I started making movies before I was a teenager. Making movies on actual film, that is. I was always making movies in my head, but it wasn't until my dad lent me his 8mm Kodak Brownie wind-up movie camera and a light meter that I and some friends started actually putting things on celluloid. Our early efforts had titles like "Gores Galore" [sic], "Land of the Giants," "The Murderer" and "Potpourri" (a title we took from "Laugh-In" for a hodge-podge of stunts and gags we just made up as we shot them). For special visual effects we used a lot of extreme camera angles (low and high), miniatures (Matchbox cars, army men), smoke bombs, fireworks, dummies stuffed with newspapers, red food coloring, Vampire Blood™, and cooked spaghetti for innards.
If I remember correctly, the total running time of one exposed reel was about three to five minutes. You bought the film in double-width form and loaded it into the camera, then had to go into a dark room (or deep shade) and flip the reel to re-load halfway through shooting. The lab would cut it down the middle when you mailed it in for developing and send it back to you as an 8mm reel with one glue-splice that strung it all together. (This was not the new Super 8, which was too fancy and expensive, even though it was only one millimeter wider.) They were all silent, of course, though we made syncrhonized 3-inch-reel tape recorder "soundtracks" with music and narration by simply running the film, playing records, and speaking into a microphone.
Though I have made movies in one form or another ever since (on film, video -- and always in the way I look at the world around me), those formative experiences with the camera you see on this page shaped my way of looking at cinema. Because, you see, whether the movies were live-action or single-frame animation (tapping that little corrugated button on the front), all the editing was done in my head. Tape splices were nasty things. So, without a shot list or a storyboard, I would imagine the movie in my head, one shot at a time, and try to shoot it that way.
Consequently, I didn't like to return too often to a camera position I'd already used. I'd get what I needed in one shot and then try to find another way of approaching the scene. I loved long takes even then, though the suspense of trying to get the shot right on the first take was excruciating -- and you had to be sure you remembered to wind the camera all the way up if you were going to risk a shot that lasted more than about ten seconds.
I was probably about 13 or 14 when I made my animated movie "Still Life," which featured vignettes that included a hungry white gooseneck desk lamp that ate balls off a pool table. (Oh yes, this was way before Pixar.) There was also a bit where the Mona Lisa grew a mustache and was revealed to be bra-less. Ah, the early '70s...
Anyway, you should try this sometime, just for fun, if you haven't already: Make a short film or video entirely in-camera. No post-production editing allowed. You'll have to keep the grammar and timing in your head. You'll be amazed at how much you internalize -- and, possibly, by what you forget if you don't have notes or storyboards to remind you.
Kids seem to understand film grammar from a very early age -- even though it's only been around for about a hundred years. I wonder how old they need to be before they can start putting together their own movies...
Would love to see these movies that you made when you were that young. Great tips for those with a passion for film. We have shared this through out our film network. Here are some other articles on Making movies the old way: on film - Los Angeles Times http://www.trigeia.com/article.php?id=55768
@trigeia
As a USC film student, I can tell you that this is the first film exercise we ever do. Ultimately I think those projects ended up with a lot more energy than the others, which we were allowed to edit.
Your story reminds me of Robert Rodriguez's, about how editing on VHS tapes taught him story construction. Perhaps now that we have tools and technologies readily available to budding filmmakers that are more powerful and versatile than the ones studios had back in Hollywood's heyday, there might be value in getting back to more limitations as a way of spurring creativity--and forcing the artist to become more self-sufficient.
I recently converted some old family videos to digital, among them some action/adventure/science fiction movies my brother and I had made in the third or fourth grade. They weren't on film, but on VHS, which was...I don't know from tape splices, but I did try to edit VCR-to-VCR, and it got way too tough, so shooting the whole thing in sequence, with continuity editing when a long shot proved too difficult, became a whole lot easier.
And y'know, looking at them now, I'm pretty damn proud. And, speaking as someone who saw the damn thing, Bay's action sequences in TRANSFORMERS 2 don't have the spatial relationship or basic continuity that I had down pat at age 10. And without the benefit of digital editing.
Ah Jim, you have the true callings of a great director! I too made many short films, though on Super-8. Those 3-minute film cartridges were expensive and then you had to mail them in and wait a week or two for Kodak to send them back. The wait was excruciating for a 15-year-old. Thats why all the shots were planned and edited in-camera, a system I got used to right up to the days I had Hi-8 video equipment. I started a cinematography club in the 70's, along with my brother and a few friends in college, and we cranked out a bunch of Super-8 silent films which we synched up to a reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was the best training for aspiring filmmakers I could imagine. I later found out that Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton started their careers the same way.
You can take all the film courses available, but until you hold a camera in your hands and make your own movies, you will never catch on to the real secrets of directing film. It's especially true when you have no budget and have to use your creativity to come up with ways of creating the illusion of quality films.
I worked on a 16mm black and white film that required scenes of a circus. We created the audience out of cardboard, my brother and I drawing all the people in the front row with markers and paint. We didn't have spotlights bright enough, so we shot in our friend's backyard at night and used a car's headlights for the bright spots. It turned out amazing and dramatic, the depth of field and contrasting lighting giving the illusion of a large audience. When you get used to looking through a camera and you see what it sees, you know how to create illusions and trick that 2D view of the world.
I would love to see your shorts. Wasn't it a blast?
So I'm going to a local community college for film school. I'm a little egotistical, and have to wonder how much they can teach me since I already know quite a bit, but I'm going to get experience with 16mm film, to possibly meet others with an interest in film, and to get a certificate that confirms that I know how to do it.
And yet I can't help but feel a little envious that not long ago, people didn't have iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, and in fact didn't have digital video cameras, and had to learn linear editing because that's all they had. It seems like having all the options of a Mac with Final Cut Pro would stunt my creative output, whereas having fewer options would make it more productive.
Jim, I used to make movies on my Super-8 as a kid and teen. It had sound but the microphone never worked so the best you could do was record sound onto the film with the projector after it was developed. Nonetheless, my friends and I came up with some nifty effects using many of the same things you describe and of course lots of stop-motion. Making movies now is a lot easier but I'm older and therefore put a lot more mental masturbation into the process which means I can't finish one of them! Being satisfied with the final cut was much easier as a kid.
I fooled around with the family's Bell & Howell 8mm camera back in the 70s, especially once I discovered the single frame "animation" button. Like you, all editing was done in-camera. Every shot was storyboarded and timed out for frames. During one epic shoot over Christmas break, I used my mom's SunGun™ for a light source. When school resumed in January I got some odd stares because my left arm and the left side of my face were sunburned. Oh, how we suffer for our art...
I collaborated with a friend on one "live action" film, though it still involved a miniature train and a model rocket. For the climactic scene we needed the rocket to take off spectacularly. So my friend sneaked a cigarette from his mom's pack and, as I shot a close-up of the rocket's bottom, he took a puff and blew the smoke through the rocket's body. Our first practical effect!
If I remember correctly, the local PhotoMat would process the film in only a few days. No waiting for the mail; that would've killed me.
A few years after I lost the filmmaking bug, I discovered a mini-moviola in my mom's closet. Imagine the editing I could've done!
Your early filmmaking methods sound creepily familiar to me, Jim, although I'm from the Super-8 generation myself.
When are the films coming out on DVD? I'll buy one.