BillyBob wants to race cars...

PerroneFord

PerroneFord

Deals in Lead
Imagine the following conversation taking place at "F1Racing.com"



...Hi, my name is BillyBob and I want to race F1 cars. It's been a dream of mine all my life. I am 16 and I don't have much money, but I got some money from my parents, and I am working at a local restaurant to save up money to go racing.

I don't have a driver's license yet, but I read all the magazines, and online forums about F1 racing, and I know that's what I want to do. I want to start racing this fall season, so I need to get started getting some gear.

Here are my questions.

1. Where can I get an F1 car cheap? I know I won't finish top 5 my first season so I don't need the top of the line, but I want to be competitive right away, so I need a good car. As long as it isn't too expensive.

2. How do I get sponsors? I see a lot of the other guys have some cool sponsors and I know they pay for hotels and stuff, so I need sponsors.

3. Do you guys think I should get a red car or a blue car? The red cars always seem faster when I watch the races.

4. I see a lot of the guys have their friends working for them changing tires and washing off the windscreen. Some of my buddies are into this too and are willing to help me. Do you think the sponsors would help them with travel expenses and stuff too?


Basically, I just need you guys to tell me everything I need to know to start racing so I can get started.

See you on the track!

-Billybob





Sadly, this outlandish tale is what we see on every online filmmaking forum that new folks frequent. And those who've been around a few forums for a while will recognize how close this hits. If you are a long-time filmmaker, or someone with background in film, please try to put the brakes on this stuff. Just like in BillyBob's case, the problem isn't waht car to buy. The problem is that there is a complete and total lack of understanding of the principles involved in participating in the chosen hobby.

If you are a newbie to film-making, don't be offended when someone experienced tells you to slow down, and learn the basics before jumping off the deep end. We can't tell you what microphone you need to shoot your movie, because you might need half a dozen for best results. And no, you just substitute one for another and have it sound decent. Sorry. We can't tell you what lens to get, because frankly, you might need a dozen to tell your story, or you might only need one. And until we see your storyboards (yep you need storyboards) we don't have any visual idea of the story you are trying to tell. And neither do you. We can't tell you which light kit to buy because frankly none of them is going to work to light a movie. There is no such things as a "Movie making light kit". We cannot tell you how to get everything you need to make your movie for $5k because it took us 10 times that amount of money and a significant number of years to put it all together. And we are still short a number of pieces.

So here are some basic truisms to help new filmmakers along.


1. The microphone you saw advertised in the back of the magazine for $99 and listed as "good for new filmmaker," really is targeted at new filmmakers because no one else would be silly enough to buy it. Real mics cost real money. And they sound good.

2. $200 tripods suck. Really. A decent tripod costs about as much as the cheap camera you're about to buy. And a good tripod costs about half as much as a pro camera.

3. If the lights you are about to buy have a fan built into them, they are not movie lights. They are fire hazards. Don't buy them.

4. Good steadicam operators are paid by the foot they move the camera. They train for years to do what they do. You buying a steadicam and thinking your footage will look like that is about the same as you buying a golf club and thinking you'll play like Tiger Woods. Most indie steadicam work is AWFUL.

5. No, your $100 NLE is NOT the same as Avid/FCP/CS5. No, it does not do the same thing for way less money. Sadly, you will realize this when you've got your "feature" already locked into it and you can't get it out without starting over.

6. You cannot learn to make a film in a weekend, or a week. Despite what you might read in Filmmaker magazine.

7. I don't care what ISO your new DSLR goes to. Light your film, or it will look like crap. Yes, there are some talented filmmakers who can make nice looking films without much light. Michael Schumacher can drive a rental car faster than you can drive a Porsche. You are not a master yet.

8. Do not submit your first short to Sundance. Seriously.

9. Take a beginners course in photography. It will answer about 99% of the questions you have about getting started. The other 1% has been asked 1000 times on the forum already, so search the archives.

10. Those crotchety old guys who bust your chops in the forums are not trying to be mean to you. They are trying to keep you from walking off a cliff that you don't even know you're on. Listen to them, or proceed at your own peril.



Sorry for the early morning rant, but after the 1000th time, I figured this was due.

(moderate as required)
 
Great "rant". Though I would call it "preachin'"

The only one I might take issue with:
8. Do not submit your first short to Sundance. Seriously.
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Why not? They won't remember you if it sucks. You'll get knocked out of selection in an early round by a "screener" not a "programmer". And you might get lucky. One filmmaker's first film (a short) wound up on Sundance Channel website (he did not submit to the festival). It got their by doing everything else on your list.

