How to Make a Ninja Movie
From the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) to today's Jet Li, ninja movies have flourished in both Asian and American culture. One of the major draws to ninja movies is the low budget with which they can be successfully made. Still, poor production techniques can lay waste to even the best scripts. You can make a ninja movie by using careful planning and exploring the different aspects of filming and character creation.
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Instructions
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Write the script before you even think about shooting anything. The script should include dialogue, character motivations, camera angles, set pieces and fight choreography. Make the script a general overview rather than a full layout of your ninja film. All ninja films should include fight scenes and dangerous situations to increase tension. The general rule in regards to action balance is to create five minutes of action for every 10 minutes of character development or dialogue.
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Design your costumes as soon as you begin the script. You may choose the traditional black (referred to as the Shinobi shōzoku) or you could be original with your design. Create contrast between your ninja protagonist and the antagonist. In other words, if your ninja is wearing all black, the antagonist should be wearing bright and vibrant colors. This costume design technique is often used to show the cultural and idealistic differences between heroes and villains.
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Use a good-quality high-definition camera to shoot your film. Avoid the use of hand-held techniques for ninja films because the shaking camera movements associated with hand-held cinematography are typically inappropriate in the ninja genre. Use a tripod for your camera as much as possible. When shooting the film, remember that the camera is the eye through which your audience will interpret each scene. Shoot the angle and content that best expresses how you feel about the scene, not just wide shots of the action. Never erase footage that you have already shot. You never know when you may need to use a scene or angle.
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Shoot fight scenes from opposite angles of impact. This means that if a character is meant to punch another character from the left, the camera should be on the right of the characters. By doing this, the impact of the punch will be masked by the camera angle and will look much more realistic. When shooting fight scenes, you may have one camera steadily rolling as a wide angle of the fight while another camera selects different angles. By doing this, you can add a great deal of shot variety to your fight scenes and keep them exciting. Shooting the entire fight scene from a wide angle is usually boring for the viewer.
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Edit your film by transferring all your collected footage into a computer program designed to edit movies. Work in small sections and take your time when editing your ninja film. No single scene should be shot entirely from one angle. Especially in dialogue scenes, mix the shot angles to add your vision to the scene and focus on the character that is currently speaking.
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Study other independent ninja movies to get an idea of how they can be shot with a low budget. Good websites to find low-budget ninja films include YouTube.com and AtomFilms.com. A fine example of a low-budget, well-shot ninja film is "The Chronicles of Raiden," available on YouTube.
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Tips & Warnings
Be safe when filming fight scenes. Film in multiple locations that best represent each character. Take your time when creating your movie.
Don't use music other than your own unless you are sure that it is legal for you to do so before releasing your movie. Avoid martial-arts cliches unless they are used for humorous purposes.
