r/Filmmakers

I spent 5 years on and off teaching myself how to animate in Photoshop. Here's the result!

Is film school worth it?

What camera should I buy to become an ASC cinematographer?

I’m not in film but I wrote a script on a napkin, how do I start pitching to Lions Gate?

I finished a 265 minute short, which film festivals can I get into?

I’m in Antarctica, where can I network?

I don’t have a reel, a portfolio, a website, and have only shot home videos, how do I get agencies to call me back?

…and other questions this sub has become

I'd never animated anything before, so I made this video for my band as an excuse to learn how. Overall, this project has been in the works for about 5 years on and off. I'd work on it for a month or two, then abandon it for a while, come back to it later, rinse & repeat. I knew it would take ages but never expected it to be this long. I basically relied on sunk cost fallacy so that I felt obligated to finish it.

Everything you see was drawn frame by frame in Photoshop on a clunky oversized Wacom tablet. In some instances I'd trace over reference animations I found online to study movements and physics, then modified them accordingly. I realise this is probably cheating, but it helped me learn faster. I had no idea where the story was going, and gradually pieced together bits of cool imagery I dreamed up until it seemed like there was a semblance of a narrative. The video also informed the songwriting - we knew it would be a cartoon, and there was no way I was going to animate anything over 2min30s. Fuck that.

Anyway, I never want to see another flamingo in my life, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I learned a lot. Hope you enjoy.

Hey everyone!

I'm a junior at USC's film school and I just wrapped my second short film last month. Wanted to share something that changed how I approached pre-production on this one because I wish someone had told me about it before my first film, which was a bit of a disaster in ways I'll get into.

What went wrong the first time

My first short was a 10 minute film we shot over two weekends last year. I had the whole thing storyboarded, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, and then we got on location and I realized pretty quickly that what was in my head and what was actually achievable with our schedule and crew size were two completely different things. We lost almost half a day on the first shoot day just making decisions that should have been made weeks earlier. My DP was patient about it but I could tell it was frustrating for everyone.

My professor pulled me aside after and basically said the job of pre-production is to make sure you never have to think on set. You should already know every answer before you get there. Which sounds obvious but actually doing it with a student budget and no resources is harder than it sounds.

What I did differently this time

I started looking into AI video tools as a way to rough out shots before we committed to anything. Not to replace storyboards, I still did those, but to actually see movement and light in a scene before showing up with a crew. What I found was that different tools were useful for different things in a way that took some trial and error to figure out.

For anything involving how a space actually feels on camera, room scale, natural light through windows, how a location reads, Veo gave me the cleanest output. I used it to mock up our main interior location and showed it to my DP before our location scout and it completely changed how we talked about the shoot. We walked in already knowing what we wanted.

For wider shots and anything more atmospheric, a night exterior we had planned, a street scene at dusk, Sora handled those better even though getting access was more of a hassle. And Kling was what I used for anything where I needed to see how a subject would actually move through a space, blocking basically, it was the most reliable for that.

The workflow problem nobody warned me about is that juggling multiple tools is genuinely time consuming in a way that sneaks up on you. Different platforms, different accounts, files everywhere. A friend in my cohort mentioned Prism which lets you work across models from one place and that helped a lot once I found it. There's also a solid thread on r/Filmmakers from a while back about pre-viz on low budget shoots worth digging up, and this YouTube video on student film pre-production goes into how other people are thinking about this stuff without a big budget.

How the shoot actually went

We got everything we needed in two shoot days. No major surprises on location, no half days lost to decisions that should have already been made. My DP told me it was the most prepared she'd seen a student director come in and honestly that meant a lot coming from her.

I'm not saying AI pre-viz is magic or that it replaces actually knowing your craft. But for student filmmakers working with small crews and no margin for error on shoot days, having a rough visual you can actually show people before you get there is genuinely useful in a way I didn't fully appreciate until I tried it.

Happy to answer questions about how I used any of these tools specifically if it's helpful.

I've been working on and off in the TV / Film industry for about 7-8 years now. I started before covid and during that time loved it very much. I still really love filmmaking, but it's been an absolute struggle finding consistent work the last couple years since the pandemic happened. The pandemic put me out of work for 1-2 years, the WGA and SAG-Aftra strikes another 1-year, then the slow season made it difficult for another 1-2 years.

During the slow season of the last few years, I found a couple occasional gigs, but nothing consistent, and have seen many mentors that I used to look up to for work, now retire from this industry. I'm considering leaving the industry, even though I deep down inside love it very much, just to finally have financial stability and consistency, but unsure if it's the right decision, and where I should even go. The issue is that I never went to film school, so have no college degree in what I currently do. I already tried to find a traditional corporate job on the side, but have not been successful with it, perhaps because of my lack of a related degree. I'm also getting old now, being in my early 30s, so the need for financial stability is becoming real, especially if I end up actually starting a family someday. I'm stuck where I should go at this point, any advice? Should I go back to college for film? or completely career change, and if the latter, then struggle becomes what I could even career change into?

