Boring Things Every Filmmaker Needs
Filmmaking is so exciting! At least it is until it isn’t… Not every aspect of being in the creative industry is as glamorous and sparkly as it may seem to people from the outside looking in. That’s why today I think it’s high time we talked about all of the absolutely essential, but incredibly boring, things literally every filmmaker will need across their career.
Filmmaking is so exciting! At least it is until it isn’t… Not every aspect of being in the creative industry is as glamorous and sparkly as it may seem to people from the outside looking in. That’s why today I think it’s high time we talked about all of the absolutely essential, but incredibly boring, things literally every filmmaker will need across their career.
Boring But Important Things Every Filmmaker Needs
Data Storage
Let’s start with possibly the single least sexy and unglamorous aspect of filmmaking. Yes, that’s right, data storage. Without having a single SD card or hard drive to work from you wouldn’t be able to get a single thing done, ever!!
Nobody gets excited when talking about this but it really is one of the foundational building blocks on which your filmmaking career will grow.
When it comes to capturing and storing all of your footage you will want to hit a nice balance between good quality and a decent quantity of cards and drives. Your needs will change over time but you will want to make sure you have plenty of space available to store and backup anything you film.
For SD cards try to buy the fastest and best quality cards you can for your camera. For most cameras an SD card from SanDisk or Lexar will work perfectly fine! I highly recommend them as they’re the cards I’ve used for a good portion of my career! Different cameras can read and write at different speeds so just be sure you buy a card that is compatible with your camera.
FAST SD CARD FOR RELIABLE CAPTURE
FASTER SD CARD FOR SUPER FAST WRITE SPEEDS
Now you have plenty of cards, you’re going to need to keep them in one place. Leaving them loose at the bottom of your camera bag will eventually break them. Trust me, I speak from experience…
Thankfully you have super boring card cases to shop for! You don’t have to spend too long on this purchase, something cheap and cheerful like this one will keep everything in one place and more importantly, in one piece.
best SD card case
When you’re sorted out for SD cards, next will come the BIG headache. Storing them for editing and archiving. As a beginner I used to buy super cheap external drives from the local supermarket anytime I needed more space. But it quickly became unmanageable! I ended up with boxes upon boxes of 500GB drives. Once you begin the transition from hobbyist to pro it becomes even more difficult to manage!
For anyone just starting out as a professional filmmaker I would encourage you to pick up the largest hard drive you can afford, like a LaCie Rugged Drive as they are pretty much indestructible (to a point). And once you reach the point where you are consistently working with huge files and have a lot of projects happening at the same time, then you will need to dig deep into your pockets and buy the absolutely monstrous drives that Google makes. It hurts like hell to buy but it is worth every penny when you edit without any interruptions.
fast and reliable hdd
ultra fast 4 bay RAID
To make sure your stored data is extra safe you will also want an additional drive to store a backup of your files, just in case your main drive becomes corrupted or breaks! In fact, I would also recommend uploading all of your footage to a cloud service or an off-site server to be triply sure your files are safe!!
Stands and Stabilisation
Yaaawwnn!! Nobody gets excited over the light stands and tripod you use on set. You aren’t going to message your filmmaking buddies and tell them how much you’re looking forward to buying your next C-Stand. But like everything on this list, they’re just as important to making your film the best it can be.
You will probably end up with more stands than you can count, but it’s still worthwhile buying ones that are sturdy and will last on set. Steer clear of the thin and flimsy light stands that come with most sub £100 3-point lighting kits, they will bend and break the moment you put something heavier than a house lamp on them.
Instead, look for good quality and decently priced stands from the likes of Neewer and Flashpoint. They aren’t as sturdy as more expensive stands for professional use on a set but they are fantastic quality for the price!
best value light stands
Best Value c-Stand
best quality professional c-stand
best quality professional light stand
I will go out on a limb here and say tripods are slightly less boring than light stands, but only by a bit. Realistically as long as your tripod is fluid and sturdy nobody really cares about what it is. That still doesn’t give you an excuse to cheap out on it though!
Your audience won’t know if you’re using a good tripod, but they sure as hell will if you’re using a bad one!!
Unfortunately good tripods aren’t cheap, and what works well for you will depend entirely on how heavy your rig is. You can expect to pay upwards of £300 for a tripod before you are in the territory of finding a ‘good’ one.
Thankfully, Manfrotto tripods are a very solid choice. I have used mine for the better part of 7 years on pretty much every shoot I’ve been to, so I can highly recommend them for people who shoot on mirrorless cameras like I do!