DO submit your first FEATURE to SLAMDANCE whatever else you do because that's ALL Slamdance screens in competition. Every feature in competition at Slamdance is by a first time feature director and many of them could easily play Sumdance. Some that get selected by Slamdance get cancelled and pulled up to Sundance when Sundance announces their slate weeks later.

So I'd say go ahead. Only thing you have to lose really is they submission fee. Either you'll get knocked out early by a screener and no programmers will get a bad impression of you, or you may get lucky.

Sure it's not likely. Like the fact that writing your first screenplay will likely not be worth the paper it's printed on. But just the submission process can be a learning experience and you never know.
 
Why not? Because chances are it's terrible, you'll waste money you could better spend on buying that mic or mixer you didn't buy, and there's a LOT better chance you'll get into a local festival than Sundance. Yes, there's the 1 in a million story. You want to live by those odds? Submit it for $100 to be best festival in your state. If it's got the legs, people will know. Hell, put 2 minutes of it up on Vimeo and post it here. We'll let you know if you've got something. I've watched some of the stuff by guys here and frankly, a few have some real talent.

Making movies is a tough business. Making movies without a clue is an expensive pursuit of folly.
 
Great rant Perrone.

Much to offten when I look at the "new posts" here or in other forums it goes like :

"What´s the best .xxxxx"

I really like to help folks when I can, but a lot of people just want shortcuts to fame instead of learning the basics first, and than work hard and hone your skills.

Frank
 
PerroneFord said:
Why not? Because chances are it's terrible, you'll waste money you could better spend on buying that mic or mixer you didn't buy, and there's a LOT better chance you'll get into a local festival than Sundance. Yes, there's the 1 in a million story. You want to live by those odds? Submit it for $100 to be best festival in your state. If it's got the legs, people will know. Hell, put 2 minutes of it up on Vimeo and post it here. We'll let you know if you've got something. I've watched some of the stuff by guys here and frankly, a few have some real talent.

Making movies is a tough business. Making movies without a clue is an expensive pursuit of folly.
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Right. But after spending $5000 - $1000 on gear. $50 on a lottery ticket with such a prize is not that much. And that's all you lose. Since, if it sucks. No real programmers will ever see it. And I didn't say only send it to Sundance. :)
 
Our film from last fall has been sent to about 35 festivals. It's screened in 14 of those, and been rejected by more than have accepted it. It was the first "real" completed short for the director. He's been in video for years. The film was decent. Sundance was the furthest thing from our minds.

I wrapped another production with that crew a few weeks ago. MUCH better film. We watched the first cut last weekend. It's going to come together nicely. After another 5 of these or so, Sundance might be fun to get a rejection letter from!

Nothing wrong with shooting for the moon... but get your ducks in a row first.
 
This was really good. I'm still a few shorts away from sending anything to any festivals even in OKC. With everything I shoot now, I learn a lot. Unfortunately, it's from botching SOMETHING, though. I'm almost done with an edit of something shot a week and a half ago. I think it'll be the first thing I actually post here for feedback. It'll be far from perfect, but I'm eager to know what worked, didn't work, etc. I'm ready for the old crotchety guys to give me what for.
 
Hawk Teflon said:
This was really good. I'm still a few shorts away from sending anything to any festivals even in OKC. With everything I shoot now, I learn a lot. Unfortunately, it's from botching SOMETHING, though. I'm almost done with an edit of something shot a week and a half ago. I think it'll be the first thing I actually post here for feedback. It'll be far from perfect, but I'm eager to know what worked, didn't work, etc. I'm ready for the old crotchety guys to give me what for.
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Awesome! I'd love to see it. And sometimes the mistakes are what make the movie. I'll give you a funny, true production story...

On our last shoot, we had a built stage and 2 locations. The set was a stand-in for the basement of one of the locations. Other than the usual lighting issues and trying to get that to match, we shot the basement scene. When we got on site 2 weeks later to shoot the "upstairs" we noticed that the "matching door" had the knob on the wrong side! Hanging the door backwards was not going to happen. After a quick pow-wow (I was DP), I said ok, we'll cheat it. Fortunately, the actor was wearing a shirt that was symmetrical. So we had him walk in from the wrong side to match the shot, and we reversed it in post.

We had a crew-only first cut screening last weekend, and no one even noticed! Talk about getting lucky!

Lesson learned: You can never be too careful on your pre-scouts. But since we were working without detailed storyboards, that kind of mistake is bound to catch you somewhere.

And I am SO glad I wasn't shooting this on film, because I lit it FAST and didn't match colors shot to shot. Since there was no color balance done for the first cut, it looked like amateur hour! I am very glad there was no one there that I knew!
 
