Really, Beware of Thunder!

Before you plan a shoot, record the ambient sound from the location and go somewhere else and really listen to it. Make sure you aren’t missing something that’s going to bedevil you later, such as an elevator, nearby crowd noises, crashing sounds from across the street, whatever. It’s usually easier to find a new location than to clean up crap audio.

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And then get back to work on the next one.

Make a big noise when you finish something. Celebrate, dammit — finishing a movie is a Significant Event!

Death can be funny — if you give it time.

If you’re coming off a funny scene, give the next scene a few seconds to let your audience shift gears. If you don’t, then no one will ever hear whatever’s said in that scene, because they’ll be too busy laughing.

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Safer, too.

If you don’t have a Big Giant Machine to film (Big Giant Machines are very expensive props, so no one will blame you if you can’t get one), film people complaining about the sound of the Big Giant Machine just off-screen and then add the sound in post.

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It is what it is.

If people laugh, it’s funny. If they don’t laugh, it wasn’t funny.

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3D in a relatively painless fashion

Blender is a fine way to start producing 3-D and it’s free.

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Ackbar’s right, you know…

If you can set your computer up such that it can have no connectivity (such as an alternate hardware profile or a radios switch) as a bootup choice, do so and label that position “Working.” Keeps you off the Interwebs when you’re trying to get work done.

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Aieee!

Easy on using the Wilhelm Scream as a sound effect. Ten years ago, it was cute, but nowadays enough people know of it that using it actually distracts from your movie and breaks the story.

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One-night music stand.

Don’t marry your temporary music score. It’s temporary for a reason.\

Noodles are for lunch!

You can noodle on a project forever. There will always be things you can fix, always things you can nudge, but that’s not progress — that’s stalling.

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Or even a Furby!

Anyone who thinks animation has to be hyper-realistic in order to be emotionally connective never cried watching Bambi. Conversely, the more realistic an animation is, unless it is indistinguishable from real life, the creepier it is, even if it’s supposed to be happy. At best, you can achieve a creepy sort of happy. Usually, that becomes a “fail.”

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Think of it as “Contemplative Time”

If you can’t cut around bad acting, the best you can hope for is to be saved by your cutaways, and by the reaction shots of other actors. Another alternative is to rewrite the scene on-the-fly to be one of those moody contemplative scenes with billowing cloth and slow-motion cigarette smoke. I suggest you grab lots of cutaways, though.

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Delete Current Project? (yes | delete | nuke | sorrow)

Do not upgrade your system in the middle of a big project. You can wait until it’s finished, and then do your upgrade. This includes OS upgrades, CPU upgrades, application upgrades, etc.

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