When you begin using larger cameras and rigs you can begin by heading over to dedicated camera stores and creating tripods that suit your needs. Most professional tripods can have the fluid head and tripod legs swapped around and customised to suit your specific needs. Doing this does get pricey pretty quickly but it’s worth it in the long run!
Tools and Storage
Things break all the time, and your camera equipment is no different. The only way to make sure everything stays in tip top condition is to look after it, store it properly and keep up maintenance on it before it becomes irreparable. That’s why you’re going to need tools and cases in all shapes and sizes. It’s not fun or exciting, but it is necessary if you don’t want to have to buy all the other boring kit again!
The tools you need for your film gear should be pretty straightforward. A handful of allen keys, a screwdriver with interchangeable heads and a ratchet with varying socket sizes will carry you through almost all of the basic repairs and bolt tightening you will need to do. Though it’s always worth having some kind of multi-tool with you on a shoot too, just in case any last minute adjustments need to be made.
The thing I find myself having to do more than anything else is tightening up the tripod plate on my camera. It always loosens over time, so you should be prepared for it in advance!
best value tool set
best value allen wrench set
Best value multi tool
For the equipment you want to keep in the best condition possible, you will need a hard durable case to keep it in. The less knocks your gear takes, the longer it lasts.
Good cases aren’t cheap but they will take a beating before they break. When it comes to choosing a durable case you will almost always hear people talking about Pelican Cases, and for good reason. For years they have set the industry standard on keeping any type of camera gear you can imagine safe. They’ve built their reputation on the quality of their cases and that’s why they command such a high price.
Don’t worry though, there are plenty of other case manufacturers out there whose cases also do a fantastic job of keeping your kit protected. You may need to take some extra time to sift through the good from the bad though!
best quality hard case
best value hard case
Music Licensing
You can’t make films without good music. Well, actually you can, but a good score will help strengthen your narrative and help drive the story forward! Unfortunately for you, good music doesn’t grow on trees. So if you’re not a musician then you will probably have to license music like the rest of us!
Thankfully there is no shortage of talented musicians on music licensing websites like Musicbed and Artlist. I take out a yearly subscription on both of these sites and they cover me for every type of project I work on!
This is entirely anecdotal but I have found that Artlist tends to lean more towards music that works well for YouTubers, product videos, social media content and anything that needs a bit of pep and punch to it. Whereas Musicbed has music that works perfectly for longer form content like documentaries, cinematic short films and work that needs an extra level of finesse and polish.
Of course that’s not to say that you can’t find exciting and punchy music on Musicbed, or mature orchestral scores on Artlist!! But they both know the market they’re serving and the kind of music that their clients want to discover when they search on there, so both sites have a distinctly different feel of music to them. One isn’t better than the other, it just depends on the project you’re working on!
Stop Shooting In Slow Motion
Capturing footage at higher frame rates and playing them back at a slower 24 or 25 frames per second is a really useful filmmaking tool for heightening the emotion or tension in a shot. Actions that would usually happen in the blink of an eye can be extended out for the audience to not only see what’s happening but also feel the moment that it happens. Slow motion shots are the perfect way to tap into your audience’s suspension of disbelief and captivate their attention. But only if you use it right!
Capturing footage at higher frame rates and playing them back at a slower 24 or 25 frames per second is a really useful filmmaking tool for heightening the emotion or tension in a shot. Actions that would usually happen in the blink of an eye can be extended out for the audience to not only see what’s happening but also feel the moment that it happens. Slow motion shots are the perfect way to tap into your audience’s suspension of disbelief and captivate their attention. But only if you use it right!
There is no shortage of tutorials on YouTube teaching you how to ‘FILM EPIC SLOW MOTION BROLL’ or ‘Shoot CINEMATIC slow motion like a PRO’, and chances are you’ve probably watched and learned from them too! In fact, they’re really great resources to learn how to accomplish the technique! The problem is that most of these tutorials end it there. They don’t take the next step and tell you the why or the when you should be using slow-mo footage.
If you’ve read any of my other articles you might have noticed that I have brought this up before, but knowing why you should be using a technique or a tool is often more important than knowing how to do it.
As a result of this readily available information, and with so many aspiring filmmakers all too eager to learn the techniques and put it into practice, there has been an explosion of short films, travel videos and even wedding films that are using an excessive amount of slow-mo footage. However, as cool as slow-mo shots look they have a pretty specific purpose when making a film or video.
So why should you not be shooting slow motion footage? By the very nature of slowing down a shot, you are signalling to your audience that this is something important and that they should be giving it their full attention. It’s kind of the video equivalent to changing the tone of your voice, writing in all caps, or sticking a bright neon sign on a shop window. You are trying to draw people’s attention to something in particular.
