The Few Things I Have Learned About Movie Making

Lately, I have found out that I really enjoy making movies. Short ones for now, but I would like to make full length movies someday. Movie making is one of those things that you learn (well, it's the way I learn) by observation. You can watch movies done by great film makers, see how they did things, think about how you would have done them different, and various different things like that. I often worry that I bother my friends by getting into how the camera work was terrible when they just asked what my favorite part was. By observing how some of my favorite movies were done, I can put the ideas I get from those and put them into my own short movies. Of corse, I do not have the resources that paid directors do to make their movies. However, I have found ways to make the ideas work in my own creations.

But just like I learned what things I can put into the movies at the beginning, I learned some things I need to add to future movies that I left out of others. For example, I learned that dialogue is very important to stick to. For the few movies I have done with important dialogue, I have just improvised the lines. It is probably a better idea to write them out, but who has that time? Anyways, in one of our earlier movies, Sid vs Nurf Ninja, an important part of the story is that the master is the brother of the evil Nurf Ninja. I didn't realize I had forgotten to indicate that relationship until the movie was done. In the newer movies we have made, we have been more careful about the dialogue.

Another thing I have been more careful about is putting the main inspiration of the title into the movie. Even better yet, let the title come after the story. In another one of our movies, Friday the 13th Jason Takes Art, we didn't really indicate the reason he was an artist instead of a, evil killer. Another thing to gather from this is not to let the title define the movie. That is, in fact, backwards. The story and the plot of the movie is supposed to shape the title. The title is supposed to be something that draws the audience to the story.

I still have a lot to learn before I can be a pro director. For the time being, I am gonna stick to my little camera and my brothers as my main cast of characters.