Smartphone Filmmaking – Pre-Production
Sometimes, more than money, the sheer scale of the organisation behind making a film prevents many of us getting started. I’m talking about shooting a film with locations, sets, make-up, sound kit, lights and actors. Compared to vlogging, for example, the production can just appear too daunting to even contemplate.
If you have actually had a go (or 2) and it went wrong, don’t beat yourself up – because this is hard for anyone. Even people who have been getting paid to do it all their lives.
“It’s just as hard to make a bad film as a good one and no one sets out to make a bad movie.” Alan Parker, British director.
I always start out with my filmmaker’s tea mug brimming with optimism. Then reality sticks in a straw and starts to suck it away. “Hey, that’s my optimism!”
If you’ve ever done life drawing or painting you will know that feeling when the canvas is blank. In your mind, a masterpiece is about to flow from your hands. Your sense that your potential is Vincent Van Gogh meets Claude Monet. Then the paint starts to fill up the canvas… oh.
Well, I think that’s just the way it always is for any creative activity. Thing is, those great painters felt exactly the same. I doubt Van Gogh approached a blank canvas thinking “Fuck yeah! I’m Van Gogh! Everything I touch is a masterpiece!”
In fact, Van Gogh suffered “tidal waves of loneliness and depression”. Would it have helped if he’d known that, decades after his death, billionaires would spend eye-watering fortunes trying to outbid each other for his work?
Anyway… pre-production
Pre-production is the graveyard of all creative fantasies. At least, you hope so. Because rather then than while you’re filming.
I’ve written previously some notes on how I go about organising a film. You see, you write a screenplay and pre-production is when you find out if it’s possible. For me, this phase is a process of adapting and re-inventing the story to fit what we have access to.
So, last year we started shooting an anthology science fiction series. We made 3 short films, all shot on smartphones (Samsung S8, S8+ and S9). Sometimes we found the perfect location, sometimes we didn’t and had to adapt to what we had.
For example, in the last episode, I had written a conversation scene to take place in a bar/pub. But we didn’t get permission, so I started to re-imagine the scene. We filmed some shots in the pub, whilst it was open. Then the conversation began outside the pub and continued to a path under an old railway bridge.
This is me filming those interior shots (note how when shooting this way a director adopts a “I hope nobody notices me” look):
We had a couple of glances but basically everyone just let us get on with it. I wasn’t disturbing anyone and I bought a pint so…
Thing is, I think this improved the scene. It added extra dynamics from the movement which makes it “fresher” than if we’d just done the (somewhat tired) couple sitting at a table falling out routine. I think it was more realistic as well because normally those intense conversations between couples are conducted away from busy places, like a crowded pub.
So, because I had to rethink this scene for practical reasons, it led me to think more deeply about what was going on in the story and improve it.
“One of the best things Orson Welles, my friend for 15 years, ever said to me was, ‘the enemy of art is the absence of (financial or physical) limitations.’” Henry Jaglom
Episode 4
So we’re onto Episode 4 – which is titled The Museum of Me – and we find ourselves at the pre-production stage once more. As you can guess from the title, our location hunt is a bit more challenging than previously. The good news is, everything can be shot in one place.
We haven’t found a museum to film in, but we have found a space we can make look like one. It’s a gallery in west London and it will cost us £200 per day. We’re also going to need to buy a few props to dress the gallery and create something that looks like a museum. I can also add some things in post, using my basic VFX skills.
For that reason, we have set ourselves a minimal budget of £1500. This should cover everything, including people’s expenses (food and travel). We have pencilled in the dates of March 4th to 6th, but this all depends on getting the funding.
Kickstarter
For the last 2 episodes we have raised funding using the popular crowdfunding platform kickstarter.com. if you haven’t come across it before, or don’t know too much about it, it is an “all or nothing” system. This means if we don’t reach our goal of £1500 then we don’t get anything at all.
So we are now one week into our campaign and we have raised over 50% of our budget. We are so thankful to everyone who has shared and contributed. If we reach this total we can get started on another smartphone filmmaking production. The more we learn about this way of making films, the more we can share with everyone, so that others can learn from our experiences.
I learned a huge amount from filming last year. But these’s still more things I want to try and experiment with. And it’s really inspiring to see what filmmakers like Soderbergh can do with an iPhone.
Being realistic, we also know he had a budget of $2 million. So my question is – how close can we get, on our much much smaller budget? We can only find out by trying and pushing ourselves to the limit of what we can do with a smartphone camera. And – with your help – that’s what we will be doing in 6 weeks from now.
We have 6 days left to reach our target – fingers crossed!
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