Mobile Filmmaking. 100 steps to making a movie with your smartphone. Maxim Mussel
fields of art. Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist can tell you more about that.1
Don’t Invent Extra Obstacles
A smartphone is the only thing you need to start shooting. The decision to make a mobile film should not entail extra expenses. Just take your device out of your pocket and get started. Don’t come up with excuses that your phone model is ancient, the camera is poor, and the image looks like a shabby VHS from a video store. Take the smartphone you have now and ask yourself what kind of material you can shoot with it that will look the most attractive and exciting. A fuzzy image may work for a retro-style story, while blurry shadows on the screen can help create an atmosphere of dread for a horror film. Make the most of the opportunities you have.
Decide Why You’re Shooting a Film
You can shoot virtually everything on your smartphone – news, ads, blog entries, corporate videos, family chronicles, educational content. Naturally, the ability to create mobile films will be most useful if you are, for example, an adperson, a blogger, or a journalist. But whatever your job, this skill will be your asset. People are less and less ready to read these days and are more and more eager to watch. And since the production of video content has become technically and economically accessible, everyone who can do it has a considerable advantage over those who cannot. For instance, if you’re a teacher and you want to draw your students’ attention to your subject, you could try your hand at shooting educational videos instead of rubbing their noses into the textbooks as the rest of your colleagues do.
Put Yourself into a Creative Mood – Choose a Genre
For starters, you have to make up your mind as to the genre of your work. What do you want to shoot: people, nature and objects, actors? What do you expect as a result: a reportage, a video essay, a feature film? If you’re thinking reportage, you should choose an event that you’re going to cover. If it’s a feature film, you’ll definitely need a script. For a video essay, a poetic sketch, an observation, you first need a clearly articulated idea.
Video Essay
If you’re inclined to observe the world around you, if you tend to notice what others do not, if you’re inspired by the flow of water, of clouds, by grass swinging in the wind, and by the patterns of snowflakes, then you may be interested in shooting a poetic video essay. If what you value most in cinema is a beautiful and harmonious image, if you pay attention to color, light, composition, if you like painting and photography, perhaps you’re an artist and will make a film that will reflect your own, unique vision of the world. If you’re fascinated by architecture, clear-cut lines, man-mastered space; if ruins of ancient cities stir up strong feelings in you and arouse fantasy; if you’re interested in looking for an unusual angle that shows famous sights not the way everyone is used to seeing them, then perhaps you’ll be able to express it in your film. In any event, what matters for a video essay is a unique vision – your own point of view on what interests you.
Reportage
Though perhaps all those ruins and sunsets are not your thing. If you like being among other people, if you like socialising and emotions, and you care for dynamics, then your genre is the reportage. Take your phone, get into the thick of things, and shoot everything around you. Here it helps to remember Hitchcock’s advice: the most interesting shots, ones where there’s always something going on, are shots with a person’s face, their eyes. So you have to come up with ways to shoot people’s faces. Of course, the easiest way to capture an interested look is to ask someone about something. But your character’s reaction depends on the question. One kind of response you need to avoid is boredom, so you should give a lot of thought in advance to whom you’re going to question and what about.
Feature Film
If you’re not interested in navigating a stream of events and you want to control what you’re making, if you’re good at getting people to do what you want them to, consider making a feature film. Even for a very short work, you need a script, a director’s storyboard,2 rehearsals with your actors, and much more, but most of all patience. Controlling the shooting process is an intense kind of work, so your script must be worth it. First you may want to test your story on other people. Tell your friends about it as an anecdote or a real-life story, and if it gets them interested, the plot is probably worth the hard work. Don’t hesitate to start on your script and to hunt for actors.
Specify Your Idea
To make a reportage about an event, it’s enough for you to get to the right place at the right time and catch the vibes. But for a feature film, you must first have a script. Every script is based on an idea. For a video essay, you don’t have to have a script, but an idea that’s been thought through and developed makes a difference too. If you’re the only member of your shooting crew, you can afford not to have a written script, but you must thoroughly think through what it is you’re going to shoot. To do that, you only need to answer a few questions. What is it you’re trying to say with your video? How will your clip be different from others? Why should the viewer watch it? After answering these questions, you’ll be able to specify your idea. Then try thinking of a few ways to implement it. What might your film look like? Where is it set? Who or what is the main character? Perhaps you yourself are the hero of your story? Try retelling your idea to your friends, but not in order to get their approval. The only thing you’re interested in at this point is whether or not they understand what you’re trying to say. By answering the questions, you’re articulating for yourself in a more precise fashion what it is your film will be about.
Get Absorbed in Your Material
Find all the information that’s available that has to do with your idea. You need references – that is, works that overlap with your subject in one of its parts or in a motif: films, books, paintings, music, video art. You can take works from any of the arts if there’s something in them that’s going to suit your project: color scheme, light, a plot element, an edit transition, a mood. You can draw inspiration from other, related areas: design, animation, theatre, contemporary music, performing arts.
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