Gentle Thug Productions: A Filmmaking Primer From CRACKED MAGAZINE...

Filmmaking is the art of transitioning a good idea to the medium of film, or, if you're Hollywood, an excuse to make money.

Really though Seth Rogen is in every comedy movie, ever.

Just The Facts

First devloped in 1873 and perfect by 1974's The Godfather Part II
Sequences photographs, or "frames" to convey motion
As of 2009, dead

How to Make a Film

So you wanna make a film? It's easier said than done. Filmmaking is one of the most intense, in-depth and frustrating arts there are. There is a loose framework that most filmmakers work off of, and it can be broken down into these steps:

Brainstorm an idea (Transformers 2 failed at this step)
Write a script effectively putting the idea into words (Southland tales failed here)
Cast your actors and/or actresses
Find a good location to shoot at (or use Green Screen)
Shoot the scenes of your film (the most fucking frustrating stage of production)
Bone the hottest actress (the most fucking stage of production, if you catch our drift...)
Edit the film (including special effects, sound effects and music)
Bone the second-hottest actress
Test the film to an audience and make changes according to feedback (Transformers 2 fails again)
Release the film - either to theaters or YouTube
Celebrate! You've just made a film!
Threesome with hottest and second-hottest acresses

Brainstorming the idea, the first stage, is the stage with least pressure because nothing is official yet and you have unlimited time. After that, the filming schedule gets fairly grueling and you'll need to buckle down and work hard if you want your film to come out great. However, because you're probably a big pussy who is scared of really trying, Cracked has created a filmmaking guide you can follow step by step on your way to creating the next Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Stage 1 - Development and Preproduction

To come up with a good idea for a film fast, Cracked reccommends using the idea web structure. All you do is pick a random object or idea and branch out from it until you form a coherent idea.

The actual idea web for the upcoming 2011 drama Lights Out, Mouth Open

Ok, so you've got your basic idea. You're already a better filmmaker than Michael Bay. The next step is screenwriting, or getting your idea into a finalized version on paper. In this step, you may re-evaluate your idea several times to improve dramatization, clarity, the number of male frontal-nudity scenes, structure, characters, dialogue, and overall style. Characters are developed, settings are introduced and conflicts are established in this step to form the backbone to which you will film. However, screenwriting is not as simple as verbally communicating your plot. If you scribble out a rough draft without making the dialgoue realistic or believable, the actor can't interpret your idea, which leads to this:

It's ~~freezy~~ easy to avoid blunders like this with proper screenwriting.

Remember to keep the underlying themes present, to keep the characters dynamic and varied and to include where scenes take place. On top of that, you've got to maintain proper script formatting. Scripts are formatted in such a way that the fuckbrained dullards of producers can easily digest the gist of the film. First, you specify the location of the scene by typing INT. / EXT. LOCATION at the top of each scene in your script. Dialogue is presented directly below a character's name with detailed accounts of non-verbal action in between (or in other words, the "John Goodman furiously pounds away at the lightbulb, not caring for the shards of broken glass lining his dong" before the "JOHN GOODMAN: God dammit, what the fuck is wrong with me?"). Let's look at a proper example of a well-written script formatted accordingly.

Exceprt of 2012's upcoming McDoover's Magical Dildo

Excellent! You've got a good idea worth filming (that does not include lightbulb fucking or glowing dildos) and you've created a properly formatted script that details all aspects of your story! Now you've got to search for proper locations that fit your script. If you can't find a good location, you can also utilize green screens, but the effect won't be as natural. And when you're shooting McDoover's Magical Dildo, gritty realism is priority number 1. Next, you should being casting your film. Try to find actors or actresses that, most importantly, can act well (Michael Bay shovels himself further into the failure hole) and who bear a physical resemblance to the character in your mind. When all is said and done, you're ready to move on to...

Stage 2 - Production

Now THIS is a film

Production! The stage in filmmaking where you actually film the movie. In this stage, you set up your camera and lighting equipment in the various locations you have deemed appropriate for your film. You also being working with your actors and actresses in this stage. But before you get filming, you need to make sure you have the optimal camera settings so your film doesn't turn out blurry and shitty like 98% of YouTube. Check out Cracked's tips on high quality camera settings:

USE A HIGH-DEFININTION CAMERA
Press record
Salivate at the eye-candy
Bone the hottest actress again

Comparing a webcam to a proper video camera is like comparing a lawnmower to a car.

To make sure your actors and actresses put on their best performances, Cracked highly advocates the method acting approach to coaching your acting cast. Have all of the main characters stay in character even when you're not shooting. This way, the actor can really get inside the head of the character, despite their being no noticable difference on camera.

Also, when filming a scene, there will probably be several instances of the dumbass actor who thinks it's fucking hilarious to forget his lines or say something dumb like "Ice to meet you". They think it's really funny wasting everyone's time and effort and forcing the production crew to restart from the beginning. Or your film could be starring Nicholas Cage, which is far, far worse.

Once you've finished shooting all of the scenes for you film and you have the footage recorded onto a camera, it's time to move on to the next stage...

Stage 3 - Post-production

Once you're done with the actual filming, it's time to begin editing the film, also known as post-production. During post-production, or simply "post" all the movie's clips are sequenced together, special effects are generated, editors lash out violently in frustration, the movie is scored, sound effects are added, the director bones the hottest actress and the movie is color graded to give it a unique look. Because we live in a technologically advanced world, most post (haha most post rhymes) occurs though specialized computer programs.

The digital film editing program Adobe Premiere looks complex but actually sucks

The most popular suite of applications used in digital post-production is Apple's Final Cut Studio. It includes the programs Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Color, CockGobble Pro, LiveType, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro. With these programs, filmmakers can successfully put a film together, add special and sound effects, motion graphics, advanced titles, color grading and DVD exporting. Alternitavely, you can use the Avid suite of editing tools, but you'll be labeled as a retard and Nazi-sympathizer for not using Final Cut. To begin post-production, you import your footage to the computer and begin selecting clips and placing them in correct chronological order in what is known as a timeline.

The blue blocks are video clips and the green blocks are audio clips. Literally that simple. Really.

Special effects editing also happens during pot-production and is currently responsible for 80% of all blockbusters. More advanced programs are needed to handle complex particle system, virtual cameras and CGI modeling. Popular special effects editors are Apple's Motion, Combustion, Adobe After Effects, Boujou, and Cinema 4D. Because of the wide variey of effects needed for filmmaking, these programs are often extremely complex and feature approximately 452,032 different tools for editing. Even the geniuses at Cracked tried to learn how to use Adobe After Effects and after 5 minute of honest effort, they trashed the studio and burned down the building in a fit of frustration of rage. During their chaotic rampage of fury, the director was boning the hottest actress, so it kind of evened out. But still, be patient if you want to learn to use one of these super advanced programs.

Uh yeah... you just... the... things and then... with the screen... the bars... uh...fuck.

When you've miraculously figured out how to implement believable effects, spliced the cllips together and gave the film a stylized look, all you need to do is export the film and presto! You're done with post production! Time to get your film out there and embrace the wave of profanity-encrusted criticism!

Stage 4 - Get your film out there

We'll be honest, we here at Cracked are not film-producing wizards. We know the ways of internet distribution, so that's what we'll cover here. We think that if you've produced a big budget film that you know where to go from there.

But for the internet, look no further than YouTube and Vimeo. YouTube is a great resource for wide exposure, but the retarded comments are less than encouraging. In fact, they are bad that they are level 5 retarded.

Did she really spell "like" as "lyk"? Dear fucking lord.

Vimeo is a video-hosting website more suitable for amateur filmmakers because it's more HD-friendly and has a much more supportivec community. As long as you get noticed, it doesn't technically matter. Simply convert your video to a .wmv or .mov file format and upload the video to one of these site. Oh, and if you want credibility, don't upload the film to your xXMightDick010Xx. Take the time to think of a halfway decent screenname before uploading your film for others to see.

Oh, and those annotations on YouTube? Those annoying pop-ups that can't be clicked out of that appear for the purpose of saying "LOL n00b got pwned" should NEVER be used in your film. If they are, that brings you up to at least a level 3 retard and the hottest actress will never bone you ever again.

Haha get it? He filmed himself pointing so that he could put an annotation there! Haha FUCK YOU

And with those four simple steps, you now have the best professional film-making tips and guidelines! Now go out there and produce something that's halfway decent so that this guide wasn't a total waste of time!

Also, one more thing: