazing. Something along the lines of that. When you have that non-verbal take, you may use that in your editing. I bet we're going to use a lot of the nonverbal takes just as this back-and-forth thing because so much can be conveyed non-verbally that you think you need words for. You don't need words for everything. Okay? Nonverbal acting. It's my stuff. That's another pro tip. Make sure you get one take of everything non-verbally.
10. Lenses & Visual Style: Lenses, they're important. VF DSLR camera, you have the ability to change out different lenses. Different lenses give a different effect, and it's very important that you understand the effect of each ones. You may be saying to yourself, Julian or bad boy, Julian, what do I need to know about lenses? I'm just the director. That's what that nerd guy or gal behind camera is supposed to be doing, and I'm like, no. Lenses are an integral part to how you actually make your scene look good. I'm going to give you a couple of notes about how I like my lenses to look. I'd like tight. I'm an explain what this all means because it does sound confusing at first. I like tight, long lenses with a low f-stop and a wide open, shallow depth of field. Maybe you're confused, maybe you know what I'm talking about. Really simply shallow depth of field is when there is less stuff and focus, period. A deeper focus means that there is more stuff and focus, period. That's all you need to know. Wide lenses allow you to capture a wider bit of the scene. But I don't love using them, but sometimes you need to use them. For instance, I use them in the scene that we shot today because I wanted to get a wide shot of my entire street and be able to see the brown steps. Sometimes I really love my wide shots, and so you need a lens that be a little wider, and that's, anywhere between 10 millimeter, which was like a fisheye lens. You see like a whole room to about a 24 millimeter where it's a little bit further in and you still see a wide room. Two, tight lenses, tighter lenses are about 70 millimeter and on upwards to a 100 millimeter, they're way zoomed in. Right now, this lens is an 85 millimeter. It's zoomed in on me and you can get all the way up to 200 millimeters to 300, even longer than that. Those are those super long telephoto lenses. Actually have loved the looks of those. I'd love them, I love them.. I love using long lenses again in that a little bit further. We were in silence with us , that happens in films by the way. I said I like using tight lenses. Why? Here's a vein thing. I'm on camera sometimes, the tighter the lens, the skinnier faces. They actually shoot swimsuit models only with long type lenses like that. I'm vein right now. I'm at 85 millimeter my face is less fat. I'm going for right here. I really think it actually makes people look better. When you have a wider lens, imagine it makes your face a little wider. When you have a tighter lens, it brings stuff in. Long tight lenses. That's anywhere from a 50 millimeter on up. The tighter you go, the more it brings you into the scene and the more you're able to, it focuses exactly what your scenes about. It allows you to have more obstructions into your scenes and you can have like a little fuzzy thing in the corner and that gives depth to your image. I love shallow depth of field, especially for close-ups. Because when you have shallow depth of field, when stuff is blurry behind your character, you're just focusing on the character. You're not focused on all the other stuff around there. You're just looking at this person and it really creates an interesting cinematic look too. The difficulty with that is that sometimes stuff will be in and out of focus. You have to make sure that your DP clearly has focused and then your actor isn't moving too much in and out of focus. It's very important that you understand. Pro tip is that blocking corresponds with how shallow, how much focus and how the subject is in your scene. But I will say some DPs don't like to take chances like that. They want more stuff in-focus. I was thinking that's cheesy and it doesn't make it look good. I really don't like that. I always suggest take more chances, take more risks, keep the scene, you're shot in a shallow depth of field. Note, if you are working on an iPhone, you don't have that ability. An iphones is an iPhone because it only has one lens and keeps everything in focus. You have a variable lenses on DSLR cameras so that you can have different focuses and different sorts of lens effects. You don't have that on iPhone. I think the new iPhone has like three lenses, but they're not. What I'm talking about, where you can get stuff in and out of focus. Focus allows you to focus on what's important.
11. Outro & Project Recap: I want to leave you with this. It's really simple, I have a really simple message which is that you can do this by any means necessary. Do it with a phone, do It was a camera, do it with whatever you got. You have this in you. All you have to do is be passionate, figure out the details and just go for it. Don't overthink. I tried to think as little as possible. That's why I'm kind of dumb. But like, dumb people get stuff done. Over thinkers are always like [inaudible] and I overthink sometimes too. So I'm not mad if you're an over thinker. But just go out there and do it and have some fun. Make-believe, enjoy this stuff. Movie making is great. I'm proud of you. Let's do this. This is the time where we talk about the class project. Let's shoot the thing. You've written your script, you understand the basis of directing, and now, we're ready to go make a movie. Have fun with it, carve out the time. Do all the things which I've outlined to you earlier in this process and just enjoy the process of film-making. You're making something happen that just existed in your brain. Then everyone can watch this. This is going to be awesome. I am proud of you. Make the movie. Also note, this isn't really an editing class, but you're going to need to edit this at certain points. So I recommend there's so many editing tutorials online and I give a brief primer about the basics of editing in my first class. I mean, Dope Low Budget Films. All right, have a great day. Enjoy yourself. Make that movie. You did your five shots, you made a movie. You call wrap. I'm very proud of you. Yeah, hopefully, you enjoyed this because I'm super into the process of making movies. I'm just happy that I can share what I care so deeply about with you. If you have any questions or comments or concerns, I'd be so happy to write back to you. This is how I type. I'm just generally excited to hear or see any of this stuff and just to engage with you further. So yay, raising the roof again. I'll raise the roof. Outro, this is your outro, and I'm raising the roof. I'm so sorry, I'm not going to raise the roof anymore. Its been raised high enough. Okay, I'm done. Have fun.
