Subtitles of the Movie

Of course, like me, you'll be the most organized person in the world. Really though it's worth planning out on paper before you start a project what your film will entail. I say this because if you don't plan ahead what shots you require you could miss footage that can't be recaptured easily. What I mean is there was one day, for example, when I decided to film over Lymm Dam just to get some establishing shots and the day turned out to be very sunny. Well, why is there a problem with that? Well, this sunshine was a surprise owing to the time of year I was filming and it meant that subsequent filming days required a script rewrite owing to the weather becoming more usual in that for over the next two or three weeks it was quite misty to the extent that some days it was very foggy. Certainly there was no real sunshine to cast a mixture of sun and shadows that look good on film. Now I could have taken advantage of this sunshine if I'd have planned this all in advance and tailored the day's filming to encompass anything that needed sunshine. Now, with Lymm Damsels being a children's film this didn't pose too much of a problem in all honesty with the script and more importantly, the dialog because my actors were little dolls. Now I don't mean they were precious little actors, little darlings, they were literally little dolls. Really, they were. I know you think they were real fairies and mermaids but sadly no. Anyway, you'll appreciate if I shot some scenes of the film with bright sunshine one day and each consecutive day was foggy then the continuity would suffer if actors were involved. Clearly, then, when organizing your screenplay you do need to indicate which days to take advantage of certain weather conditions. I'm not suggesting you can control the weather but if you know a scene at the start and again at the end requires sunshine, then when actors are involved it's beneficial to film these two scenes that day rather than filming each scene in a linear fashion to correspond to the sequence of a finished film. I know this seems an obvious point but it can be overlooked. I overlooked it. Additionally, from an audio perspective, planning in advance means you can minimize your outgoings, you know, your expenses if you are paying for musicians to record some tracks for your completed film. Obviously, if you are recording a guitarist for example, then it's worth paying him or her just one fee rather than having him or her come back over a few days. You know, you can negotiate a lower fee just for the one day. This doesn't pose a problem with purchased music I realize, but you can often get better deals on buying two to three music sound tracks at once rather than just buying one. Also, speaking about audio, it's worth planning in advance what ambient sounds you want to record. I wanted to record ambience at Lymm Dam simply for authenticity. These background recordings then, could then be used as ambience where necessary, but - and this is where the planning comes in - I wanted Lymm Damsels to look and sound as rural as possible but this doesn't quite marry up with its semi-rural location, though. Despite the Dam being predominantly embedded in countryside there is one main road that skirts one edge. Easy enough you would think, just record ambience away from the road. Well, my problem was however, I wanted to capture the sound of the church bells next to the Dam but unfortunately sited next to the road as well. So, to get authentic ambience meant filming and recording very early in the morning when virtually no traffic uses the road. Again, a simple tip, but it takes a little planning thought to establish this. This did mean, however, that the mist around the Dam was fairly strong though at this time of the morning and I said earlier, this must be planned for when arranging filming. I finally do check school holidays when planning a film. I started the film when the local schools were open, but my planned second week was a school holiday and therefore Lymm Dam was overrun with families and school kids in general getting into shot or onto the audio sound track, sometimes intentionally, to the extent that I ended up scrapping a couple of days filming owing to this. And finally, finally, remember all I've said about the weather changing over weeks? Well, this can change over one day, especially around Lymm Dam. So, what I'm saying is, my best tip is, when you do film, think about it beforehand. When you're planning your film get all your ideas together on paper beforehand and you will save yourself a lot of time, trouble and in some cases, expense. OK.