#48: Notes on Filmmaking _ Introduction.

Hi folks. As promised ago, I’m starting here some notes on Filmmaking related things. We’ll begin with introduction & as it is the first one, I’ll keep it very basic and fundamental. We will move forward in detailed things one by one. So let’s begin.

In earlier days, Films were used to be silent i.e. only visuals, no sound. Then came talkies and it gave a meaning to the scene. So a film became an audio-visual presentation. But not every audio-visual is a film. A footage of a street with all background voices/noises or a video of a birthday party has both audio and video but it is not a film. So how films differ from these? Well, a film should convey a story. If that street or that birthday party is having a character that portrays some part of a story and then that footage has become a part of the film. Cool, so more or less a story is needed to be told. Now the way you convey the story is what we call a screenplay. I.e. how will the scenes be played on the screen? (Non-linear storylines need best of screenplay work.) Dialogues are the next detailing thing and that is how we got a complete film from a one-liner story.

Now all we need to do is to just get the actors to deliver that dialogues with a bit of acting and we’ve made our film. Yes…, actually no. Still something is remaining to make it a film. I mean, even if that street footage or birthday party video has a story, they still never look like a film rather an ordinary video. What are the things that make a film differ from just a video? Camera frames, camera angles, camera movement, lighting, shot selection (kind a cricketing word), place selection (production design), and many more things of post production including Editing, background score and final mixing works for this cause. We’ll go for each one in upcoming posts. I guess this much is enough for introductory part. I don’t want last bencher to sleep further. Hope you guys enjoyed the way you do always. Keep reading Random Strokes. Love –DJ.