5 Of The Biggest Technical Filmmaking Mistakes Beginners Make

INTRODUCTION

Filmmaking is an art, but also comes with a technical side that can take time to master. Beginners starting out with a passion for movies and storytelling will quickly find that these technical mistakes can sever the illusion of movie magic and pull the audience completely out of the world of the story.

That’s why today let’s break down five of the biggest technical pitfalls new filmmakers face - and, more importantly, diagnose how you can avoid making them.  

1 - SPATIAL CONTINUITY

Seated or standing dialogue scenes are what make up the bulk of most narrative scripts and are incredibly important for conveying information and pushing the story along. Making a spatial continuity error when filming these scenes by placing the camera or subjects in the wrong position is therefore an ever present, looming danger which could make entire scenes unusable.

Here’s an example of how most dialogue scenes between two characters would be filmed. Everything seems normal and it’s easy to imagine where the characters are in relation to each other.

 If it was instead shot like this, it makes the spatial relationship between the two characters a bit confusing. Something feels off - like both characters are standing on the same side of the room.

Continuity mistakes can be easily avoided by following one of the most important filmmaking guidelines, called the 180 degree rule.

Here’s what it is. If you place two characters in a room, imagine that there is an invisible line that runs through both of them. The 180 degree rule mandates that all shots filmed of these characters interacting should be done from the same side of the line. 

So if one close up is shot at an angle from one side of the line, the camera should be repositioned on the same 180 degree side of the line to film the other close up.

If the camera crosses this line, the positions of the characters will flip on-screen, creating confusion for the viewer. This is called ‘breaking the line’.

An easy way to check if you have followed the 180 degree rule is to review the two shots and check that one of the character’s eyeline is going from left to right, while the other character’s eyeline is going from right to left. If both characters are looking in the same direction, for example from left to right, then you’ve jumped the line and made a mistake.

There have been a few occasions where established filmmakers intentionally break this rule - often to provoke an emotional tone (like a feeling of unease or disorientation). However, as with most technical guidelines, I’d highly recommend beginner filmmakers stick to convention early on. 

There’s a danger that low budget, student or beginner films that break this rule will look like they made a clumsy mistake - even if jumping the line was a deliberate choice.

If you feel there’s a genuine reason that you need to break the line, it helps to have a wider neutral shot to cut to, that you can place in between the two shots where you want to jump the line.

2 - INCONSISTENT EXPOSURE

One of the most important but often underappreciated parts of a cinematographer’s job is maintaining lighting and exposure continuity across each scene. 

Having one shot with vastly different lighting or brightness in a sequence is a surefire way to disengage the viewer from the story and break the illusion of reality.

One way to prevent this from happening is to set up continuous artificial light sources. If unmoved, these will supply consistent illumination for the extended period of time that it takes to move the camera around and film all the different shots in the scene. 

When these various shots are edited together they will look seamless, as if the scene unfolded in real time.

The choice of what lights you use and where you place them is a nuanced topic, but a basic starting point is to think about where the natural sources of light are coming from and then place your lights in a position that copies the direction and quality of that light. 

So, if there is a lamp on a table, perhaps you can aim your light at the actor from the same direction as the lamp. Or, if there is a window, place your light so that it shines through it - just as the sun would do.

In most cases I’d avoid placing lights in arbitrary positions which aren’t motivated by real or imagined light sources. You don’t want to end up with a frame which is lit by multiple suns - which makes the world unbelievable. 

Maintaining lighting continuity for exteriors can be much more tricky - as you may have to shoot a scene over a day with changing weather conditions - which go from cloud to bright sun.

The most important starting point here is to make sure you maintain a consistent exposure that is neither too bright nor too dark by using exposure tools like a waveform, false colour, or zebras.

Depending on the situation you may have to try and schedule shooting around the weather - for example shoot one scene in the morning when it’s overcast, come inside to shoot an interior, then go back outside in the afternoon once it’s sunny to shoot a new scene.

Another trick is using textiles like diffusion, to create a cloud cover feel which will even out minor changes in natural light.

3 - CAMERA SETTINGS

The camera settings you select are critical because they directly influence the visual style, mood, and storytelling of your project. Although some may say there are no wrong choices when it comes to artistic decisions, there are some basic settings which should be stuck to as a rule in almost all cases.

