JonathanLB
Carbonite Member
You can't, really. You can't have it be any good, at least. Any advice to the contrary is just not smart, I'm sorry.
You want to spend enough money to make a good feature, which you should spend enough money to have it turn out great, then you should make smaller investments first. It's like someone saying that if you're a good music video director you will not have any transferable skills to making a short film or a feature film. That's completely untrue, and ridiculous. About 95% of the skills needed to make a music video are the same as making a feature film. The other 5% is working with actors more seriously, which in a music video you don't do as much. But if you can put together a production, which means you know what equipment you need, exactly who to hire, what goes into the general production process, how to make something look good visually, working with other people collaboratively, basically everything is the same no matter what type of work you're doing. The only real difference is the acting, which is obviously significant but even that I would downplay quite a bit. I know I'm not a DP, so I hire a really good DP to shoot my music videos. They turn out looking great.
If I also know that I'm inexperienced working with actors, I just need to hire better actors who have more experience and I can already make up for most of my inadequacies. The short form of filmmaking, I mean short narrative work, helps at least work out some of those kinks so that I can have practice working with actors and understanding what works and what doesn't. But as for what transfers, people seem to act like everything in life is completely unrelated. This just isn't so. The way you live life is the way you play poker. Poker is life, and the better you are at life the better you should be at playing poker -- taking risks, knowing odds, understanding human interactions, fears, desires, etc. All of the skills I got out of running completely unrelated businesses, or earning straight A's in school, are 95% transferable to film. Sure, you have to learn a whole new set of skills as well, but the way you learn those is much the same -- hard work, dedication, long days, etc. It's not like magically your entire character has no bearing on something you've yet to do. It's like when I started martial arts, I did that the same way I did everything else -- intense, and quickly. I graduated college in 3 years, I got my black belt in 13 months (about 2-3 times faster than normal). Sure, I didn't know anything about martial arts before, but I did know that as with anything, if you dedicate yourself to it, work hard, and don't quit when times get tough, and practice more than anyone else, you will be better at it, faster, than anyone else at that level.
So I love it when someone acts like a short won't help you do a feature. OF COURSE IT WILL!!! You location scout for both, you have paperwork for both, you audition for both, you hire a crew for both, you go through the editing process, you direct actors, you have to understand how to cut costs, you figure out catering and snack situations, transportation, etc. It's exactly the same thing only shorter. It doesn't mean you're going to make a great feature if you made a great short, but that's a stupid thing to say anyway because if you made a great short it doesn't even mean you'll make another great short. It's obviously about your ability to tell a story, and that's the only think that isn't totally transferable -- a great short film idea is different than a great feature film idea, because the story has to carry the audience a lot further. But the idea is exactly the same. Don't shoot until you have a great script. When you have a great script, plan everything meticulously, hire only people who are professional and excellent at their jobs, and don't cut corners anywhere that will severely affect the final quality.
The idea that you should waste a ton of money making a feature film, without ever having done a short, is completely laughable. It's like saying there's no reason to spar because sparring isn't real fighting, so you should just go into a fight without ever having been in a simulated fighting match, because they are totally different. Actually, they are no different. The same rules apply -- the more skilled, more aggressive, more confident fighter is most likely going to win. And the most skilled fighter is the one who has done it the most. The same is true with filmmaking. A first-time feature film director who has never done a short is 99% of the time going to make a really lousy feature film. And I'm sorry but what most ultra indie filmmakers think of as a respectable feature film is in fact absolutely terrible. I wouldn't even go so far as to say that 1 in 50 is "ok," by any standards. Because for some reason indie filmmakers often have egos big enough to think that it's acceptable to make lousy work because they made it, even though nobody wants to be subjected to something that doesn't look and sound professional and have real actors in it.
