How to get started in Filmmaking — My thoughts
9 April 2007 in Blog | Comments enabled

We were recently emailed by an aspiring filmmaker who wanted to know how to get started in filmmaking. Below is part of the answer I sent him. Thought it might be helpful to others out there.

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As for getting started in filmmaking, definintely START NOW! The earlier the better. Every filmmaker has a LOT of bad films inside and the sooner you make those films, the sooner the good ones will come out. I’m 26 and Josh is 29 and its taken us this long to get all of our bad films out… (hopefully they are all gone. hehe.)

Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect stop you from making films. Go ahead and strive to make it the best you can but at the end of the day, you have to be making films. Not every film you make is going to be The Shawshank Redemption or Jaws. And that’s okay. Josh and I have wasted sooo much time because we wanted to make a masterpiece - in the end we would scrap a project and so then we just wouldn’t have made anything. So MAKE FILMS!

I would definitely read screenwriting books. Even if you aren’t super interested in being a writer, in the beginning you probably won’t find many writers who will write for you so you’ll have to do it yourself. Syd Field’s books are GREAT. SCREENPLAY is my favorite of his. Once you finish that and you want a real challenge, read Robert McKee’s STORY.

Also, for making your angles look good and motivated, read The 5 C’s of Cinematography. It’s illustrated and has all the rules you should live by and sometimes break. You’ll understand why when watching 24, you get a little confused as to where everyone is. THey jump the line all the time. (So does Friday Night Lights and a few others.) Its a style. I’m not a big fan of jumping the line but its a style that works to keep the energy up.

Also, just to get some great low-budget filmmaking tips, read Rebel without a Crew by Rodriguez. Great book.

So once you have your stories KILLER and your films look AMAZING, what next?

Go to film school and make everyone in the class hate you because your stuff is sooo much better than theirs.

I tried to get into USC in California. I did not get accepted but you should definitely try. Its the best. And you’ll get so many opportunities that you won’t get anywhere else. FSU in Florida is a good one as well and they rejected me as well. I did however get accepted into the University of Central Florida. They have a decent film school. I only stayed there a year because Josh moved to Georgia and we are partners to it made it difficult. I moved up to Georgia and finished my schooling at Georgia State University. Their department isn’t great but its not bad either.

The thing you want to look for in a film school is a place that will let you make films as homework. UCF was great about that. We had several projects due. GSU wasn’t good about that. It was mostly about writing papers and such. But at that point, I was making so many films on my own, I didn’t need to have a professor tell me to make films. I did them in my free time.

Also, you want to make sure the professors actually worked in the film industry. UCF was good about that. GSU wasn’t. But even at UCF, I had several professors that almost made it in Hollywood, quit, and then started teaching. One professor who taught screenwriting told me that I shouldn’t expect to make it in the film industry because she didn’t. She said its too hard. Not very motivating. I’ll be thanking her at the Oscars one day. Hehe.
And if you do have homework that makes you make films, MAKE EVEN MORE. Don’t just sit back. Film school is basically an excuse to not get a job, not face the real world, and spend 4 years just making films. You get a jump on all those guys who skip film school. While they are working at blockbuster and trying to get their films made in LA, you are in film school making all your BAD films and hopefully that one good one that might get your foot in the door.

Another thing you should do while in High School and Film School is watch EVERY FILM YOU CAN! Especially old films. Go to AFI’s website and watch every film on the top 100. But you need to know who all the great directors are - Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Ford, Wyler, etc… That’s just a few. Then when you get familiar with the filmmakers of the 30’s through 50’s, move on to the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s like Coppala, Scorcese, Spielberg (my fav). All those guys based a lot of their work on the early guys. Spielberg stole a lot from David Lean, Akira Kurosawa, and Alfred Hitchcock. (Lucas stole elements of Star Wars from Hidden Fortress - a Samurai Film.) Then after you master those guys films, pick your favorites of today. I love Ed Zwick’s films - Glory, Last Samurai, Blood Diamond. I also love Shyamalan’s work (but not Lady in the Water.) Jon Turtletaub makes a solid film (National Treasure.)

And also stay true to the films you love now. Remember them. I still LOVE Back to the Future. Was my favorite as a kid and still is. I love anything Spielberg. In film school, I was criticized by every student and professor for loving Spielberg and Lucas. But I didn’t care. I love their films. So, don’t let the “artsy” students tell you that you have to like depressing films just because everyone else does. (If you do, thats cool, just make sure you like them because you like them.) And the truth be told, if you ask those artsy guys in film school what they really think of a film like Jaws, Jurasic Park, or Indy Jones, they’d say they love them. They just don’t have the guts to say it.

Now, as for how to get into the film industry, I still haven’t figured that one out. But we are trying. We spent the last 3 years (Since I graduated) trying to get Hollywood to buy a screenplay or watch our short films in hopes that they pay us to make films or write. We finally got sick of asking permission to make films and decided to go out and do it.

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(That’s upcoming news. We’ll write more on that later)

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The point is, there are several ways to get into Hollywood. Everyone is different. We believe God is in charge of our destiny so we don’t worry about it… much! We just keep trying new things and know eventually we’ll make it.