Markus Markou talk – How to make a feature film

-          The simple fact is, the characters in your film need to be likeable. If the audience don’t care for the characters it makes your film less interesting and engaging.

-          When planning or creating the relationships between your characters, make a mind map with your main character in the centre, surround him with the other characters and use different coloured lines to represent different relationships e.g. Red = Conflict. This makes it easier for you to recreate the relationship on camera if you fully understand it yourself.

-          Make sure your master shot works. If you have a good master shot, you can always use it as backup if a shot you thought would work doesn’t. It should contain all the action of the shot.

-          This sounds silly, but make sure you have an idea of what you’re going to shoot. If you don’t you end up shooting useless angles and scenes which just wastes time which consequently wastes money, and both are precious. Also it makes the editing process a lot easier, as you have much less footage to review.

-          Shots and what they look like tell the story as much as the script sometimes. Angles, colour and what is in the shot can all effect emotion and can have a huge impact of what the audience feels.