I watched THE SINGERS and it's a delightful little slice of humanity (and some incredible singing).

Got me to thinking/wondering about how filmmakers could get Netflix to finance (or acquire, if they aren't involved from day one, etc) their short film.

We all know that Netflix wants to win Academy Awards (Ted has stated this over and over) but I'm so darn curious if anyone here has any insight into how the short film space ACTUALLY works at Netflix. Just thinking about how it takes a 1M+ spend to win an Oscar means that there has to be a lot calculus that goes into which short films they make (or acquire).

Oh and go watch the short on Netflix. Should make you smile.

I'm a senior in HS who's been passionate about film making for a while, and I made my first film PURELY BY networking with other people who were in the industry near me outside of any educational institution. I got basically $10,000 worth of gear that I was able to borrow for free from my film friend at a previous high-school just because I reconnected with him. I also had to really network like hell to find actors in my local area, which I did too!

The creative process was really enjoyable to do, and my contribution was in screenwriting, editing, funding (only for the actors) and lastly the directing itself.

Now I'm thinking of maybe pursuing film school in California, but in all honestly looking at how the industry is and especially the overall unreliability at securing a good paying job, is it really completely and absolutely the best choice to network with other fellow filmmakers/producers? I mean aren't these connections really based on their own success rather than yours, and whether they're a producer or filmmaker in the long-run?

I don't really understand the common notion that you need to go to film school in order to even have a chance in the industry, when majority of film majors don't even pursue film after college because they realize it's not for them. But there's various film directors that never even touched film school and yet due to their networking ability, they got into the industry.

So if everything above I said is true then why shouldn't I just major in something else and secure a high-paying job (which in the long-term will fund my filmmaking) and then just connect with other filmmakers/producers even if I'm not directly receiving film specific education at the same time?

Is the connections/experience in a high-tier film school SOOO much different than meeting other film directors/producers at festivals, local groups, and communities? From my perspective it just seems so over-hyped and that if you really network aggressively, (and you are active in the community) film school just seems like a complete waste of time when you can do something that pays well and then also do film.

So in summary, should I just major in something else other than film and then still pursue it? Or go major into film which may or may not work out.

Let me know your advice. Thanks!

Hi, my name's Noah and I volunteer at Oxfam every week - sorting through and pricing donations. A few months ago, I came across the diary of a scientist and his son from the '70's, a diary that documents their massively interesting, massively eccentric lives. As an aspiring scientist myself, I bought it immediately and took it home to read.

At a family gathering a few months later, I mentioned some of the wackier details to my cousin, a student of film currently studying in Leicester. They were so enthralled in the story that they requested to read the diaries themselves, and now they are in the process of making the contents of the diary into a full movie.

As a student, their own funds are greatly limited, and while myself and family are contributing whatever we can, for this film to fully realize it's potential, we are reliant on outside donations for costumes, transport, renting spaces for filming, and much more.

There are 100's of people on this website asking for funding for student films, so why should you donate to this one?

Below is the portfolio of Hannah Broadley-Becker, the director of this film, who has been honing their skills for 3 years, and is attempting their second feature-length film.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/mab\_filmmaking/

The behind the scenes and making of the film will be fully documented above on this account, and I will also upload milestones here so you can keep track of Hannah's progress.

Every donation and any amount will be instrumental in the making of this film, which will (hopefully) will premier in a theatre, but will certainly be uploaded on youtube in full for all to enjoy.

Attached is the link to the gofundme page, please consider checking it out for any new information, and sharing this link directly to friends/family or on socials - it would be such a great help.

Thankyou so much for taking the time to read this, and I wish you the absolute best in everything.

Excited to share that my latest short film, Apricot, is now streaming with Film Shortage.

For the dreamers, the passionate, the driven; this is for you. A story about the gaining the confidence to ask for what you know you deserve.

Enjoy. Feel free to ask any questions, give me your worst boss story, and let me know what you think of the film in the comments below!

One of my biggest fears/thing that drives me insane is nails on a chalkboard. I thought that was an interesting starting point for a horror movie. I wrote a feature and shot this short film as a proof of concept.

Two of my favorite movies are The Thing and The Fly so I wanted to use some cool practical special effects for this project. If you have any questions about how we did the practical effects and how we used some VFX to augment some shots I'm happy to answer.

Enjoy!

A man wakes up, lost. Where he is and what he sees challenges him to confront himself and his feelings about himself.