Something that has been on my heart of late is the word collaboration. I (like many of my esteem colleagues) have learned to work in different areas which we are uncomfortable in out of necessity rather than choice. But like many of my heroes, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarintino, these guys are very much a DIY filmmakers. And rightly so, they have pioneered a generation of filmmakers who have learned to make films all by themselves and have taught me that money should not be the defining factor in you telling the story you want to tell. But as I continue to work with people I am learning more and more of the shortcomings I have as a filmmaker and as a director, and how much better my work becomes as I work with very talented people. The documentary “the making of church news” you see below was an amazing group effort and I believe that without those people, the product simply would not have shone as well as would have. And to be honest, the stuff I am proudest of is rarely the stuff I work on alone, it’s actually the stuff I have collaborated with people on. In essense, I have come to the realisation that I NEED people to make great stuff. And collaboration with the right people is always going to yield better results than you trying to do it all on your own.

Now this is not to say as a filmmaker you should try to avoid some common pitfalls:

• When you are directing a film, appoint someone the director. Co-directing can be difficult cause you’re always going to have differing opinions and for the sake of your crew and sanity, make sure the crew knows that the director will have the final say even if no one else agrees. I don’t care if you are all friends. Pick a director and make sure you respect that director!

• Pass your script around and make sure it makes sense and don’t be too proud for them to ask you the hard questions. You’ll be happier for it I promise.

• ALWAYS test screen your film before you show it to the world. Nothing worse than showing the world your beautifully crafted movie and finding out it has terrible undertones to it. ugghhhh… Yes Jess if you are reading this, this one is for you

Throw your ego aside, and let someone else help you. I promise you’ll at least be surprised by the results.

So I have been deliberating on what are the most common (but easy to miss) mistakes that people make when you start out doing videos.
I have narrowed them to five. I have called them “the terrible five!” dun dun dun.

1. Bad audio - This for me is one of the biggest deal breakers in making your video either the best thing or the worst thing on the planet. It doesn’t matter how good your video is, it could be shot with the best prime lens on the RED camera and graded by Glenn Stewart himself, if the audio is crap, it will be percieved as pretty… erm crap…
Pay attention to your audio. it will save your life.

2. Title safe - I hate, I HATE, when people don’t pay attention to title safe. When you make your videos, make sure you titles are within the title safes. For me there is nothing that screams more “I don’t know what I am doing” than making your titles OUTSIDE title safe. Get the titles inside the lines guys, it’s not that hard!

3. Over exposed footage - When you’re out in the field and your shooting your footage, overexposing your footage is what I like to call “destorying” your footage. In reality you can grade things in post to give that overexposed look, but you can never go back the other way. Once you lose that detail, you lose it forever. Digital video (apart from shooting red) gives you little or no latitude when exposing things,  so if you are losing that detail in the view finder, you’re gonna lose it when you bring it back to the computer.

4. Bad lighting – This is an area that a lot of video professionals seem to neglect a lot. Lighting will set the mood and tell your story better than your camera can. It can take some time to set up right, but once you get it, every shot will look like a million bucks and then it means less time in post grading and more time telling your story!

5. Too many fonts! - if you wanna show people how terrible you are at video design (or just design in general) just use too many fonts. It’s so simple! Start with comic sans and work your way to windings. The more fonts you have, the more amateur you will look!but Seriously keep it simple. Choose one or two (at most).

And with that I will leave you with this amusing video on local commercials: