Of course I realize this is very practical and can save a scene later on when you don't have the possibility to have a reshoot. However, it's just not how your process should be to make a movie.

You have to be sure of what shots you want and in which order they will be in the movie, and then on set focus on getting those shots right, so that you will very rarely end up in a situation where you need to use coverage footage. It is by figuring out beforehand how the movie plays out that you can come to an artistically meaningful edit and that will imprint the style you want on your movie.

To use an analogy, the approach I advocate would be the equivalent of creating a city yourself from scratch. While the approach that relies on coverage would be akin to being given bits of buildings and roads and all and finding the best way to arrange them. The first approach obviously should give a more personal result, and a also better one if you know what you are doing.

With so many movies those days it feels like the director just said "let's have cameras shooting the scene from many angles and then we'll figure out in editing how to put them together". That's not how you do a movie.

What the fuck are you talking about?

No one will ever know for sure.

I doubt even he knows.

Why would someone write a long post like that if they don't even know what they mean.

It sounds like exactly the sort of thing you would do.

>>6
^this

No. Even when you troll you have to follow a certain logic. Otherwise it's just uninteresting nonsense.

>>8
Like most of what you've been posting recently?

>>9

Like everything you've been posting recently?

I fixed this for you.

I don't see what is hard to understand in this thread. Look up the definition of coverage if that's what you don't understand.

What if it is the director's "creative decision" to utilise shooting coverage?

But basically that means they decide to not have to decide. So that's not really a creative decision. More like a way of doing things.

So are you saying that for your short film you shot each scene from only a couple of angles instead of taking it from a few different ones just in case there was a better shot you missed?

Yeah pretty much, because when I start shooting the scene I've already though in my head about what would be the best angle to tell the story. Then when I have the camera of course I will try lots of slightly different camera angles so it looks the closest to what I had in mind, but I don't do takes of the same thing from a completely different angle. If in editing I realize there's something that doesn't work I can always reshoot it in a different way. If I had limitations that would make it hard to organize reshoots then I would probably use a safer approach (while still of course always having a main angle in mind I'm 90% sure I'm gonna end up using).

But what you fail to understand here, is whilst you may have a "main angle" in mind, that does not negate the need for back up angles. Your angle will not always be the best one. Now for your short film about your dog I would assume it is quite easy to do reshoots, but it is not that easy if you are making a bigger film with actual actors. And it doesn't hurt anyone to shoot a scene from multiple angles so you can then select the best shot, because images rarely look the same in the director's head as they do on screen.

You are right of course. I just want to point out that I feel it's important to try stick to your "main" angle unless you have a very good reason to change. Because it means you remain true to your vision. It is what at some point came up in your head and what you want the audience to see. It doesn't really matter if there are other angles that may be considered better. The important thing is to get the picture that represents how you always saw your movie, that's how your work will feel personal and unique. I don't like to work in a way where I'll just take a scene and mechanically think of how it should be, actually work on it in an analytical way you know ? I prefer to wait for it to come naturally, so it will be what is inside of me.

That all goes back to the auteur theory and the notion that when I watch a movie I want to see basically something the director had dreamed and that he is enabling me to watch like a gift.

I thought I wrote that post

He's talking about storyboarding, or preproduction in general.

No he's not. You don't get it. No one gets it!

I'm just imagining you yelling that at your computer screen.

director just said "let's have cameras shooting the scene from many angles and then we'll figure out in editing how to put them together". That's not how you do a movie.

I thought that was exactly how to make a movie

If that's literally how it should be done why would we even need a director in the first place ?

How does that negate the need of a director?

The point of a director is to have an unifying vision covering all the stages of the production, basically the director has a movie in his head and he gets help from his crew to get it done.

Now if you look at the approach "let's just roll the camera and we'll see how it goes in editing", then it means the director doesn't really have a vision of the final product. He is just going through the motions, thinking of the different aspects of a movie one at a time. For example first deciding how the set should be, then deciding on the actors' performances, then deciding how to edit all this. So this is not that different from having no director and just letting the different crews doing their own thing at each stage. Of course if it's the same person overseeing all this you get a bit of their personality in the final movie, but this is not enough. This is more like a random progressive creation, where the director will say "I like that" or "I don't like that", rather than a precise vision he had from the start.

