I'm no good...What they say is true...Independent features

Hey,

At your age doing a feature was quite an undertaking andI think it showed a lot of courage! While most don't recommend it the first time around I am sure you have gained a lot of knowledge. Good for you!

Chris
 
Nobody356,

I don't agree what others have said stating shorts are easier. Whether you do a short or a feature both will be a lot of work and a learning experience. In a short you still need to know what you're doing. You still need an experienced crew etc. and cast carefully. LOTS cn go wring when doing a short. It's just a short has a much lower time commitment.

Chris
 
shorts are much harder to make interesting.

you have far more time for character development in a feature and plot development.. cramming a good story into a 10-25 min time period isn't easy..
 
You're not alone on this one man i'm the same dumb 17 year old, with our film club last year, against my advice, we tried to make a feature film. I said we should at least do some planning, but to them it didn't seem as important. We ended up wasting an entire year on doing pretty much nothing I learned a lot though! Especially how hard doing a feature would be. This year we're spending all of our time making shorts and I think it'll go quite nicely. Just learn from your mistakes, thats all you can do.

And macminialacool its not that shorts are easier, but rather you may learn a lot more a lot faster since you see your finished product a lot faster than you ever would with a feature. Thats my take on it at least.
 
Loki said:
shorts are much harder to make interesting.

you have far more time for character development in a feature and plot development.. cramming a good story into a 10-25 min time period isn't easy..
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Yeah tell me about it, especially if the short is only 5 minutes!
 
Keep swingin' hard, bro. One of these days maybe it won't suck and everyone on this board will be dying to get in one of your movies...

Till then, perhaps a nice 5 minute short will work for now.
 
Nobody356 said:
Okay so I'm stubborn, I thought I didn't need to listen to everyone and now I don't know if I'd say I regret it but I feel somewhat dumb. They all say not to try a feature till you've had much more experience than I have, I didn't listen to them. Today was the first shooting day of my feature and well now I understand why people say not to try it.
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Man go easy on yourself wow! Listen, fortune favours the bold. Taking risks like that is what will eventually get you the big prize. Let me tell you this right now. You are ready when you feel you are ready. I did EXACTLY what you did. I had ZERO experience and didn't even own a camcorder. Hell, I hadn't even made a family home movie before LIMBO. I wrote a script, co produced and directed a feature from scratch when EVERYBODY said don't do it. I can't even begin to tell you how many things have gone wrong, but I perceviered and great things happened in the end. Got into HUGE festivals, getting distribution and have (most importantly) a finished film. Look, just do it and get to the end. You should be proud of yourself for taking the chance. Learn from the mistakes made and go harder next time. If you want any pointers, message me. Also, my movie site is www.limbomovie.com

Trust me, it can be done. I've been down the very same road and am still in debt as we speak, but happy as can be. People who say don't do it are people who are too afraid to do it themselves.

Congratulations are in order to you.
 
this sounds alot like chris. haha. stick with it. even if the movie ends up sucking finish it anway for 3 reasons
1. its the worst feeling to fail. especially when your in charge of what failed
2. it sounds better saying "ive already done a feature" instead of "i already kinda, almost, not really made a feature" :)
3. you already put alot of effort in it so finish it no matter what the outcome, youll feel better about your filmmaking abilities when you finish it (kinda like number one)

i was in the same position with my first, Forgiven, but i finished it and even though its awful im really proud of it. its my first born.....yeah thats a lil odd but i dont care. :laugh:

fellow local fimmaker, Matt
 
Hey go easy on yourself if it was easy everyone would do it it took me a year to shoot my feature every other weekend or sometimes every third weekend (only on Sundays too) because everyone could pretty much get that day off just keep plugging away rewrites are part of it someone quits? write them off - kill them off off screen - are you as good as you'll ever be right now? hell no, next one will be better and floe easier,, the one after that will be even better because of your experience points and the next one? academy nomination baby,, fast cars chicks blank production checks implied drug habit yee hawww
 
Stay strong, Nobody. Making movies is a hard, hard thing. I don't think filmmakers have a patron saint, but if we did, I'd think it would have to be Saint Jude, who is also the patron saint of lost or impossible causes. And yet we still keep at it. Because it's what we love.

You're out there making something. You've taken the step when most people just say they will and don't go beyond that. The heart of filmmaking is finding solutions to an almost never-ending series of problems. It's your character and drive that will see you through. And if the result is less than stellar, so be it. Learn from it and move on to the next project.

If you need inspiration to stay the course, watch Hearts of Darkness. It's about the making of Apocalypse Now. Or rather it's about everything that went wrong making it. In dark times, I just conjure the image of a chubby, pretentious Marlon Brando saying "I swallowed a bug." or "I don't have any more dialogue today." to make me feel better.

I wish you success.
 
LMAO!!!

I've been reading this thread, and it brought back some really bad memories of my first attempt at filming. I thought I was all that, knew what I was doing, etc... I wound up getting cussed out by my lead actor, missing a HUGE chunk of vital footage, and all sorts of wonderful stuff like that.

Not so much laughing at the story as I am at remembering how inept I was on a 3 minute film. But getting to the core of this thread: Don't sweat it, man. We've all been there at least once. You only suck if you don't bother to learn anything from your experience. Live, learn, laugh it off, and keep moving forward; that's about the best advice I can personally give.

Stay groovy.
 
I wish I had the experience of shooting a feature under my belt, even if it was a failure.
You are 17, and trust me that years from now you will look back on this project as an incredible learning experience and you'll realize that you didn't lose nearly as much as you gained from it.

This is the time in your life to take the wild chances that you're taking.

Granted, you probably won't sell this film when you're done and you may not even be content with how it turns out (much less happy). But you will learn volumes.