In traditional big-budget TV and filmmaking you will notice that slow motion shots are sparingly used, if even at all, through a movie or series. You might see it being used to signal the first time a character meets a love interest, during a fight scene to really draw attention to the impact of a hit, or maybe even as a hero has a near-death experience. All of these moments are times when the people creating the film want the audience to be right on the edge of their seats, drawn further and further into the story of the world they’re creating. The slow-mo shots always have some kind of significance or meaning attached to them.
Think of any video you’ve seen recently that used slow-mo footage. Now think about the shot that stuck with you from it. I’d take a guess and say that the reason it’s resonated with you is that it drew your attention to a moment of heightened emotion or added a bit of visual flair to an otherwise average shot.
And that’s where I think that most new filmmakers get hung up on shooting and editing everything in slow-mo. The slowed footage is making them feel like their footage is better than it actually is. When it’s converted to a lower framerate while editing it is taking their ‘average’ shot and creating the illusion that it is somehow better than it was before.
Truth be told, I’ve been guilty of this in the past too. Recording at 50fps and playing it back at 25fps somehow made my bad footage feel more professional. In the earliest videos I made, the majority of my footage was playing back in slow-mo making me believe that my videos were great! Unfortunately, all I did was make my bad shots drag on for much longer than they should have…
All of this is to say that it is very easy to fall into the trap of using high framerate footage as a crutch for poor filmmaking. You should be putting your effort into your lighting, composition and storytelling before you even consider filming a shot in slow motion. Know and understand what utilising slow-mo footage will do to the narrative you’re telling before you make the decision to use it.
How then, are you supposed to figure out when is the right moment to capture slow motion footage? Really it will depend on your project, the story you’re trying to tell and the emotions you want to try and evoke in your audience.
Take travel films and vlogs on YouTube for instance. I’ve found these to be by far the worst offenders when it comes to using too much slow-mo footage, so it makes sense to draw the comparison here. Dragging out shot after shot in slow motion, each one telling the viewers that it is something ‘important’ to look at without delivering anything of real visual or emotional value, only serves to distract the viewer and draw their attention away from the video. Instead, the creators would do their work much more justice to use the slow-mo shots sparingly and at moments that they want to emphasise.
For a travel filmmaker who is making a film about hiking up a mountain, this could mean only using slow motion footage once they reach the summit at sunrise, or using it to accentuate a moment of connection with a local who opened their home to them for the night. Making these conscious decisions of when and when not to use slow motion footage will only serve to make you a better filmmaker.
Ditch Film School - A Guide To Becoming a Self Taught Filmmaker
Learning to become a successful filmmaker is hard. There is no way to sugarcoat it. It takes years of learning, money and creativity before you even manage to get to the starting line of becoming a halfway decent filmmaker, let alone a successful one. However, these days it has never been more accessible.
Learning to become a successful filmmaker is hard. There is no way to sugarcoat it. It takes years of learning, money and creativity before you even manage to get to the starting line of becoming a halfway decent filmmaker, let alone a successful one. However, these days it has never been more accessible.
Gone are the days of having to spend a literal fortune to pay your way into a film school, learn the ropes and leave education at the bottom of the ladder to success. The internet has decentralised the information and knowledge that you need to begin making films. For the cost of access to the internet, you can watch hundreds of hours of tutorials to begin teaching yourself how to make films.
In fact, chances are all you’ll really need to pay for is a camera, lenses and lighting, and the price of those have all become more affordable too!
So what’s the catch? Surely with all of this freely available information, there has to be some kind of drawback? Otherwise, film schools wouldn’t exist any more. To put it simply, not all of the information you see out there is created equal. Some of it can be fantastic and insightful and some of it can be pure rubbish. It will be up to you to decide what information is relevant to how you want to learn.
All of this is to say that you don’t need a formal education in filmmaking to be a successful filmmaker. Most people working on a film or TV set don’t necessarily have a degree related to film if any degree at all. What counts more than an education on set is that you work hard, get along with the rest of the crew and do a good job. Nobody will care that you wrote a dissertation and got your degree with honours if you’re not prepared to pitch in and work hard on set. In this industry, practical experience and proof you can do what you say you can, will always trump a fancy piece of paper you got from a college or university.
Where do you start then if you decide to ditch film school and become a self-taught filmmaker?
There’s no simple answer here as it depends on how experienced you are with your equipment and editing software, which niche of filmmaking you want to focus on, and your drive when it comes to teaching yourself. However, here is what I would do if I was back to square one and had just picked up my camera for the first time.
1 - Learn With Intention
Ultimately the fastest way to learn is to take a focused approach to practical filmmaking. This is what I did when I got my first camera in 2008 and is what I continued to do all throughout my time at college and university. Learning from tutors, textbooks and online videos are all well and good but it is up to you to put the effort into taking it a step further and practising the techniques in the real world.
