Quarantine Filmmaking Tips - Production

All right, you've decided to shoot a film in quarantine and you've already knocked out the pre-production steps and are ready to shoot, but things are a bit tricky in this remote film production world. So here's some tips that will help your shoot go smoothly.

First step, you want to make sure all of your actors are recording their video and audio with the same settings or as close to the same settings as possible. To achieve this, I recommend creating a camera and audio settings document that clearly states the recording settings and formats for each. And if some of your actors are shooting on their camera phones, I recommend including a step by step guide. So they know how to optimize their camera phone settings, to get the best possible video.

Now, most of the time, the native phone camera app doesn't give you much control over things like shutter speed, ISO, or white balance, but there's phone apps you can get that can. Filmic pro is an app that gives you total control over your focus, exposure, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and more. While double-take is an app that allows you to access more than one camera on your phone at a time, which could be handy if you want to record a closeup and a wide shot at the same time.

Now, if some of your actors aren't particularly tech savvy when it comes to camera and light settings, then you might want to schedule one on one meetings with actors to walk them through camera and lighting settings. Also before the actual shoot day, have your actors shoot a quick test shot so you can test out camera settings, lighting, costumes, and props to make sure everything is working and looking good.

Now, when it comes time to shoot, it can be difficult for your actors to set focus, especially if they don't have a housemate that can do it for them. So here's a few tricks they can use to set proper focus. First, if the shot involves them standing, I recommend putting a marker on the ground where they plan to stand. They can do this by making a T shape with some tape where their feet will go. This will help ensure they are always standing in the same spot. Next, have them take a tall floor, lamp, tripod or whatever they have. That's tall enough to represent them in the frame and place it the tape marker. When I do this myself, I like to use a spare mic stand that just happens to be about eye height. Now that they've placed their stand-in in frame, they can go back to their camera and get proper focus.

However, if the shot involves them sitting in a chair, then I recommend using a pillow or, you know, a giant Totoro stuffed animal, whatever they have handy to place in the chair as they're standing. Since your actors probably don't have slates and to buy them, each one would be expensive, I recommend instead purchasing small whiteboards they can use to write the take name and number on. Or alternatively, they could just use a piece of paper.

Then when you're ready to go for a take, have each actor roll their sound and hold up their thumbs to show that they are rolling, waiting until everyone is rolling. Then again, have the actor roll their camera and hold up their thumbs again, till everyone is rolling. Then have them each slate the shot by saying the take name and number and do a clap to help sync the sound in post.

And finally make sure your recording backup audio so that if any of the actor's audio files have problems, you still have something to fall back on. This is another reason why I highly recommend using discord for your video chat. As you can use the multi voice record plugin program, Craig with Craig enabled, you can record each actor's audio straight from discord. Just make sure they have their mic selected in the discord user settings.

Now that you've got these shooting tips, you're ready to move on to post production, so dissolve on over to that video next.

My Filmmaking Resources:

➜ Get my Camera and Audio Settings document by supporting me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FIY

➜ BorrowLenses: http://shrsl.com/29h7t

➜ Get Free Filmmaking Checklists through my newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/e071707aca31/fiy

➜ Get my Filmmaking Templates on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FIY

➜ All of my Filmmaking equipment: https://www.amazon.com/shop/laughstashtv

➜ Learn how to be a successful YouTuber: https://linkedin-learning.pxf.io/BbBN4

➜ Get $10 off of Subtitles and Captions for your videos: https://www.rev.com/blog/coupon/?ref=...

*This post contains affiliate links which give me a small commission once clicked on.