Quote: Mr Ashdown @ September 14 2010, 2:19 PM BST
A couple of technical suggestions.
Quick cutting always improves low/no-budget films. A common mistake is to have static scenes that just go on way too long with the camera not moving. You can shoot a five minute dialogue exchange, and simply use bog-standard video editing software to zoom in on certain sections for close-ups, or mid-shots, or whatever, then plonk 'em into the scene to give it a bit of punch. It takes very minimal effort to do this, and it's well worth it. The scene is unchanged from the shoot, but because the editing is offering new visuals every 30 seconds to a minute or so, it seems faster.
Rehearse a scene at least once, and shoot everything at least twice. You'll have more rushes to chose from in the edit, and you can cut out corpsing, fluffed lines, etc.
American sitcoms have cutaways for scene changes. To imitate this, film the outside of your home for a few minutes, and simply drop a few seconds of the footage between your scene changes.
Use as much lighting as you can, and set your camera to a non-natural light mode; if at all possible, have the lights (lamps, etc) up high, to avoid casting shadows. If your actors are sat on a sofa throughout the scene, for instance, you can set the camera position to slightly above their eyeline (camera pointing down) and above and behind them you can be throwing as much light down as possible. This doesn't cost money (you're not hiring halogen lamps) but does take a bit of, well, producing and directing.
The performances need a bit more energy and commitment. Know the lines, try to stay in character at all times, be generous and *always acting* with co-performers. An acting coach suggested that -- for this kind of thing -- it's a good idea to jog on the spot before the cameras role so you hit the scene fast and give it complete focus.
Lastly, I'd love to write a three minute sketch about your beards. Please make this happen.
Ok, cool. And yeah, it would be awesome to be able to have more camera angles, locations etc. - we have a couple of friends with camcorders who we have talked about collaborating with so perhaps we will make this happen with a beard sketch!
I like the idea of jogging on the spot before starting filming as well - I can see how that would work. Thanks for the comments, sir.
Quote: Leevil @ September 14 2010, 2:24 PM BST
There's a whole range of comedy on here. Admittedly not all that good. But don't blame the audience if your style doesn't work. Ahem.
Did you read the whole post, in which I fully explained my reasoning?
otherwise skim-reading happens 
