Jarvik Joshi English 1101 Mrs.

Keaton November 13, 2012 Film, Movies, and Much More Ever walked into a movie, watched it, and after coming out you were like, How did they do that? The same questions arise in my mind every time I watch a movie like Transformers or any other movie that has many visual graphics and astounding sound effects. It all looks impressive when you are watching a movie but in order for it to be impressive, there are people who work hard to accomplish that. The reason why I know this is because time came when I had to create a short five minute video for my Spanish class. To start off with, we needed to have a theme or an idea to make a film about. Fortunately we were given the topic of natural disaster. That arose few other questions: What is going to be in the video? Who is going to act? At what locations we are going to shoot the video? Which camera are we going to use? How are we going to edit it? After answering all those questions, which took us quite a few hours, we were finally able to make a video and receive an A on the project. What we did was very small scale and an indie film. Just imagine, if it took me six hours to edit a five minute video, how long it takes for film makers to finalize their product which is about hour and a half to a two. The questions and the curiosity led me to dig deeper and find out what really happens in the film community. After watching those credits in every film, I can say that a lot of people are involved in making the film. The first thing that pops into my mind is actors; without them the movies would not be possible and that is why they are paid in huge amounts! Now in the beginning of most of the films, all the major roles associated with the film are shown: actors, producers, and directors.

In between those credits, we also see screen writers, costume designers, action directors, cinematographer, make-up artists, stunt coordinators, script supervisors, etc (Whitley). All those people mentioned above are considered to be in the production side of filming. Then follows the post-productions side of filming where the editor plays a major role editing and putting the film together so that it makes sense. If the film involves visual effects (VFX) and computer generated imagery (CGI), then all the animators and computer graphic creators are also involved in postproduction. There are three major parts in filming: pre-production, production, and post-production. In pre-production, idea of film starts with either a novel or a proposed script. Then the producer adapts that novel or scripts and while working with the respective authors, turns into a screen play. Then the producer looks for the directors, actors, and the rest of the crew. After finding them he assembles the cast and the crew to fit the script. All this was pre-production and then comes the production. While in production, a director is a key player because he handles the show. Cinematographer who is the eye of the director which handles the camera work and script supervisor writes down everything that happens while in production are some of the roles that also important while in production. A lot of things happen on the set so it is crucial to communicate, On set there are many ways other than talk to communicate. Usually it is in the forms of sigh language but specific to the film makers. They even use radios to let people know around the set that they are about to start shooting to prevent and obstructions (Patel). After production phase is over, post-production starts where the film is edited. Now is the time editor comes in puts the bits and pieces together so that it makes sense according to the script. Even though there are many writings involved in making films, I am going to talk about two specific ones. One being the script itself and then other is script supervisor notes. Lets start

with the script itself which is written by a script writer. A script is the most important part of the whole film making. Without a story (script) there is no movie (Patel). Script is basically a movie in writing. The community values it because it is a blue print of the whole movie. It describes every single moment of the film starting from how the scene starts and who is involved in the scene to what the setting of the scene is. It gives as much description on how it should look visually so that when the time comes, the director know exactly how to create that scene. They layout of the script starts with a heading left aligned which includes the setting and what time of the day it is. Then it describes what the mood of that scene should be. Dialogues are next. The name of the character is centered followed by their lines aligned left. Second piece of writing which is also important is notes from the script supervisor. Script supervisor play a crucial role while in production of the film. The script supervisor (a key position on a film set), notes down details of the takes such as if the take is good, if the actor missed a line, and loud noises like airplanes and such. Now a days feature films surprisingly still shoot on film. Film comes in different increments such as 400 ft. rolls or 1000 ft. The script supervisor is also in charge of making sure there is perfect continuity in the film. (Patel) The reason why all of the writing is done on the set is to help make the post-production part of the film easier. Since the community values details, the script supervisor had to write down every single moment that happened on the set so that the post-production part of the filming goes on smoothly, Its basically a logbook of everything that was shot on set. This makes it very easy helping the editor(s) put the film together (Patel). It is organized is rows and columns. Each

column labeled from left to right is scene number, take, start time code, notes, action, and the time. Making movies is no joke that is why they have to invest a lot of money, in millions or billions, to have a good movie. But for what I want to do, I dont have to spend a lot of money because I just want become an indie film maker whose budget might be in hundreds or thousands of dollars. By doing this rhetorical analysis, it helped me to conceive an idea of what I would need in terms of writing, in order to make my filmmaking experience pleasant. Now that I have seen some examples of actual scripts, I know the layout of the script which I can follow. Also taking notes while I make my film will make it easier for me to edit it.

Works cited Patel, P. (2012, November 9). (J. Joshi, Interviewer) Whitley, D. (2011, December). (J. Joshi, Interviewer)