That's the difference between creating something by making successive choices on things that are presented to you, and creating something entirely by yourself from scratch.

I don't think that's exactly how it works. I think the director has multiple different good ideas and visions that they're considering and after trying all of them deciding which works best once editing starts. If you just do it one way than you might realize later on that a different way might have been more effective. I highly doubt they're just mindlessly shooting from different angles, a good director would make each shot as if that is the one they are going to put in the final film so they have plenty of good ones to choose from.

It's like giving a handgun to a six-year-old, Fauxnutz - you don't know how it's gonna end, but you're pretty sure it's gonna make the papers.

Nice to know. Since you seem to be such an expert on this matter, could you kindly direct the rest of us to your work so that we can all take notes in the correct way to shoot a movie?

Yes, because you're going to come along and completely change the way thousands of others have been doing their jobs for a hundred years.

You really need to stop posting about filmmaking, because you have no idea what you're talking about, and it's embarrassing.

I've seen numerous young idiot directors start out and not bother getting even standard coverage.

They don't work in the business anymore.

Except I started my post to point out I know how practical coverage is. I'm saying ideally a director shouldn't rely on coverage, that's all.

Filmmaking is all about finding a balance between what should be the best approach and what is a practical, more realistic one. But the best directors of all time tend to be able work in a way that comes close to the best approach.

Directing is making decisions that allow you to have choices later. Oners are nice, but are not something to rely on, unless the director is tremendously talented and has a fantastic talented cast and crew.

You have to try to get the exact shots you see in your head or that you storyboarded, but you still need the flexibility that coverage provides.

one of many he's started now, though he still thinks he's taken everybody in in an attempt to try to pass off the fact that everyone thinks he's an idiot as a sign of genius

What you're talking about is what cinematographer Gordon Willis has termed "Dump Truck Directing." Here's a video of him talking about how he dislikes the practice:

http://filmmakermagazine.com/76132-gordon-willis-faux-pas-of-dump-truck-directing/

Yeah that's pretty much it.

I remember a quote about that which was from one director talking about another. I don't rememeber which they were but basically he was saying "this guy is not a director, he is a selector".

The same thing is done in the music industry. For live instruments they will record sometimes dozens of takes of the same passage and then cut and paste the best 5-10 seconds of each take together to make the track. You practically never hear a real performance on an album anymore. Even live albums are made that way by recording multiple performances and pasting the best bits together to form a whole track. Sometimes they will even redo parts in the studio.

Why do you continue posting about something you have no idea about?

Seeing you seem to be unable to give an actual answer to this issue one could think you are the one who has no idea what is being discussed.

You want an answer? A director makes a choice to shoot for whatever reason. Coverage is a broad word. Do you mean shooting from multiple angles so the director doesn't have to make extra set-ups? Do you mean capturing extra footage at a set in case you need a certain angle you didn't think about until you were in the editing room? Does the director decide to change the focus of a few scenes or sequences because they have a different, better, creative spark while in postproduction?

You have a narrow view of filmmaking and fail to realize just how creative the process is. A director with a rigid vision will almost certainly create a lifeless, mechanical piece of work because they didn't realize how thoughts and logistics change the product for the better. Any director who doesn't understand that is already at a disadvantage.

Samuel Jackson had a similar comment about it in one interview, not as extreme as you do and talking about not having some coverage, but seeing a lot of time waste on excessive coverage by some director, same angle but with different zoom, etc...

Sure. Excess coverage is one thing, and a truly good director knows how to pick and choose the best coverage, not just blindly shoot everything. However, to claim that coverage should be secondary is a huge mistake.

Sure, and for something like humor (and I imagine a lot of scenario) it must frightening to not be able to have it (writing Birdman screenplay for example).

Not sure what you mean about Birdman's screenplay. It's an example of a movie where there wasn't any coverage to do, maybe that's what you mean (and so it proves you don't need to rely on coverage a lot if you have a good idea of what you want).