Look your list is fantastic. As Barry said it should be a sticky. The rest of the the items seem to be hard absolutes. This one about not submitting your first short is a matter of philosophy. It's also something that can be considered after you made it. "Hey this is pretty good" "Hey this sucks." I'm the filmmaker I mentioned whose 1st short wound up as programming on the Sundance Channel's website. That doesn't mean it's good enough to get into Sundance. But it means it would not have been fool hardy to have submitted. In fact, the thing I regret most is NOT submitting to major film festivals SOONER in my shorts career because I was afraid of the rejection. So I'm wary of a "rule" telling beginning filmmakers not to submit their early career work to major festivals.

So part of having your ducks in a row is getting your feet wet in the festival world. My advice would be, that if you can afford to submit to 10 festivals, and you think your 1st short is decent, send it to Slamdance, Sundance, and 8 smaller festivals where your chances are much better.

When I read "you" in direct response to something I've said it seems like you are speaking to me as opposed to beginning filmmakers or about things that beginning filmmakers should know / think about which would be odd since I've played Slamdance, Tribeca, SXSW, Toronto After Dark many mid level and genre fests, have distribution for 5 shorts, and booked the shorts programmers for Sundance, Slamdance, the author of Film Festival Secrets, Wholphin DVD programmer, and genre festival shorts programmers as Jurors for DVXuser fests due to meeting them on the festival circuit. In fall I plan on putting together a jurors panel from Indieflix, Indiepix, Bsides who have online and brick and mortar shorts distribution as well as major festival programmers and genre programmers for our membership.

So. I have some experience with festivals.

And actually it's only $35 dollars for the early bird shorts fee for Sundance. $35 to shoot for the moon.

$35.

On of the biggest problems our membership has is that they make films for DVXuser then they don't do anything else with them. Which is why I'm motivated to get them exposure to festival programmers and distributors.
 
J Davis said:
sundance and slamdance early bird closed last week tho
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we're talking broadview stategies and advice for beginning filmmakers
if the world were ending this year, or Sundance was going to close it's doors that would be relevant
it will be $35 again next year give or take
and if your concerned about your $ that would be something to mark on your calendar so you don't miss it
point is, if you have your ducks in a row, that's the cost of the lottery ticket to the big show.
Even $75 is worth it.

One caveat - if you've missed the Sundance deadline, don't wait and not submit to other festivals for a whole year, especially if we're talking about a first short. Sundance doesn't care that much about premiere status for shorts. They've even found things off youtube to program. So send everywhere else if you've missed it this year, then, perhaps based on how you did at other festivals, decide if you want to submit next year to Sundance.
 
I hear you JDS. I'm just pointing out that those dates just ended. :)

I also believe it is well worth your while making those early dates if you can, not just to save money.
The best reason is to allow the festival reviewers a chance to watch your submission before
the floodgates open and all the other submissions arrive.

Now more than ever there are more and more people making shorts and more and more people submitting.
6000 shorts averaging 10 minutes each equates to 1000 hours of watching. Food for thought.

Also worth mentioning is that sundance and slamdance and many other festivals are now accepting online screeners via withoutabox
so no need to rush that fedex at closing time!
 
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PerroneFord said:
Alright. Fair enough.
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J Davis said:
I hear you JDS. I'm just pointing out that those dates just ended.
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@ PF & JD: Word. Sorry if I'm a grump. Behind on writing and life in general today.

J Davis said:
I also believe it is well worth your while making those early dates not just to save money.
The best reason is to allow the festival reviewers a chance to watch your submission before
the floodgates open and all the other submissions arrive.

Now more than ever there are more and more people making shorts and more and more people submitting.

6000 shorts averaging 10 minutes each equates to 1000 hours of watching. Food for thought ...
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Remember though that not one person sees all of those. At Slamdance though, shorts programmer Paul Sbrizzi did personally see about 4000 of the 6000 shorts they had submitted for '09.

Here's a strategy tip to help your odds in those submissions.
You want to submit around the end of the 2nd 3rd of their submission window. The logic goes like this:
-- As soon as the submission window opens: "That short was pretty good, but we just started this. We'll probably see better."
-- Towards the end of the 2nd 3rd of their window: "Crap we need to start making some programming decisions. This was pretty good, let's put it on the 2nd look list."
-- Towards the very end of their submission window: "That was pretty good but it doesn't fit with the films we've already programmed." And/or: "We just don't have a slot for that film left." "We don't have a slot for another "X " type of film. We've programmed enough of those this year already."

In case "2nd 3rd" is confusing - I mean it's best not to submit during the very beginning, not to submit during the very end, but best to submit during the end of the middle - if that makes sense.
This is what I've heard. Can't 100% vouch for it but it sure makes sense.
 
Sundance doesn't accept by mail/fedex any more, or am I mistaken? Is without a box the only way to go these days for most fests?
 
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