When designing our production management system, Strada CRM, we aim to help with, among others, audiovisual projects. Each project imposes the requirement of professional skills on the team: filmmakers, sound engineers, screenwriters, directors, actors, producers and post-producers.

The first link in the chain of specialists involved in production is the filmmaker. Being at the beginning of their career path or engaging in amateur projects, it is worth taking a look at our list of the most common mistakes made by filmmakers. Avoiding them will ensure good quality of the prepared material.

Filmmaker - common mistake #1: chaos!

Wandering in production may result from the basic neglect: lack of a script. Simple films, e.g. commercials, presenting a product or an employer introducing themselves to potential employees, often encourage throwing oneself into the work on the fly. It is enough to prepare what we have described in our articles: a screenplay, i.e. describing scenes in order or a storyboard - sketching them in the form of simple drawings to take control of the entire project. Short work will save the later stress resulting from chaos and searching for the right path of the film.

Having a script or scene description, the next mistake may be:

Excessive details

In this aspect, the tendency of a beginner filmmaker to create productions similar to student etudes, based on showing off their skills and admiration for recorded images, can be detrimental. Such material is often used as a workshop exercise in film schools. It allows us to refine our work technique. A commission from a client should avoid this character, and an excess of details, frequent close-ups, the use of blurs in the background, the central positioning of the protagonist or the main object contribute to the loss of the most important thread. The film then becomes unreadable for the viewer, and the important message is lost in the excess of filming methods.

Avoiding chaos and paying attention to shots, we may overlook the next important issue, which is:

Parameters

Incorrect shutter speed, sensitivity, and aperture settings will irreversibly waste the time spent on recording. To avoid this, it is worth remembering the following basic data:

1. Shutter speed

It depends on the number of frames per second. Its value should be multiplied by 2. For example, for 100 frames per second, the shutter speed should be 1/200 s.

2. ISO, i.e. sensitivity

In this aspect, the lack of knowledge of the equipment by a beginner filmmaker is common. It is worth making many trial recordings with different ISO settings and saving the selected parameter while comparing its value with the conditions on the set and the effect of work. Properly chosen sensitivity helps avoid noise in the image, which will save time in post-production. Not every interference is easy to eliminate later.

3. Aperture

It is a mistake to brighten the image by using small aperture values. This correlates with blurring the background and excessive highlighting of details on the foreground. It is recommended to use aperture values ranging from f/8 to f/2.8, with emphasis on f/5.6 and f/4. The selection should also be preceded by trial recordings.

Having properly set parameters, the trap may lurk in the next essential issue, which we have described many times, which is:

Sound

Music, dialogue, recording conditions, production style: documentary, report, etc. always have their own important requirements concerning the acoustic side. The filmmaker, focusing on the image, often forgets about sound. And there is no more irritated viewer than the one who has to strain their hearing to understand anything or is overwhelmed with an excess of sound effects. It is also worth considering the conditions in which the production will be displayed (television, cinema, the Internet) and the audience it is directed to.

Care for the audio side should prompt us to choose the right microphone. In the linked article, we present the most important parameters that allow you to choose the right equipment. We described various models and their purpose in one of the texts in the Technology section.

As you can see, the filmmaker's work depends on the screenwriter's decisions and the obligation to prepare the equipment correctly rests on them. This applies not only to cameras, film recording cameras but also smartphones, the advancement of which gives the possibility of recording high-quality images. Another common mistake is the belief that all shortcomings will be eliminated by:

Post-production

At this stage, of course, correction takes place, but a reasonable approach is to save time and money in this phase of work in favor of, for example, choosing better equipment. We can control the frame, image quality, lighting, noise reduction, and sound during filming. Then post-production focuses on bringing out the best in the recording, rather than achieving only satisfactory results
due to removing cardinal errors.

We encourage beginner filmmakers to work and experiment. Recording working films, even short ones, in different conditions is the best way to refine our craft. An important issue is also not to avoid mistakes but to draw conclusions from those made.

Finally, a short film promoting the Lodz Film School. We recommend paying attention to the work of the operator: