• External microphone. The built-in camera mic is usually not very good (even on a good camera), and can pick up noise from the camera. The quality of the audio will be much better with a mic. Remember, audio is half of a movie. You don't need an expensive professional boom mic; just a decent one. Just look around local at places that sell audio equipment or look online, and find something that fits your buget. Also, make sure it's unidirectional (less background noise).
  
  *Tip*: You can make a makeshift mic pole using PVC pipe or any type of rod/pole and attaching the mic (make sure it's a unidirectional mic) to the end of the pipe (just make sure the cord is long enough to reach the camera and still give you room to move the mic). Just plug it into the camera, hold it up over the actors, and film. Just remember to try to avoid getting the mic in the picture. ;) Thanks to BrenDerlin for this tip.
  
  
• Lights. You will need plenty of lights to light the movie. There are a lot of types of lights you can buy. You could use flourescent lights, house floodlights, halogen lamps, just about anything. Just make sure you have enough to light your scene the right way, and even more lights if you plan on lighting a bluescreen. If possible, use something like white posterboard to reflect the light back towards the scene. That way, the light is more diffused.
  
  
• Dolly. A dolly can really help to make shots more interesting. You don't need an expensive one; you could make one for cheap. Basicaly, all you need is something with wheels to mount the camera on to, and some kind of track (which could be as simple as two PVC pipes or two 2 x 4's). Here are some sites with tips for creating cheap homemade dollies:
  
  

• There are many ways to do costumes. If you need Jedi robes, you could buy Halloween costumes (which don't usually look very good, unless it's an expensive deluxe set), or buy Robes online (probably too expensive to be worth it, unless you have the money to toss out). You could buy fabric and a pattern and have someone sew it. You could alse use Karate outfits. For a Bounty Hunter, you could use a paintball mask (similar to the mask they used on Duality), and soccer shin guards painted over could provide leg armor. If you need any tips on making cheap costumes, ask around the Costuming boards.
  
  Here are some costuming sites:
  
  
  • Kal Joren's Jedi Academy
  • Creating Classic Costumes

• As far as things like sabers go, you can easily put together a nice-looking saber from stuff bought from hardware stores (such as piping for the handle, doorbell buttons for Original Trilogy style activators, etc). You could make a custom one machined from metal with a lathe, but unless you have the money to toss out, it's probably not worth it, especially because no one will likely be able to see enough detail of the saber for it to matter. Unless, of course, you plan on doing an extreme close-up of a saber, but even a saber cobbled from parts can look good enough for that, if it's done right. As for blades, I hear that wooden dowls are the best. The problem with PVC is that it shatters, and could send potentially dangerous shards flying. Alumnium (or any metal blades) have the problem of possibily being heavy, they can do more damage if they strike you, and they are probably too expensive to be worth it. You want something that can take a beating, but also won't weigh to much, cost too much, or hurt too much. Of course, you shouldn't be hitting the sticks together too hard anyway, as the moves are choreographed and should be pulled.
  
  
• As for any other props, use your imagination. You could take a toy gun, spray paint it black, maybe add some details, and voila! You now have a nice blaster rifle. A lot of the stuff in Star Wars is simply modified from something else, like how they modified a Gillete Womens Sensor Excel into a Jedi communicator for TPM, or a camera flash handle into a saber for the Original Trilogy(I wouldn't suggest trying to find a flash handle for a saber prop, because it's probably too expensive to be worth it, and you should try and make your saber unique anyway). Just take a walk around a hardware store and think of how different things could be used or modified.
  
  Here are some good saber construction sites:
  
  
  • Kal Joren's Jedi Academy

• Cheap sets can be constructed that look good. For one thing, you could always go to construction sites and ask for their leftovers (the stuff they will toss out anyhow). Plus, you could use things like cardboard or foamboard.
  
  

• Ultimate Tutorial Thread [FanFilms Forum]

Step 11: Shooting your Movie

Here is where you film your movie. Before you actually begin, though, you need to learn a few concepts.

Framing Rules

• Rule of Thirds
  
  The rule of thirds is a shot-framing rule where you basically divide the shot into thirds horizontaly and vertically, and you place objects on the intersections of the lines. Centering is pretty much not a good idea. Also, you should not try to balance everything in the shot, for the most part. Supposse you are filming a shot of a small group of people. You should not try to have equal numbers of people on either side of the screen. You should off-balance it a little. Of course, you don't have to use the rule of thirds, because film is an art, and the rule of thirds is a guideline, really, rather than a rule. You should place subjects the way you want (though, I would assume that most people use the rule of thirds even if they don't know it, because that's what they're used to seeing in movies and TV).

• Crossing the Line
  
  Crossing the line is a continutity rule. To illustrate it, consider two people talking to each other, person A and person B, with an imaginary line drawn between them. The camera is pointed so person A is on the left side of the frame and person B is on the right. No problem so far, but if you then cut to a shot on the other side of the line, where both people are on opposite sides of the frame, you will have crossed the line. When viewed, it will appear as if the two people suddenly switched places. As another example, consider a shot of a person running down the street. He enters the frame from the left, and exits on the right. If you suddenly switch angles and film him entering from the right and exiting on the left, you will have crossed the line (even though the person himself is still running in the same direction). When viewed, it will appear as if the character has suddenly reversed direction and is running the other way. The only way to change angles not violate this law is to have the camera move or pan over to the other side of the line all in one shot (rather than cutting from one angle to the other).
  
  
• General continuity
  
  You want to make sure you keep up the continutity from shot to shot. For example, supposse you have a Sith who enters the scene and removes his cloak, which falls to the floor. In subsequent shots, you must make sure the cloak is there, or it will look like it dissapeared, and in the same place, or it will appear to change places (it's even worse if it's there in some and not there in others, because it's more distracting to have something dissapear and reappear than it is to have something dissapear and stay dissapeared). Also, you must make sure that if people are holding an object in one hand in a shot, that they use the same hand in subsequent shots, or else it will appear as if they are switching it from hand to hand. Another very important thing to keep track of is lighting. If you light different shots that are suppossed to be part of the same scene in different ways, they will look off-colored when viewed, unless you color correct in post. Try to keep lighting consistent, because it's better to do things the right way from the start than to try to fix it later.

• Always be specifc on what emotions you want your actors to portray. The more specific you are, the better they will be able to act the way you have in mind. If you simply hand them a script and tell them to read the lines and do the actions, that is all they will do, with little or no emtotion, even if they are great actors. They can't get inside your head to see what your vision of the movie is. You have to describe that to them. Make sure you use extra direction when shooting in front of a bluescreen, describing the scene they would be in if this were a real set. That helps the actor be able to picture the surroundings and suspend a little disbelief.
  
  
• You do want to be open to suggestion. If an actor (or any of the cast/crew) thinks something would be better this way or that, consider their suggestion. That doesn't mean you have to use the suggestion, but at least consider it. No one likes a director who has a "my way or the highway" attittude.
  
  
• Don't be a jerk. If someone makes a mistake and you throw a fit, that will not make those people want to work with you. I saw in a thread once a story about a group of people working on a Mission: Impossible fan film. They were using a Sony XL1 to shoot the scene, and they had a tape rigged to go up in smoke in a tape recorder, for the whole "this tape will self-destruct" bit. When they started the camera, a billow of smoke arrose from the camera itself; someone had mistakenly switched tapes and put the self-destructing tape in the camera, damaging it. The director started yelling and cussing at everyone, fired some of the crew, and walked off the set in a fit of rage. When he returned, a lot of people had left, leaving him with an unfinished film. Sure, the camera was expensive, but it was a simple, human mistake, and in the end left him with a worthless film and alienated friends.

• Find a way to mark the beginning and end of a scene. This makes it much easier to edit the film. Professionals use clapboards, but try and find anyway of doing it. Maybe you could have someone read out the shot and take number, and wave their arm in front of the camera, and then wave it again when you cut. Or, maybe you could build a makeshift clapboard somehow.
  
  
• Use the manual features rather than the auto ones. You may think autofocus is nice, but pros never use it. Try to get the gain as low as possible, as this makes the image lower quality. As for white balance, adjust the white balance to a grey card (just print off a piece of paper with grey).
  
  
• Depth of field. According to this site, depth of field means
  

  "While a lens focuses on a single plane of depth, there is usually an additional area in focus behind and in front of that plane. This is depth of field. Depth of field increases as the iris is closed. There is more depth of field the wider the lens and less the longer the lens. There is a deeper area in focus the further away a lens is focused than there is when a lens is focused close. Depth of field does not spread out evenly; the entire area is about 1/3rd in front and 2/3rds behind the plane of focus. To factor together all these variables it is best to consult a depth of field table, such as the ones found in the American Cinematographer?s Manual."

  
  Film cameras have a narrow depth of field. Everything in the shot is not in focus. This is not so with camcorders. Camcorders have a very wide depth of field, so even far away details are clear. This is not how our eyes work, so it looks fake. Too acheive a narrower depth of field, setup the camera as far away as you can from the subject and zoom in
  
  
• Feed your cast and crew.

• Keep track of time codes, to you keep footage together
  
  
• Name clips according to scene and shot number (for greater ease in editing later)
  
  
• If you are using an NTSC camera, use NTSC standard settings. That may seem obvious, but you don't want to make the mistake of taking footage shot at 29.97 fps, and saving it at 30 fps onto to your computer. If you ever want to go back and output to tape, you'll need to save it back to 29.97 for it to be compatable with the camera, and the audio will be out of sync. If you save the footage to your computer at 29.97 fps in the first place and keep it there, there won't be an audio problem. Also, use NTSC standard resolutions when capturing as well. Likewise, if you are using a PAL device, use PAL standards.
  
  
• Don't compress unless you have very limted hard drive space. Wait until you have a completed film before compressing. Recompressing a movie degrades it, and you want the final product to be as high-quality and clean as you can.

• After Effects
• Photoshop
• Ulead Video Paint (part of MSP)
• Commotion
• Paint Shop Pro
• ALAM DV
• Animation:Master
• Blender
• 3D Studio Max

• DO NOT use flashy transitions or animated fly-ins. They distract from the film, and look extremely tacky.
• DO use only simple wipes and dissolves to show passage of time from scene to scene
• DO NOT use transitions during action scenes
• DO use quick cuts (basically, slapping two clips together with no transition) durring action scenes
• DO keep track of your clips and keep naming them according to scene and shot number, for ease of editing
• DO create rough edits to give you an idea about how the movie looks (pace, flo, etc)
• DO NOT compress until the final product, unless you are severly limted on hard drive space

• DO NOT use your best effects shots or action scenes
• DO only use enough effects and action to entice the audience
• DO use incomplete effects or test shots (that way, the audience will be even more amazed at the effects when they see the final film)
• DO NOT give away the entire plot
• DO only hint at the plot
• DO balance the effects and action shots with character-based shots
• DO NOT use music that you will use in the final film; let that be a surprise
• DO edit in such a way as to be extremely fast-pace (unless it's a character-driven trailer)

• DO balance your audio volume to it does not make dialogue hard to hear
• Do carefully sync the audio to whatever action it is being associated with

• DO NOT use a piece music simply because it's cool, or your favorite piece
• DO choose music that best fits the unique mood of the scene and brings out the emotions
• DO edit the music to fit the movie (or vice versa), rather than hap-hazardly slapping pieces over scenes.
• DO balance the volume of the music so that it does not make dialogue hard to hear

• Don't over hype your movie. If you hype your movie, and it doesn't live up to your hype, you will get a lot of criticism. Plus, if you hype your movie, and don't make your release date, it makes people get immpatient.
• Don't badger people to watch your trailers or visit your site. If you are constantly creating threads talking about your movie, and constantly asking people to "please, please, please, please watch it," they will get annoyed. Create one thread talking about it, ad maybe more if you have major updates (like a new trailer). If you want more site visits, put a link to your site in your sig. You will get more visits that way than by creating threads anyway.

• AVI
• MPEG
• MOV
• WMV

• On2 (MOV's)
• Sorensen 3 (MOV's)
• DivX (AVI's).