You are 17, you can afford to have failures right now.

Whether you finish out the feature, or scale it back to a short is up to you.
I think either one is fine. At this point you should view this project as your film school.

Here's an idea for how to get some good things out of this - Keep a journal.
Keep a list of everything that goes wrong, every problem that you have, and try to figure out WHY it happened. What could you have done differently? There is always an answer... and I guarantee you that the answer is NOT that you "suck."

At 17 you already have more experience than many people much older than you.
When you lament your lack of experience, make sure you're comparing apples to apples.
You can't be expected to have as much experience as people who have been shooting for as long as you've been alive.

If nothing else, congratulations on realizing that there are problems.
A common problem I've seen is a sort of 'emperors new clothes' mentality that develops on indie movie sets. No matter what goes wrong a lot of the time everyone wants to pretend that everything is great and the movie is perfect. You at least sound grounded in reality, that's a step in the right direction. Now just make sure you take this experience and learn from it.

Be happy, be proud, you told yourself you were going to put a movie together and you at least got to the first day of shooting - most people don't even do that.

You have an entire lifetime to get experience, and you've started early.
You're on the right track.

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.
 
Goals always help.

The reason evolution works in the minds of people is that they understand the concept of starting small and working to something so intricate in detail we can't even understand ourselves to our fullest extent.

But then again, there's God, who started out with EVERYTHING so complicated right in the beginning.

So, if you want to be God, do something big right away.

Hehe, that's really a random and bizarre philosophy of things, I know, but it may be a little closer to the truth than we realize.



So, in other news, I'm 16. I started the whole videography thing when I was 13. Bought my first camera when I was 13 and a half. I thought I knew everything, and I started at LEAST 10 feature length scripts that were going to blow Lucas and his boys outta the water.

Well, on September 1'st of this year I finished my second short film. I was 15 and a half when I finished my first 17 minute film, and I thought it was a major accomplishment. Then, my second short film was 40 minutes.

Big jump. The quality was about the same.

Some people think I'm gonna start a feature now. Uh uh. I know how much I don't know, if you know what I mean, ya know?

So, I'm going to work in the less than an hour range until I've built up my quality considerably, then move on.

To you sir, I have a lot of respect. Already getting actors lined out, scripts finished, etc.

Amazing.

I'm very impressed.

Keep it up, and you'll have a name. Verdi was just 17 when he joined a group of young hot-head composers convinced they were going to blow beethoven and mozart away with their quality.

Well, maybe he didn't blow them away, but his name will be remembered with theirs for all of history now.
 
John_Moore said:
Verdi was just 17 when he joined a group of young hot-head composers convinced they were going to blow beethoven and mozart away with their quality.

Well, maybe he didn't blow them away, but his name will be remembered with theirs for all of history now.
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Thanks for making me feel older John

I used to tell stories like that...now I talk about how Renoir didn't make his first film until he was in his 60's.

:)

Point is, it's not a race. It is a marathon.
Everyone at his/her own pace.
 
dang! 17 and making a feature film! it didnt turn out the way you tought it did, but dont worry, you learned thats what counts, im 22, i was 21 when i directed my second music video, i didnt know how to use the camera i used and it came out to grainy, i wanted to die...people tought it was on purpose, and i shot it in 4 hours, everything went wrong, i hit record when i wanted to pause, i wasted 25 minutes thinking the camera was off! total chaos...the customer loved it, the band loved it, ohh and the lense was really dirty(it was a really old camera, not mine), anyways, mi point is, maybe someone will like your first feature:D ive seen first features that have bad image quality(shot on a 3ccd camera) that looks like it was shot on a 1 ccd camera, the sound was recorded using the camera mic(big no no), horrible editing, but won some award at a New York festival, so, maybe you dont like your first movie or think its not decent but someone may love it you never know;) good luck and no matter how bad your projects end up, they will always be better than the last proyect:D
 
I always try and turn a negative into a positive, if you do get a problem like grain bring it out and highlight it, then keep your mouth shut and every one will think your a genius!!
 
whoa

whoa

This is a great thread, very, very long. But that just shows the amount of support that is generated on this forum. It warms the cockles of my heart, to see so many people with messages of good will, and practical advise:)

Nobody, I'm about to do exactly what your doing, and I'm ALOT older than you, (I come to film making late in life)

I've only done music vids before, not even a short, and I'm starting out with a feature.

Will it stink - yes
Will things go wrong - constantly
Am I prepared - no way
Will anyone watch it - my wife might
Will I get stressed - yep, and lose my remaining hair

But will it be FUN - YYYYYYEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS. Why? cause I'll be making a feature and thats well cool. Try not to get down about stuff, although your later posts are a bit happier. Everyones advice is great but I'd add, try to enjoy it!!, even when stuff goes wrong, infact especially when stuff goes wrong.

I try to take this attitude in every aspect of my life, I work as a Sound Engineer, recording bands day in day out. I have no qualifications in it whatsoever, and basically blag'ed the job. A lot of my first recordings were a bit naff, but through time and experience I'm alot better.

Also don't worry, I'm sure it'll turn out fine, when I listen to early recordings I made, yeah they aren't great, but there not bad, and I've heard worse. So you'll probably be pleasently suprised once its all wrapped up.

I've taken your advice onboard by the way, I won't be shooting till later this year, so around september I'll probably be back saying, 'you're right it's totally hard, but also woo hoo I'm totally doing it, it might be awfull but a least I'm doing it' - I think that's the attitude you should take, don't just plod on. Think about it this way - hundreds probably thousands of people dream of doing stuff like this, but just never get round to it for whatever reason, your actually doing it!!

I hope it works out for you,

good luck.
 
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