THESE COMMON MISTAKES WILL RUIN YOUR FILM!

I've been a video editor for the last seven years, and I've worked on many films throughout that time. When filmmakers set out to make a film, they all have the same goal in mind: making a GREAT film. The problem is, there are some common mistakes that many new filmmakers make, that create NIGHTMARES in the editing room and that also ruin the quality of the film.

So in this post, I want to talk about what those LETHAL mistakes are and how you can avoid them in your next production.

1. not getting enough coverage

Coverage is basically just a fancy term for the shots that you need to tell your story. You need to make sure that you film your scene from enough camera angles so that the editor has enough FLEXIBILITY in the edit to tell a powerful story.

What can make a story powerful is how it's cut together - how the editor picks the best performances from different takes, and combines everything to tell your story in the most effective way possible. If you don't capture enough camera angles, the editor does not have the power to do that anymore.

For example, if you only film ONE camera angle for a scene - the editor will be unable to do anything other than just pick the best take of that scene. They will not be able to mix and match the best performances from different takes and angles in order to create the most effective version of that scene.

There are many different camera angles that you can choose from, but that’s a topic for another blog post. What I am going to talk about are the 3 ESSENTIAL CAMERA ANGLES that you need to capture in order to give your editor enough flexibility to tell a compelling story. If all you get is these 3 angles, you’re at least giving your editor the BARE BONES they need to cut a powerful scene.

3 ESSENTIAL CAMERA ANGLES:

WIDE SHOT

A wide shot is a shot where you see the subject fully in the frame. So if that's a character, they’ll be framed from head to toe.

If a wide shot is used at the beginning of a scene, it is called an ESTABLISHING SHOT because it establishes the setting of a scene.

MEDIUM SHOT

A medium shot is where you see half of the subject in the frame. So if it's a character, you're going to see them from the waist-up. And it is often the most common shot that you will use in a scene.

CLOSE UP

A close-up is used to signify to the audience that what you're showing them is important. It is most commonly used on a character's face or on an object.

If a close up shot is used on a character's face, it is used to heighten what they are saying and how they're feeling.

If it is used on an object, you're telling the audience that this object is meaningful.

Don't miss out on the storytelling power of the close up. And because of this power, that is also why the medium shots are so important and so common. Because you can cut away from the medium shot into a close up, and then the close up will have increased emotional power.

Now that we’ve covered the essential shots you need to tell a powerful story, another lethal mistake that will tank your film is:

2. not getting reaction shots

Now, this is different from shot types that I just talked about. Reaction shots are shots of a character reacting to something. This is most commonly an issue in dialog scenes. A common misunderstanding among newer filmmakers, is they think that all they need to record is the characters saying their lines because they think the editor is just going to edit from one line to the next line.

When you do that, you miss out on how the characters are listening to each other. That can be a big handicap in a story because there's so much storytelling value that you can get out of watching somebody, listening to someone. For example, let's take a dialog scene between character A and character B.

Character A says: “Marty's coming tonight.”

Seeing how character B reacts to that can tell the audience how character B feels about Marty.

They always say acting is reacting. Half of the performance is in the reactions. So if you don't get the reactions, you're missing out on half of the storytelling power. Make sure you film the actors throughout the ENTIRE scene, not just their dialog, so that you get those clean reactions.

3. bad audio

Bad audio is something you just cannot get away with. It is the number one thing that will tank your film. And if you want to have great audio, your audio needs to be CONSISTENT. Every scene and every shot needs to have the same crystal clear audio quality.

As an editor, I've experienced in consistent audio very often. For example, within a scene, the close-up may sound good, but then the wide shot or the medium shot don't sound good. This happens most often when a production either didn't hire a professional sound recordist, or even if they did, the recordist didn't have all the equipment necessary.

So here are the 2 ESSENTIAL PIECES OF EQUIPMENT that you need in order to get good, consistent audio.

lavalier microphones

Lavalier microphones are microphones that are attached to the actors. They are therefore closest to their mouths, so I use those mics for the DIALOGUE of the movie.

Any line of dialogue that's recorded, if it's recorded cleanly

from a lavalier microphone, I'm going to use that piece of dialog because it will be the BEST quality.

boom microphone

A boom microphone is more of a backup microphone. It's just something that's good to have in case there's an issue with the lavalier microphones.

Aside from the equipment, there are also 3 BEST PRACTICES to ensure you get great audio.

record roomtone

Roomtone is the sound of the silence in a room. Rooms are never actually completely silent. Every room has its own unique texture and you need to make sure that every time you go to a new location, you record at least 30s of silence in that location, and you will want to record it with your boom microphone.

The editor will take this room tone and apply it throughout the entire scene, so that all of the audio blends in seamlessly.

record wild lines

Wild lines are clean audio recordings of each line of dialog, so once you're done recording a scene, make sure nobody else is talking and have the actors repeat each line of dialog with the same acting energy directly into the boom microphone phone.

So if there is any issue with the audio quality throughout the scene, having those wild lines is a great backup that can help you get great audio.

even if there’s no dialogue in a scene: still record the audio

It has happened many times where a filmmaker has been like: “well, there's no dialog in this scene, so we're just not going to record the audio.”

BUT YOU SHOULD record it, because even if there's no dialogue, there still sounds happening in the scene. You hear the roomtone, you hear the character's footsteps, you hear their clothing, you hear them touching objects, etc.

ALWAYS make sure you record all of those sounds on the set so that you don't have to re-record all those sounds later in a process that’s called FOLEY.

Now, onto the final LETHAL MISTAKE that will ruin your film:

4. inconsistent lighting

Inconsistent lighting is when the lighting does not match WITHIN a scene.

When you're shooting a film, you're often shooting for long days and out of order, so it's not uncommon that the lighting doesn't quite match in each shot. For small, slight inconsistencies, this usually isn't a big issue, and a good colorist can address that.

Where this becomes a real issue for both the editing and the overall quality of your film is if the lighting DRASTICALLY changes within a scene.

For example, I was once editing a film where there was a scene that took place outside, and when they filmed it, they filmed one character's coverage in the morning, and then they filmed the other’s in the afternoon. The problem was that since they were shooting outside, the daylight changed from the morning to the afternoon. So on one side, the lighting looked one way, and then when you cut to the other person, the lighting looked completely different - the sky was very different.

This becomes a big issue because it is very jarring to an audience. They will immediately notice the difference in the sky. So what I was forced to do is just pick the wide shot where you saw the two characters, and I stayed on that shot for the scene.

Thankfully, it wasn't a very long scene, so you can kind of get away with that, but that just shows you how problems like that can handicap the editing, and if you handicap the editing, you're handicapping your story.

This again, usually will not be a problem if you're hiring a professional cinematographer, especially if you're recording a scene indoors, because cinematographers are really skilled at controlling the light and making sure that everything matches. It usually becomes a problem if you are filming something outside, and even a good cinematographer may not be able to overpower the sun.

The best way to kind of avoid the problem and not have to reshoot another day is just make sure you film quickly. Don't spend too much time when you're filming outside. You're dealing with the real elements. Get in and get out as fast as you can.