Making A Film: Improve These 3 Things To Get Ahead

If you want to get ahead of the game as a filmmaker, especially if you're just starting out. I would emphasize the following three things as the most important ones to work on. This applies especially in your first, second and third film.

These are three things are:

1. Sound recording
2. Editing rhythm
3. Directing actors tone

SOUND RECORDING

Dedicate time to capturing quality dialogue during filming. The key is to record the audio well by positioning the microphone near the actors. The primary shift you need to make is to favor sound quality over visuals. Once you've set the actors' locations in the scene, decide the best spot for the microphone to ensure clear dialogue. This is crucial, especially for beginners, who often make the mistake of valuing visuals over audio quality.

TAKEAWAY
- get your microphone as close as possible to your actor in order to record good dialogue on set

EDITING RHYTHM

A common error when making a film is when the editing pace isn't consistent throughout. Just like your story, your editing page needs to be consistent, it needs to be quick in some places, and slow others, but it cannot be randomly quick and randomly slow. When editing, consider the analogy of a song to guide your pacing. We all possess an innate sense of when a 'cut' feels right, so trust your instincts. The best way to understand this is by practicing. Observe your own impulses for when you think a cut should happen. Consider the rhythm of a song, perhaps going "ta-da-ta-da" then pausing, followed by "taaa-daaa-daaa" and another pause. Classical music, especially pieces like the opening of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with its "ta-da-da-dammmm," can be particularly instructive for this approach. Use such examples as a starting point for your own editing experiments.

TAKEAWAY
- Think of a classical symphony when you're editing and edit to it's beat. 

DIRECTING ACTORS TONE

Your dialogue might be very well-written, and you might also have great actors. However, if their pace of talking is too fast or too loud—common errors—it will go a long way in ruining your scene. The most important thing here is to rehearse the scene, lower the actors' volume, and slow down their pace. Rehearse the scene repeatedly until you can "feel" its atmosphere, and don't stop until you do. The good news is that if you have a script, you only need to rehearse one or two scenes like this. After that, both you, as the director, and the actors will naturally tune into the tone and pacing that best suit your film.

TAKEAWAY
- pick one or two dialogue scenes from your script and rehearse them with actors to find the right tonal delievery for actors