Film Making - Learn Basics to Becoming a Film Maker! AAA+++

To begin with, in a nutshell, filmmaking is broken down into three parts. Pre-production,
Production, and Post-production. Distribution is the last part, way down on the timeline
and doesn’t come into play until everything is in the can. However, if you are ever going
to get to distribution you will need to spend a great deal of time in the Pre-production
phase. There are times when you don’t have that luxury, especially if you are shooting
on the fly, but more often than not a film can take years to make. This can keep it in the
Pre-production process much longer.

If I was to write about filmmaking, and I am (wink), I guess I would have to start with the
script, story, or concept. Screenwriting is usually split into three different styles. They
are: narrative (linear), non-linear, and documentary. Narrative stories follow a timeline
taking the story from beginning and moving chronologically to the end.

Non-linear is the opposite of chronological. An example of a non-linear is the movie
“Momento” or “Pulp Fiction”. These directors chopped up time and used time
sequencing to throw the viewer off balance. While non-linear has gained popularity, it
seems that the narrative film is the more enduring style. It is much more difficult for
folks to figure out what is going on in the non-linear format, that may be one of the
reasons it is used.

The third format would simply be, documentary. This is a real-time reality presentation
letting the facts present themselves with little or no direction or editing. Documentary is
different from Narrative in that the director works to keep from manipulating the
production as little as possible. Narrative film is all about the director manipulating a
scene to illicit certain reactions from the viewer, therein lies the difference between the
two.

Depending on the story you are telling, you will choose the best format to use. While the
narrative and linear may have traditional scripting, you may have to refer to an interview
script in the documentary format. This may simply be a list of questions to be asked,
usually by an off camera interviewer, allowing the subject/talent to drive the dialog.

Many times there is no real dialog to script except for the questions an interviewer will
ask. Much of documentary film is done by showing up and filming things as they are
happening with some narration to explain to the viewer what they are watching.

There was a type of documentary films referred to Cinema Veritέ. This means “cinema
truth” in French and of course was made popular by the French in the 1950’s. This was
done as an effort to remove artifice from film to allow a more truthful depiction of a
story.