Shall I spend a lot of time on ONE film ?

L

lightcameraction

First of all I want to point out that my brother has account here as well, so I tryed to make one for me only but it got deleted instantly so ..why is that ?


However I have a question.

Im shooting for half an year now and I'm not the best,but I have a lot of ideas for different kind of projects.
But for instance,for 12 minute short film I want to spend a couple of weeks on it ,build differend kind of props and stuff .
However I do a lot of photography as well so I don't think I'll have the time for building stuff , preparing the short,scripts + doing the photography part .I barely sleep to finish After Effects project as well so I don't think I can do short test films while I do all these other stuffs..

So I have no idea if you understood me so I'll go straight to the question..

Shall I make a lot of crappy films as most people suggest ,or shall I spend more time on a bigger film ?

I really want to spend more time on something but at the same time I feel like im missing an oppurtinity to do something fun that may get a lot of views in Youtube for instance .

What do you guys do ? Do you spend a lot of time on something ( I mean .. a couple of weeks ) or you just go out there and shoot something .
 
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Since there's no realistic money to be made in making shorts the experience you learn is great from solving multiple different problems on each short.

You will learn more from making five four minute shorts than four five minute shorts, or two ten minute shorts and a whole lot more than on one twenty minute short.
Doing them reasonably fast doesn't mean they HAVE to be bad.
Just make them proportionate to your time and cost resources. :yes:

Keep a record of all of your ideas.
I have an email address specific to my story ideas and development homework.
I write emails and save them as drafts.
If you can set up a google documents address in Bulgaria - then do so (I have no idea what site are or are not available around the world.) You can set up all sorts of development plans there that you can access at home, work, or school.

And the reason your IT setup was likely deleted is because each computer or internet access provider assigns a unique IP address.
You and your brother working out of the same house and or off the same computer are likely going to generate an identical IP address signature which the "bad guy" filters at IndieTalk's computers are going to flag as "One baddie making multiple IT membership attempts, which is against the rules."
Likely.
 
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lightcameraction said:
Shall I make a lot of crappy films as most people suggest ,or shall I spend more time on a bigger film ?
Click to expand...

By bigger do you just mean longer? Or less crappy? In my experience if you're already making crappy short films then a longer project will also be crappy, but with more crap.

But as Dready suggested I think maybe what you're talking about and what most people here think about as a 'bigger film' are two different things. Two weeks to do a 12 minute short from start to finish isn't very much time at all. It's certainly possible, but it's going to require a lot of focus and coordination to bring it together into something that's not crappy.

I don't quite understand the feeling that you might miss an opportunity to make something good that would get youtube views - wouldn't you also want that for a longer project? We're also only talking about two weeks here - there'll be enough weeks left this year alone to do 10 more projects of that length, even if you take a short vacation. Doesn't sound like you'd be missing any opportunity...
 
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Let's put things into perspective a little...

First, what is your goal? Is this a hobby or are you looking to make this a career?

Are you completely insistent on doing everything yourself? Isn't there someone else who can do some things for you?


Okay, with that out of the way...

A complete audio post (dialog editing/cleanup, Foley, sound FX creation/editing, mix) can take me two to twelve hours per linear minute. So a 10 minute short will take 20 to 120 hours. 120 hours is three 40 hour work weeks. I'm sure that the other post disciplines take similar amounts of time. And that's only post; what about writing, development, prepro, and the shoot itself?

Excellence is talent and attention to detail. Attention to detail takes PATIENCE!!!
 
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To take IDOM & Alcove's points and expand only a little, in my brief experience, for every eventual screen minute of product I'll spend probably an hour on writing and rewriting, less than an hour on pre-production, an hour of actually recording raw images - which really means about an hour and a half of transportation + set up + recording + breakdown, an hour on audio editing, an hour of video editing.

So that's:
1hr writing & rewriting
+ 0.7hr pre production organizing
+ 1.5hr transp/set up/record/break down
+ 1hr audio editing
+ 1hr video editing
= about 5hrs/1min final product
x ?? minutes of final product
= A lot of dedicated time before you know it! :yes:

And that's for a one man show.
If we started adding the time of others into the math, then...

So... a few weeks to make a short isn't all that far fetched. At all. :)
 
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If i'm 100% honest with you and myself the reason why most of the times my films are crappy is because I don't keep track of the shots.

For instance I take pretty cool shots,but then I always miss something and sometimes it is something that is important and if i dont have it sometimes the film doesn't make sense at some point of it.I think it cuz of lack of preparation , or maby cuz of lack of talent . Both ways I'll try make a career at filmmaking no matter what.

Anyway I love doing all these little details which nobody sees but I just know they are there.My lighting is not bad,color correction is pretty descent I must say for the time I work with after effects.My stories are not that bad..but yet,this is my problem . And I started designing my own props and a lot of other cool stuff for the short . But it will take me more time,that's why im asking.

I'm storyboarding now everything ,so hopefuly i won't to the same mistake again .

so..yeah.
 
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