Bonjour
- Thread starter PaulW
- Start date
back!
Great to be back! And bizarrely, a professional film maker (corporate)! Who would've known? Am focusing on trying to shoot and commercialise a no-budget feature so will see what happens!
How are you?
im great, what is the nature of this no-budget feature of yours?
British, gangster thriller with a twist!
Would you like to see a scene? Let me know if it's any good?
Hey, Paul. Was wondering if you'd be able to share your journey so far for your feature film? I'd be interested in gleaning some pointers or insight from you as you are going through the stages of it?
If not, I understand probably due to non-disclosure or something. But it would be cool to actually get a glimpse at other peoples projects up here.
If not, I understand probably due to non-disclosure or something. But it would be cool to actually get a glimpse at other peoples projects up here.
Girl's supposed to be dead and a figment of his imagination. Just a little scene.
Non-disclosure? It's an attempt at a first feature! It'll probably be terrible. Here's a scene so you can judge for yourself. It's not quite the finished article and the girl's supposed to be dead and just a figment of his imagination.
The thing about a feature is I'm really old. Nearly 50 and I'm a 'born again' meaning I wasn't a pro film maker, rather I was working in an office. I thought about the journey to get to become a feature film director and producer so started on that.
1. Stage 1. So the first part is I created a load of shorts, get them into fests etc...
2. Stage 2 was to get people buying my stuff so music vids etc... Low end musicians are tough to work with because there's a reason they're still bumping along the bottom. Mostly that reason isn't a lack of talent but a lack of listening to what works.
3. Stage 3. Unplanned. Ex-wife wanted to divorce (then didn't want to divorce - there's a whole feature in there, all by itself), mess my life up, spend a load of money on my ex-wife and spend years sorting that stuff out. Once that had been sorted, I could start to rebuild.
4. Stage 4. During the divorce, write a load of feature screenplays. I wrote seven, a novel etc... so am beginning to understand what it takes including process, bringing in 'script consultants' etc...
5. Stage 5. Become a professional, corporate film maker. Did that. Learned a huge amount and am doing that now.
6. Stage 6. Create a commercialisation plan for a feature.
7. Stage 7. While being a corporate film maker, shoot a feature at weekends. Part of this is learning that what's on the page isn't good enough and learning to adapt this. It's huge. Absolutely huge. I can't underline enough how this is an incredible learning experience and all about why first features aren't good enough. Massive learning curve.
Also, 'commercialisation.' Most film makers don't really think about selling their stuff. I spoke to a feature film director stuck in a rut of making his own movies. The movies were OK, generally watchable and better than some stuff with decent budgets and stars. He was on his sixth. I asked him what his commercialisation plan was and he asked me straight out 'what's a commercialisation plan?' I realised he just wanted to make movies, sell them and then his corporate work subsidised all of this.
At each stage, if my stuff wasn't good enough, I had the idea that I wouldn't attempt the next. So, for example, if music vids etc... weren't good enough, I wouldn't take the next step to becoming a professional, corporate film maker.
Awesome response. Thanks so much for sharing! I can take a lot from this, since I am almost in the same boat.
The footage looks great, has nice framing and the characters seem believable.
I have a full time office job now, and have started with making short films with my own financing.
What I can take from your history is I should probably figure out how to sell and market a film primarily. Crowdfunding is nice, but leaves too much up for random acts of kindness.
What would you recommend to someone like me, who is on their 2nd short film, and wanting to continue making content? I have 6 more years before I fully retire from my job, and I will need something to do. I was hoping film-making would fill that void.
The footage looks great, has nice framing and the characters seem believable.
I have a full time office job now, and have started with making short films with my own financing.
What I can take from your history is I should probably figure out how to sell and market a film primarily. Crowdfunding is nice, but leaves too much up for random acts of kindness.
What would you recommend to someone like me, who is on their 2nd short film, and wanting to continue making content? I have 6 more years before I fully retire from my job, and I will need something to do. I was hoping film-making would fill that void.
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Glad you like the look of it. Most of the scenes are like that and just stitching it all together and filming the rest.
I have no idea what I'm doing! Wish I did! What I did was to come up with a plan but like Tyson always said: "No plan survives being punched in the face!"
If you're shooting shorts, I'd suggest not paying much money. Just figure out what you're doing. It seems to 'come' if you've got talent. I shot a short which got into the London Independent Film Festival which is a good festival. Just before and after it, there were two shorts where they'd spent $15,000 USD+ I spent $750 USD total. We were all in the same festival so it's possible to compete the 'big boys' with very little money.