i am an enormous noob

[PHISH1]

alright. I have been contempplating what i have been wanting to do for all my life. at first i wanted to be a psychologist. took a few classes, wasnt for me. psychologists are assholes. wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, maybe a physical therapist. nah. i have been inside my head for too long, thinking of new ways to find a career for myself. it started off by me wanting to make a lot of money and not care what i do. now i dont even care if i make a lot of money, i just want to be happy with my career and have a purpose in life. right now i am working at a pizza place taking a few community college classes here and there to please my parents. lately i have been watching alot of movies, shows on HBO, SHOTIME. i have picked up on curb your enthusiasm and i loved it. i love what larry david does and how he is. i know this sounds corny but i think exactly like him, i am him! ive been reading about him and how he got started, being a dead beat like me. (he was a taxi driver at age 30!) after fooling around with the idea i have, hopefully, made up my mind. i want to be in the film industry. i want to help make movies, maybe even make my own, possibly write screenplays. i dont know exactly how to explain it, but i think i have the right mind set to be in the industry. i dont know how to make my ideas come to life, that is why i want to go to a film school. i have been looking at the NYFC and it looks like a pretty decent school. i know its a big jump from doing nothing to something but i am willing to give it my all. with the proper training and hands on teaching i think i have a good chance to stand out there in the industry. so if anyone knows of any good schools or was in my position please PLEASE post here. i need some support here. all of you here are the only people i can really talk to about this. thank you for reading all of this.

 

[knightly]

Get access to a camera or someone with a camera and start now. Go to school if you so desire, but don't let not being in school for film stop you from getting a head start.

Write something short (2 minutes) and shoot it...it'll suck, figure out why and work on the worst part of it. Show it around and have other people tell you why it sucks. Lather, Rinse, Repeat! Eventually, you'll make enough improvements in enough places to be making shorts that people watch and have to get nit picky about (instead of just blanket statements like...sound sucks, lighting sucks, camera sucks.

Learn something every time you shoot. Focus on making something better every time you shoot.

 

[PHISH1]

any story's anyone is willing to share. what did you do in my situation? what did you start doing what helped you progress, other than what knightly has said. i want to make a film, comedy, dry humor sort of thing, or a drama, death, lies, decete, all of that good stuff. im torn, maybe i should stick to one genre? help

 

[knightly]

hit all the genres, it will inform what you do. Figure out the mmechanics of each of the genre's storytelling techniques.

For me, I had done 2 short films that got good audience response, and decided that I could do this, so I shot a feature... I don't recommend that path, although I did alot of learning on the shoot. I built a crew of people I still work with and we all just bought in and went for it.

If you do proceed that way, write a comedy or drama that doesn't require much in the way of purchasing things... don't agree (politely) to locations that won't let you shoot for free. Find actors who just are looking to get the experience. Let everyone know up front that it'll be a learning experience and that is the goal of the shoot. For most people, you won't shoot something brilliant or possibly even remotely marketable/viewable. The point is in the excercise. Every day's shoot became a day to focus on what we had done poorly the past day. Our last day's footage was much better than the first day's footage (they don't edit together well - no consistency) and the acting improved throughout as my non-actors started getting into the craft of acting more. My crew gelled and as a group we got much more technically ept (as opposed to in-ept).

My goal for that project was to have a piece that I could submit to a film festival... no need to win anything or even be accepted, just had to be an original script with all of the releases signed and completed (I'm still working on the last bit). Everything I learned about from the internet on places like this and instructional websites...and physics department's websites from big campuses.

Start at the book "Digital Filmmaking for Teens". I love that book as they cover everything you need to be able to make a short film with no money and access to a camera. The DVD is amazing on it too. "Shot by Shot" Both books by Katz are excellent reading about scene blocking and camera movement. Check your local state university... As most of them are state and federally funded, they are paid for partially by taxpayer's money and are required to be publicly accessible. You can go to the information desk and ask if you are allowed to check out books as a member of the public. Look for old filmmaking books too, the techniques for telling stories hold true today even with all the technical advances in cameras.

But most of what you learn will be on the set, so get out there and shoot something for the love of all that's moldy!

 

[directorik]

Every single filmmaker working today has been in your position. I
chose to not go to film school, many do.

knightly’s advice is the best you will get. There really is no
other way to help you progress.

If you want to write the only way you will ever become an
excellent writer is to write all the time. If you want to make
your own movies the only way to get good at it is to make movies.

Is there any reason you can’t make, say, four short movies? Two
comedies and two dramas?

That’s what I did when I was in your situation. I wrote every day
and I made one short film every four to six weeks. I tried
comedy, I tried action, I did the required teen suicide story, I
did a silent film, I made thrillers, a couple of stop-motion
dinosaur movies and even a Monty Python style movie and two
musicals.

 

[PHISH1]

haha,thanks guys. i feel a little bit more informed. i was planning on doing a teen suicide first actually. thought i could get a lot of emotion out of that, with some teen angst mixed in the bunch. thought it might be a little bit easier than most, but thats just my own opinion. but i do agree, i should proabably start reading more and write more. i have already started writing a few shorts about my old house with the roommates i lived with and also a short comedy, possibly an improv like on curb. well i got a lot of work to do so wish me luck guys, and i really, really appreciate your advice.

 

[Will Vincent]

Unless you're working with people who have done -- or better still, CURRENTLY do -- improv, I don't think it would be a good direction to head. When people aren't experienced with improv it's likely that things will get horribly off track, and it will also make you life in the editing room much more difficult.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Definitely.

Improv is one of those things that can come naturally to someone until they actually have to do it for a purpose of some kind.

I've learned that the hard way in the first stand-up comedy shows I did.

As for your position, I'm pretty much in the same boat.

And the way I handle it is to just watch everything I can...feed my passion...and I try to supplement that with trying (desperately, in some cases) to learn everything I can about the technical side.

I'm struggling pretty heavily with that part, but I figure the desire and willingness to go after it in a serious way has to count for something eventually.

But that's just me.

 

[directorik]

On the other hand, improv can be an excellent way for "an enormous noob"
to learn why things succeed or fail. I'm all for experimenting with everything
you can think of. If a newbee tries improv and it goes horribly off track - try
something else. But if we don't even try...

Well, I think that's worse than making a terrible movie.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Well said, sir.