That what I mean, 95% of the script end up in the final product and you don't have editing to help the humor rhythm/timing to work, making the writing process more stressful.

It is certainly possible, but that does not make it the ideal process for everything (Birdman is an exception).

Yeah, I mean it should be used as a safety measure, or for when you are not sure about different possibilities, rather than as an excuse to not storyboard the scene in your head and just wait to see in editing.

Your ignorance of film is quite staggering at times. Either that or you're high on crack. I mean you say that shooting coverage is very practical, then you say it's not how you should shoot a movie. That's just gibberish. How many movies have you actually made that allows you to make such a daft assertion.

It's simple. Practical is different from best. Following a precise recipe is the most practical and safe way to prepare a dish. But if you were a cooking teacher would you tell your students following recipes is the way they should cook ideally ?

But if you were a cooking teacher would you tell your students following recipes is the way they should cook ideally ?

That's exactly what you would tell a student. They have to know the basics before they can do anything else.

Yeah, that's why I said ideally. The ultimate goal you want them to reach is that they are able to do their own great cooking without having to rely on recipes.

The ultimate goal is to prepare the meal. You're talking about disregarding a major part of filmmaking because it doesn't jive with the approach you've made up in your head.

The basics are there for a reason, the same with a cooking recipe.

I'm talking about the ultimate goal of their time in the school, which is to become great cookers. As a teacher you'd want to teach them the basics but also progressively help them to develop their artistic side and own style.

You're thinking in terms of beginners but the problem I'm raising here is about actual directors whose movies we see in theaters. They already know the basics and they would benefit from getting closer to the approach I'm advocating. With their experience of coverage they would still know how to use it wisely.

There you go again, practical is different from best. If I were a cooking teacher of course I would tell my students to use a recipe, though cooking and film making are hardly the same beast. Shooting coverage has been done for decades, for obvious reasons. A real film maker will tell you it is essential, though you are not one are you. Though how much is done will vary from film to film. What you suggest makes no sense. Though you are not a real film maker.

If I were a cooking teacher of course I would tell my students to use a recipe

Only when they are beginners. At some point you want them start using less and less recipes.

I'm not saying coverage shouldn't be shot by the way, I'm saying it shouldn't influence the director's process of editing in his head, it shouldn' tbe a reason for him to think "I'll figure it out in post".

A cooking teacher wouldn't still be teaching those students if the students had a foundation in place. How long do you think a cooking instructor teaches students?

Say 3 years for example. Over those 3 years he won't just be teaching them foundations, he will also if he's any good help them discover their artistic side and style, so that after school they can go one to be truly great cooks.

3 years for a cooking class? You might have multiple classes at a culinary institute but not the same one for three years. By the third year the student would still be learning new dishes, built on a foundation of recipes, but they would probably be the most difficult of recipes.

That's not the reason for coverage. In an action scene for example, using just the master shot would be boring. So the director will shoot from a variety of angles and then use the best during editing. An editor would be mightily pissed off in this case if he or she only had the one shot to work with. Coverage is not used for every scene, and what was filmed as coverage may not necessarily be used. It is more to cover every eventuality, maybe that's why it's called coverage, so that hopefully the director doesn't have to have go back and reshoot something. Not every director edits in their head, that's why a film has an editor.

So the director will shoot from a variety of angles and then use the best during editing.

But the point is a great director should know in advance which shots he's gonna shoot and in which order they'll be edited later. Then they just have to hand the ordered shot list to the editor and it's really easy and then they can just focus together on small details to make the movie really perfect.

Especially if you're an action director, you should have a plan on how you're going to do the action.

Why handicap yourself when you don't need to? Going in with a mechanical approach will only cause your film to become lifeless. I've mentioned that before. Creatively comes at different times and there's no reason to stick to a rigid list of shots when you don't have to.

For most peopl that would be true. But the all time great generally already have a perfect movie all storyboarded and visualized in their head before the shooting (that's what makes them great in the first place), so for them there's no need for that, because any possibility that could came up on set or during editing would make the movie less good than what they have planned.