When setting up a camera you’ll need to dial in your frame rate, shutter, ISO, the aperture of your lens and the white balance. 

Here are the default camera settings you should use in most situations. 

To get a normal, non-slow mo, feeling of motion, PAL countries use a frame rate of 25FPS, while NTSC regions will use either 24 or 23.98. If you’re using a cinema camera with a shutter angle you can set this to 180 degrees. 

Or if using a mirrorless camera with a shutter speed you can set it to approximately double your frame rate, so 1/50.

Most digital cinema cameras these days will come with a recommended ISO, or base ISO, such as 800. In most cases I’d stick to this recommendation.

If you’re starting out I’d recommend setting the aperture of the lens to a low f-stop number. For example in the f/2 to f/2.8 range. If your lens is slower than this then I’d set it to the lowest f-stop value possible. This will give your footage a shallow depth of field, which if you’re starting out is an easy way to visually elevate your footage.

Rather than using auto mode I’d recommend setting the white balance for each scene or new lighting situation you are faced with. There are three main settings I would try to stick to. For exterior daylight scenes I’d select a white balance of 5,600K, for interior or night scenes lit by warm tungsten light you can shoot at 3,200K and for scenes with mixed warm and cool light sources you can set your white balance to 4,300K.

Although this would be the basic starting point it is also possible to play around with different white balances to find a number that you feel gives the scene the colour that you are after.

4 - AUDIO

Beginner filmmakers have a tendency to focus mainly on the footage they’re getting. It’s important to remember that the images only make up 50% of a movie going experience. The other 50% is done with sound.

This is one of the big mistakes we made when filming our first no budget feature called Relics. Without professional sound you don’t really have a usable product.

So, what are different pieces of sound that you’ll need to focus on? Firstly and most importantly you’ll need to record clean dialogue of all the spoken lines. 

To do this I’d recommend recording sound with both a lapel mic, which is placed on whoever is speaking, and also recording sound with a boom mic. Make sure that this boom mic, as well as the microphone packs, are never seen in shot.

Next, it’s good to record ambience or a buzz track. In other words get around one minute of sound where nobody is speaking, recorded in the location that the scene just took place in. This can be layered underneath the dialogue and will help to smooth over any cuts in sound - for example if different pieces of dialogue are used from different takes.

It’s also useful to try to grab wild sound of any foley or sound effects which may be relevant - such as the sound of footsteps, or wind blowing outside. 

5 - COLOUR GRADING

Color grading is essential because it transforms raw footage into a polished, visually compelling final product that aligns with the story’s mood and tone.

When I was starting out as a cinematographer I didn’t know much about grading and often wouldn’t push for a look to be applied to the footage - which left some of the early short films I worked on largely ungraded.

Cameras and post production software have since come along in leaps and bounds and it’s now easier than ever to give your project a nice graded look. Because many beginners won’t have access to a dedicated colourist, there is a simple workflow that will get you around this issue.

Firstly, it’s important that you shoot the footage in log. This is a flat picture profile which will give you more room to make adjustments to colour, contrast and exposure in grading or editing software.

Once you’ve set your camera to log I would import the LUT which you want to use in the grade: either to an external monitor or to the camera itself. These come in CUBE files and can be downloaded online or found in programs like Da Vinci Resolve. 

It’s important that his LUT is put in the correct colour space. For example if using a Sony camera, make sure the LUT is compatible with Slog.

You don’t want to bake this look onto the footage, but rather use it as a way to monitor how the flat footage will look once you apply this LUT later. Make sure that you are happy with your lighting, white balance selection and exposure when you view the monitor on set with the look applied.

Once you’ve shot your footage and brought it into editing software, this LUT can then be applied to give you the same look that you were viewing on set.

Finally, you can do minor colour correction, like adjusting the colour balance or going slightly up or down on exposure - until all the shots in the scene have a consistent colour, look and brightness.

By mastering LUTs and basic color grading, beginner filmmakers can not only improve the quality of their current projects but also lay a strong foundation for creating visually impactful films and using more advanced grading techniques in the future.