Creating Movies

By: Jason Petrina



If you’ve been to the movies lately and seen some of the stunning special effects that light up the screen and the speakers, you can’t help but wonder how Hollywood gurus manage to make the scenes come alive with such depth and truth.

In actuality, the process of creating movies has been an evolution in the works since the 17th century. Yes, even then; people were tinkering and experimenting with various ways to create moving pictures. During the intervening years, inventors and amateurs alike have had plenty of time to whittle the process of creating movies down to an art form.

The movies that light up the silver screen as well as your television screen today may only last anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, but you can rest assured that the process of creating them takes much longer. In some cases, it may take years to bring a movie from concept to final fruition, as it moves through the various stages of the cinematography process.

Regardless of style or genre, every movie must have a beginning and for all movies that beginning place stars with screenwriting. While you may not hear as much about screenwriters as you do about renowned directors and famed actors, movies would certainly not be the same without them. In fact, movies would never even make it off the ground without screenwriters. While a large number of movies are taken from novels that have been previously published, in most cases; novels in their original context are not suitable to go directly to the screen. It is the job of screenwriters to move the text of novels and books into a format that can be appropriately presented on screen.

Today, some directors are almost as famous as the stars they direct on camera and equally well paid. Frequently, the only roles that we see directors playing are giving the orders for action and ‘cut.’; however, directors play a much more important role than simply ordering the operation of filming. In some cases, it is the role of a director to actually mold and shape the script; working right along with screenwriters. The director also works with the majority of the rest of the crew including production members.

One of the most time consuming portions of creating a movie is actually known as pre-production. This stage by itself can go on for weeks by the stages are built, scenes are rehearsed and locations are scouted. In addition to all of these tasks, the schedule for how scenes will be shot must also be planned. While movies are shown in sequential order of the scenes as relative to the script; they are not filmed this way. It is quite common for scenes to be filmed completely out of order as necessary according to dictates of scheduling, weather and other events.

After all of the planning has taken place, it’s time for the actual shooting to begin. As surprising as it may sound, this is also a time consuming process. On average, only about three minutes of screen time are shot per day due to delays and retakes. Given the average length of movies running 90-120 minutes you can quickly calculate how long it takes to shoot the average length movie.

Once filming is over, other tasks still must be handled. At this point, movies go into what is known as post-production. It is during this phase that the film is assembled into the format resembling the movies that will eventually appear on the big screen. Scenes must be edited for both film and sound before movies are finally released for distribution.

As you can see, the process of creating movies is a long and labor intensive process; but well worth the effort.


Jason Petrina is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com