pacing of shoots

[Lazlo]

I was curious, when on a shoot, if say on the first take you get a perfect shot and performance, then do you immediately move on to the next shot, or would you get several good takes from the same angle before moving on? I realize this varies with directors, but in your experience... What dictates your moving from angle to angle, location to location, besides the obvious answer regarding things going wrong within the actors performances or technical problems. Thanks.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Usually you always shoot at least two takes, even if Take One was perfect, just in case the shot gets ruined in the lab or something. It's called a "safety" take, as in "we need a safety". Now, you don't always need to shoot a safety if you've got one perfect take and a bunch of partially-good takes from which the you could cobble together a replacement should the one good take get damaged.

In terms of coverage -- how many angles you shoot of the scene -- that's a creative choice modified by the amount of time you have. You may decide that a scene will play as a "one-er" ("oner"?), all in a single shot, but then you're sort of stuck with it, and you'd need to get at least two good takes because you won't have editing to piece together the scene if there is only one angle (unless you can justify jump-cuts.) Trouble with one-shot scenes is that you can adjust the tempo of the scene in editing. But sometimes that's OK -- it even be the best way to shoot the scene. You just have to be aware of the problems with that approach.

Sometimes when you're rushed, you shoot a scene in two set-ups, the second one, usually a tighter angle, mainly to allow you to cut-up the scene if necessary.

Staging and editing is a little like music -- the emotional tone of the scene sort of guides you as to how "cutty" it should feel, versus how "flowing".

 

[Lazlo]

Also, I know this is an unrelated question, but it seemed inappropriate to post a separate topic, and it pertains to more than myself...

When making your demo tape, I'm just a little baffled as to how to go about it. Now I've shot several short films and am in the process of making one. Should I use really short parts from each to show a wide variety, or should I let any parts play out to show the use of camera movement. Basically, how do I maximize the impact of my demo tape, and what are some pitfalls that would make you definetely turn it off immediately? Thanks.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I struggle with that everytime I cut my reel... it's never really done, much to the dismay of my agent.

It's good to forget the original narrative content / scene construction and just concentrate on the flow of images -- that may mean linking some movements, especially if it times well to music. Sometimes it's the camera moves that link together the best.

After your basic montage, you can always put longer shots or whole scenes on another part of the reel, especially these days with chapter indexing on DVD's.