It's like if an architect has conceived a plan for a building that he finds perfect, he wouldn't like that during the actual building someone tries to contest his idea because if you change something that is already perfect it makes it less good.

For most peopl that would be true. But the all time great generally already have a perfect movie all storyboarded and visualized in their head before the shooting (that's what makes them great in the first place), so for them there's no need for that, because any possibility that could came up on set or during editing would make the movie less good than what they have planned.

What color is the sky on your planet?

It's like if an architect has conceived a plan for a building that he finds perfect, he wouldn't like that during the actual building someone tries to contest his idea because if you change something that is already perfect it makes it less good.

So the /tele/ resident troll has read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead? We can only wonder what new absurdities you'll spew up when you finish Atlas Shrugged.

As I explained coverage is a safety mechanism and also means that for example for an action scene the director can shoot from a variety of angles and then leave the rest to the editor, which any competent director will do. It really is a sort of back up, it is the practical and most sensible thing to do. Spielberg and Scorsese for example do coverage. An action director will plan how to film the action and that will invariably involve coverage to cover all the bases. Another reason why it may be called coverage.

Does Scorsese shoot coverage for shots that he has in mind to do as a "oner", just in case it goes wrong? Say, for example, the scene in Goodfellas where De Niro chews up the guy for buying an expensive car. I'd be surprised. It would take twice as long.

Of course directors won't shoot coverage for every scene, that would be silly. Just where it is thought it will be needed.

Didn't someone here say Raiders didn't rely on coverage ?

With Scorsese it wouldn't surprise me seeing I don't view his directorial abilities as exhaustive, he is just good at the things he does.

Someone like Cameron though I would imagine storyboards his action scenes and rarely changes his plan in editing.

I'm sure Cameron shoots coverage, and was used on Raiders too. it's basic film school. Go to the 4filmmaking site it will tell you all you need.

Face it >>65, you're becoming a caricature of yourself.

So if a director wants to meter a scene with precise action and reaction points linked to specific lines of dialogue or specific words and intends working with the editor to sculpt the actor's peformances in a way which would be impossible or impractical on the set, then this is a flawed approach?

Bullroar! Coverage can involve just as much planning and forethought as any other method. And it can be personal.

There is no such thing as personal film-making technique.

The least personal film-making comes from wankers who constantyly seek approval and ask people what techniques to use. So copying Interstellar's mind blowing shot of Coop looking at a thing, is that building your own city from scratch?

So if a director wants to meter a scene with precise action and reaction points linked to specific lines of dialogue or specific words and intends working with the editor to sculpt the actor's peformances in a way which would be impossible or impractical on the set, then this is a flawed approach?

This is a different approcah that could give better results in terms of acting and pacing of the scene, but this is not how I think a director should work. I want a director to know what he wants before the shooting, basically in your example the director is simply a guy who sits here and then look at everything that happened and chooses what he liked best. That's not very interesting.

Again this is not about getting the best possible movie, this is about getting the more exactly possible the movie that is in the director's head. If him and the editior manage in post to get a good sequence of acting shots that is great but is not really what the director had imagined, is it worth it ? Can we still say it's the director's own dream put on screen ?

With that said I am guilty of that myself. Sometimes for example my dog will do something unexpected that makes the scene better and i'll decide to keep it. I know it's wrong but I can't help it sometimes.

So copying Interstellar's mind blowing shot of Coop looking at a thing

Which shot are you talking about ?

There is no such thing as personal film-making technique.

What do you mean ? Which technique did I say is personal ?

Again this is not about getting the best possible movie, this is about getting the more exactly possible the movie that is in the director's head

If you are a director then the the movie that's in your head is the best possible movie otherwise you wouldn't be directing it. If it's the director's vision that there will be close ups of the various actors acting and reacting during a dialogue scene then coverage is a suitable technique. It is no less personal than any other technique which a different director may feel is the best way to shoot it.