Be honest with yourself and the level that you are at. Don’t think that because you watched a single video on a topic that you have mastered it. Constantly keep your eyes and ears open for new information on a topic, try it for yourself and repeat it until it becomes second nature.
Being purposeful with your spare time every week to learn and practice new techniques will make you grow faster than simply reading up on a topic.
2 - Search For Good Quality Sources
As I stated earlier, not every piece of information out there is created equal. Really put the time and effort into discovering sources of information and inspiration that are of excellent quality. If you want to learn how to become a better documentary filmmaker then watch documentaries of directors and DoP’s that inspire you. See if you can find and learn from them on social media, look to see if they sell a course on a personal website, watch with a critical eye how their framing, editing and pacing is done. Really immerse yourself in their work.
But not only that, immerse yourself in the work of the people that inspired them, and of others that inspire you. The more good quality sources of inspiration you have the larger your pool of knowledge and creativity will be. You will know you’ve found a great quality source when it stirs up something within you, an almost indescribable feeling that immediately resonates with you and motivates you to try something new. Never stop trying to find these sources as they will guide you through to discovering more about not only your own work but also about yourself.
3 - Ignore Current Trends
I cannot stress enough how important this point is. It is so easy to fall into a trap of seeing something cool and exciting that you want to immediately emulate it into your own work. Right now, there is a very common theme in YouTube videos to have ‘Cinematic Buttery Smooth Slow-Mo B-roll’ montages filled with transitions, whip pans and overly dramatic music. I understand the appeal of these segments in videos but they aren’t indicative of how real filmmakers approach their work.
Following trends immediately dates your work and makes it difficult for you to repurpose your films and videos for showreels or trying to draw prospective clients to hire you for work. It might be difficult to hear, but chasing likes and attention on social media by replicating a shot, transition or technique you saw on Instagram or YouTube won’t help you or your work in the long term. Recreating the work of other people and the trends you are seeing right now only serves to make your work get lost in the noise of everybody else doing the exact same thing.
4 - Choose Substance Over Style
This goes hand in hand with the previous point, but having a film or video with substance has so much more value to it than a collection of pretty shots. Once you are past the early learning stages of your filmmaking journey try to create work that has meaning, whether for yourself or for a wider audience. Flashy transitions and heavy colour grades will only take your work so far, but a story or video that has depth to it will strike a chord with people and make them care about your work.
That’s not, of course, to say you shouldn’t make your work look as good as possible. Capturing an audience’s attention in the first place will be important to make them stick around for the rest of the film. Style will dazzle your audience and bring them into your film, but substance will make them stay and hopefully make it a memorable experience for them. Find the balance between the two and make it work for you.
5 - Create Constantly
You have likely heard this so many times before, but it is probably the single most important piece of advice for anyone who wants to become a self-taught filmmaker. Learning by doing is the only way to fast-track your way to becoming a successful filmmaker. The more you fail in the beginning of your journey means you will have already built up the experience in how to tackle the obstacles and difficult situations that arise when working as a professional filmmaker.
Spending three years creating video after video, film after film will catapult you leagues ahead of a graduate who spent the same three years only learning from books and creating a single film at the end of their degree. Film theory, learning from tutors and reading movie scripts is great, but there is no substitute for hands-on, practical, knowledge that allows you to easily navigate your way through the world of filmmaking.
What Resources Are There To Diversify Your Filmmaking Knowledge?
To hopefully give you a head start on discovering what sources of inspiration resonate with you here is a list of filmmakers, photographers and general creatives that keep me motivated to try new things within my own work.
You will notice that I tend to stay away from content that sensationalises talking about camera equipment and focuses more on lighting, storytelling, behind the scenes or delving into the work of other photographers and filmmakers.
If you find that the inconsistency of knowing what topics a YouTuber will cover is slowing down the pace of your learning then I would highly recommend taking a look at websites like Masterclass and MZed that were created specifically for people who want to learn directly from professionals working in the industry. They are subscription-based resources however I can speak from personal experience when I say that the content on both of these websites is top tier and will teach you virtually anything you could want to know as a creative professional.
Just remember that regardless of if you decide to learn filmmaking through formal education or via self-study that there is no ‘correct’ way to become a professional filmmaker. The main deciding factor to your success as a freelance professional will be your own drive to grow and progress in your chosen field. You don’t need permission to become a filmmaker. It is up to you to decide the path you want to take and the direction you want your work to take you in.
ABout Sam
Sam is an experienced filmmaker, photographer, and editor with over 6 years experience working professionally in the media and creative industries.
