1 year, 1 filmaker, 50 films

A

Absolution_Films

Hi Guys,

So I have finally decided to get off my butt, stop procrastinating and film some stuff, learn from it, rinse and repeat as many people quote on here.

Taking inspiration from Preston Kanak a Filmmaker from Saskatchewan, Canada (whom I have spoke with) who made a film a day in 2010, I shall be taking on a slightly lesser task of a film a week (50 in total) I am fully aware there are 52 weeks in the year but 50 sounded nicer :D

I have decided to start a blog and share all my experiences along the way, the highs the lows, the equipment I used and why.... it will be a warts n all blog.

I am hoping it will not only be interesting to the general public but be a good resources for like minded indie filmmakers to learn from and witness my mistakes and not fall into the same traps.

I am not great filmmaker and am hoping this will be a great learning process for myself and make me a better filmmaker.


It would be great if you could have a look at my blog and even follow/subscribe to it and of course give me feedback on the films I upload :D

www.the50filmproject.wordpress.com

Any questions just ask!

Thanks

Mark
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Haha, thanks Phil, its a very daunting task and may well fall flat on its arse so to speak.

Although I have done a good amount of corporate work i still feel stunted on my creative and personal side, so this will hopefully help that.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Good luck to you,
I made 20 films in a year (Nov '11 - Oct '12) each ran between 3 and 7 mins.

I thought the most difficult part was getting a rotating cast, It was all well and good putting in the hours, writing, editing etc, learning new skills on and off set but I fell into a 'trap' of making the actors comfertable - I know they are giving me their time for free but if you don't push for good direction then the new skills you learn, or the brushing up of your exsiting skills may get over looked when looking back at the compleate project.


Good luck.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes for you. I've tossed this same idea around a few times but when I start thinking about all the other stuff I need to get done it always gets pushed off to another year...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Good luck Mark! Sounds like a great project and I'm sure it'll make for an interesting, albeit exhausting, blog. You might want to also consider (although I appreciate it's EVEN MORE work) doing a short video blog for each film.

If you ever wanted a writer for a narrative piece, just gimme a shout ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ferguson Films said:
Good luck to you,
I made 20 films in a year (Nov '11 - Oct '12) each ran between 3 and 7 mins.

I thought the most difficult part was getting a rotating cast, It was all well and good putting in the hours, writing, editing etc, learning new skills on and off set but I fell into a 'trap' of making the actors comfertable - I know they are giving me their time for free but if you don't push for good direction then the new skills you learn, or the brushing up of your exsiting skills may get over looked when looking back at the compleate project.


Good luck.
Click to expand...

Jesus H. How did you do that? I have a load of shoots going on and I am really struggling.

Admittedly I have a teenage daughter, girlfriend, ex-wife, divorce, winding up a business, dealing with taxman, lawyers etc... and a job to take care of at the same time but Jeez, that would've killed me! How did you manage it?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
gorillaonabike said:
Jesus H. How did you do that? I have a load of shoots going on and I am really struggling.

Admittedly I have a teenage daughter, girlfriend, ex-wife, divorce, winding up a business, dealing with taxman, lawyers etc... and a job to take care of at the same time but Jeez, that would've killed me! How did you manage it?
Click to expand...



With out hi-jacking the thread.....

I HAD to learn how to make films - I had never been on a film course at school or anything so I had no practical knowladge (aim camera hit record - thats about all I knew)

I have an over active imagination, seriously I have around 30 short scripts written and 4 feature length scripts started.
I think my work pattern helped, I work Sunday - Friday (with one random week day off) 6am - 3pm, which makes my evenings feel so much longer, thatshow I got a lot of the writing and pre-production out of the way, both my children go to school/pre-school so my random weekday off was a quiet editing day (I hate to leave a project half finished, so if it was a 3 min film it would be edited in one day, if it was longer I would break it down in to chunks - where I was happy to leave it - big scene changes etc)

Casting - that got eaiser after I had finished the first 4 films (the first 4 my brother and myself featured a lot and we had a lot of unpaid cast drop out at the last min... sometimes even just an hour before filming we would get a text saying 'sorry something came up') after the 4th film we had 8 men and 4 young ladies who were all willing to come back and help out where needed, and of course each of them knew one or two people who were intrested in getting infront of the camera.....


Hmmm... after a quick re-read, I'm not really sure if any of that helps but thats how my amazing journey into film started...... and it all ends up on youtube - after all its just for fun!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks guys,

Once again, the response has been great.

The main reason for doing this really is I sat here this time last year with so many grand plans for 2012, films I wanted to produce, Places I wanted to go... but without a definitive plan or set goals and timeframes they didn't materialise and that in itself was demoralising.

I have a freelance film company which I produce corporate films with but they are all pretty much standard affair and the client has final control of the project. In doing these projects for clients I became frustrated with myself that yes I was producing films but in fact I was spending many hours on projects and films that did not drive me and make me feel like I have accomplished something. It pays the bills though.

Alongside that as I have stated before my biggest demon is procrastination, I am great at thinking up ideas but I have too many of them and they all overshadow each other leaving a result where I dont get any of them done.

My long suffering fiancee had gotten to the point this year that when I said "I have any idea, can I run it by you?" Her reply straight away was "NO! I dont want to hear it, just bloody do it"

By setting up this project and making a commitment by promoting it online it has put a pressure on me to follow through with it and accomplish something I will be proud of.

Again as I said before im not claiming this is a grand new innovative project as I have merely adopted the idea from Preston Kanak but I have seen and spoke to him about how much it has helped him in his filmmaking career and I want to sit here this time next year with a self satisfaction for what I have done and learnt from the whole process.

Heres to the next step!

Hope all that makes sense!! haha
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
What's the rough guesstimate minute length of 80% of these films going to be?
And when's the first one going to debut?

GL!
thumbs2.gif
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi Guys,

I have posted a new blog... starting to feel the pressure as people are genuinely intrigued as what I will do now! aagggghhhh

http://the50filmproject.wordpress.com/blog/

Rayw good question... I am hoping the films/videos will be between 4-7 minutes and the first one will be uploaded on Sunday Jan 13th.

Ive already had bands wanting to know if I would do them a video as part of the project, Ive spoken to some people I know who have suffered from Cancer and they are willing to do a short documentary about it all. A friend wants to do some timelapse with me.

So I definitely have a lot to keep me going... Even in just this last week it has really pushed my enthusiasm through the roof!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Congratulations and good luck on your film. I have made a similar vow for 2013. After a long period of procrastination, I am going to write 12 feature length scripts this year. I look forward to viewing your work over the course of the year.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Can't wait to see what you come up with and how you progress... perhaps setup a showcase of some sort that shows all of them as you make them in order to see the improvement.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top