Together a director and an editor can stumble across something that wasn't conceived of before but which works far better or which the director realises is more suitable for their overall vision. Is the director supposed to ignore the artistic possibilities of that new direction because they didn't think of beforehand? Only if they are pervesely ignorant like you.

but this is not how I think a director should work. I want a director to know what he wants before the shooting

Almost all directors do know what they want, it's just that in reality they can't always get it and great directors know how to work within limitations and get the best out of what they've got.

If you are supposing that coverage cannot be a personal way of making a film, you are impying that there are personal techniques, some more than others.

You said that there was a shot in Interstellar where Coop is watching lots of videos from his family showing the passage of time while he broke down emotionally and wondered if you should use this on the bestiality video you are making.

Also. Coverage or no coverage. Directors shoot several takes of the same thing and decide along with the editor which is best or which works best with the rest of the material. It's called editing. What you are talking about is some imaginary art form that only exists in your head but which many of the most esteemed film-makers in history are retropspectively failing to achieve.

If you are supposing that coverage cannot be a personal way of making a film, you are impying that there are personal techniques, some more than others.

That's because, as I said to anon, deciding to rely on coverage is not really an artistic choice, it's just deciding to not have to decide until editing.

You said that there was a shot in Interstellar where Coop is watching lots of videos from his family showing the passage of time while he broke down emotionally and wondered if you should use this on the bestiality video you are making.

No, it was a very similar scene that had been in my mind for years, but it isn't for the dog movie, it's for a movie I would make if I were a professional director with a budget.

What you are talking about is some imaginary art form that only exists in your head but which many of the most esteemed film-makers in history are retropspectively failing to achieve.

Actually, the greatest directors of all time used an approach close to what I'm talking about. That's what often differentiates a great director from a mediocre one. My "building a city" analogy even comes from Kubrick.

Deciding to rely solely on one filmmaking technique is lazy and probably impersonal. I can't think of any director who does this.

And it doesn't matter what techniques they are using, all directors ultimately decide what the film is in the editing stage. Persevering with what you decided was going to work regardless of the outcome is pretty lazy, ignorant and arrogant.

It really doesn't matter what the shot was or how you intend to use it. The fact that you are seeking preapprove is the antithesis of everything you claim cinema to be all about.

It is also a fact that you have no experience yet you presume to know how personal, visionary etc or otherwise the use of certain valid and commonplace techniques are depending on who directed the film. Utterly arbitrary and masturbatory.

And it doesn't matter what techniques they are using, all directors ultimately decide what the film is in the editing stage.

The best don't do that. If you do that you are basically creating the movie twice : the first time during the shooting, a second time during the editing. When it should be the same continuous process with always the same clear goal in the end (not exactly clear of course, there will always be details here and here).

Persevering with what you decided was going to work regardless of the outcome

But that's exactly why filmmaking is not so easy. It's a one way road, and at the end if you realize it doesn't work you can't really go back. But the best are pretty consistent at knowing what will work before even shooting.

The best don't do that

Utterly wrong. They spend more time editing than shooting.

filmmaking is not so easy

That's why a movie is made or broken in the editing room.

But the best are pretty consistent at knowing what will work before even shooting.

No. The best are prepared to improvise and adapt both on the set and in the editing suite to make an engaging movie which best represents their vision without flushing other people's money down the toilet on something which is merely consistent with their original vision even though, for whatever reason, it didn't play out as hoped.

It's a one way road

People who make crap movies they didn't realise were crap until it was too late think this.

The best artists in any form understand that vision and creation are not the same thing. They do their best though and don't assume that everyone will admire their vision rather than their creation.

Raiders is a movie which was truly previsualised beforehand. It works extremely well. But as Nic Meyer pointed out, the only spontaneous thing in it is the fly crawling into Paul Freeman's mouth.

They spend more time editing than shooting.

But that's mostly to decide which take is the best and how many frames long it needs to be exactly. Just with that there are many possibilities to consider.

That's why a movie is made or broken in the editing room.

No, it's made or broken based on how thoroughly the director has though about his movie in pre production.

The best are prepared to improvise and adapt both on the set and in the editing suite

It's also a quality to have of course, this doesn't negate the need to know what you want and to do everything you can to get it right. Then if it doesn't work you have to know how to adapt, but experienced directors will rarely get into such situations.

But that's mostly to decide which take is the best and how many frames long it needs to be exactly

That's just not the case. It's time spent trying to mold the footage into what the director had previsualised and/or vice versa.

No, it's made or broken based on how thoroughly the director has though about his movie in pre production

If you ignore the fact that so many successful directors of some of the most successful films in history complain about not getting half what they pre conceived.

Then if it doesn't work you have to know how to adapt, but experienced directors will rarely get into such situations.

An experienced director usually gets larger budgets and schedules to ensure that they can put as much of what they see in their head on to film. They've als learnt from experience that even that doesn't guarantee that their original vision will stay intact. And it is just as likely that a director will do their best work early in their career when they are more likely to have obstacles in their way but are willing to do whatever it takes to make an appealing movie without significantly compromising their original concept.

When all else fails-

Wide
Mid
Close

Frankly, it's friggin' exhausting being totally embarrassed for other people.

I agree. If I were making a movie I would want to visualize the movie's structure first through storyboarding. I would want to know ahead of time when I was going to use a close-up or a wide-angled shot because close-ups and wide-angles have inherent expression in themselves. I would want to understand the emotional ebb and flow of each scene before I shot it so that I could tell the actors what I wanted from them before the cameras rolled. The actors would appreciate the good communication. They would be willing to follow me because I would be manifesting the traits of a good leader. During the actual filming I would want to keep an open mind because a second form of creativity happens on set, but these inspired moments must break from within and flow from a strong, preexisting, already-inspired structure in order that their weight does not warp the story's overarching structure.

The fear is that one will fail to see the forest for the trees. That's why Malick won't ever make a great film.

In god's name, what are YOU even talking about?

Coverage is a relatively modern phenomenon. The best directors know what they want from a scene most of the time, and/or shoot in such a way that coverage/cutting between closeup/mid/etc would rupture their style-- the likes of Woody Allen and PT Anderson for example. Hitchcock mapped out every shot prior to shooting.

I remember Ryan Gosling talking about the typical shooting process disparagingly in that recent HBO documentary. Having to do the same scene from a zillion different angles. Half your mind must be on nonsensical technical details like matching every minor movement, instead of performance. Pacino called modern movie acting not acting at all, but performing.

Do you live in utopia ?

Nope.

On one hand, some filmmakers seem to agree. Werner Herzog is vocally against the idea. Shooting from every angle can show a lack of confidence and it also basically forces the editor to retell the story.

On the other hand, coverage is a good thing, and especially for some large crowd scenes, action scenes, and battle scenes, can be very necessary.

Your suggested method of reshooting to me doesn't seem as good an idea as more coverage. Coverage you can get then and there, with a reshoot you have to get everyone back together and replicate the exact conditions of the scene. Guy Pierce mentioned that where he came from in the movie industry, reshoots were unheard of; expensive, taxing, and shouldn't be necessary in the first place.

Ultimately though, I think there's no one right way to get the result. Some filmmakers like a lot of coverage, some keep it confined. Some directors like a lot of takes (yes, even good filmmakers), some prefer fewer. Some allow actors wiggle room with the script, others hate watching actors improvise and other insist not a word of the script be changed.

What matters ultimately is what's on screen. That's it. Like mathematics, there is more than one way to arrive at the "correct" answer.

I agree both ways can give great movies, it's just that when you use coverage a lot it tends to reduce the director's personality in the final movie. If you shoot many angles with no idea of which should be the best one then as you say the editor is basically in a position where he can tell the story his own way. The director of course will then have to approve or not but it's not the same as if he had decided the edit himself from scratch.

I don't see why it should be a surprise that great directors like a lot of takes though. It shows they have a very precise vision and they are willing to spend the necessary amount of time to get it.

What is "shooting coverage"? I've never heard of that.

^Shooting a scene from multiple angles so you have a variety of options in the editing room, instead of having one central vision of how the scene would play out.

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.