When are you ready for a Feature?

Michael Anthony Horrigan

Michael Anthony Horrigan

More Cowbell Pictures
I had a conversation in another forum which brought this question to mind. When are you ready for a Feature?

I'm of the belief that you should be able to pull off a great short film before moving on to a Feature. Either visually or in terms of telling a compelling story, hopefully both. Personally, I feel that I will need to make about 10 short films before moving on to Features. No, it doesn't have to be 10 films exactly.

My point is this, if you can't keep your audience with you for a short time... there is no way that you'll captivate them for >90 minutes.

Anyone else think that some people make the jump too soon? I know that it's never a 'bad' move, experience is experience after all. The question is... When are you ready?

Just curious, what do you think?

Cheers,

Mike
 
I dunno. I think there are feature filmmakers who are not all that great at making shorts. I forget who, but there was a thread about this a while back.

Also, short films are not everyone's way into features, like it is for many around here. Some come from commercials (arguably a VERY short film), some from screenwriting, etc.

So I agree if you're using shorts as a way in, yeah, you should get good at them before moving on.

I think as far as being ready, who knows? A feature is a big animal. I've had just about everyone around me whose opinion I respect tell me to stop making 6-10 min films and move on. But ready? I don't know how ready I feel...maybe you're never ready and just have to bite the bullet and go for it.
 
I don't have any definitive answers, but I can relate my experience. The first film I tried to do with any seriousness was a feature (approx. 70 mins). Other than that I had no real filmmaking experience. I had written some short scripts and short stories, and made a couple crappy stop motion animations with a friend of mine.

So anyways I wrote a script and scouted locations and gathered up some actors. I went into this totally unprepared. While I did do a lot of planning, it wasn't enough. I had no idea what I was doing. Now, it was a great learning experience and it was fun to shoot. The problem was that when I got to post there were missing scenes because I scheduled everything too tight and had a couple flakey actors that couldn't make it to one afternoon of pick-up shooting.

I eventually finished, but it was horrendously painful to take a story I really liked and felt proud of and just butchering it all because I wasn't ready. While I learned a lot, it still seems like a waste if the final film, something that took time and money to produce, is a stinker.

Looking back on it, I really wish that I had done short films for maybe 2-3 years before even thinking about a feature. Had I done the short film route, I might have ended up with a turd of a film on the first few, but would have gotten better with each film and would have been much more prepared for a feature.

This doesn't relate to the experience above but, features are not cheap, heck shorts can be pretty expensive too. While I would love to make an awesome feature, the return on the time and monetary investment is most likely nothing unless you have a well known actor in your film, or at minimum some celebrity like Paris Hilton (personally I would not want her in my film). The good thing about shorts is that if you make a gem of a short, people are more likely to watch it. When I say people I mean anyone, both your friends or some studio exec. While a feature is usually 90 - 120 minutes running time. People can think up lots of reasons to not watch something that is one-and-a-half to two hours long. A good example of shorts getting someone exposed is Neill Blomkamp, the guy that Peter Jackson picked for the director of the Halo movie, based on a few of his short films.

I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. I am not attempting to discourage anyone from going through with a feature. I hope my story was helpful.
 
Nektonic said:
I don't have any definitive answers, but I can relate my experience. The first film I tried to do with any seriousness was a feature (approx. 70 mins). Other than that I had no real filmmaking experience. I had written some short scripts and short stories, and made a couple crappy stop motion animations with a friend of mine.

So anyways I wrote a script and scouted locations and gathered up some actors. I went into this totally unprepared. While I did do a lot of planning, it wasn't enough. I had no idea what I was doing. Now, it was a great learning experience and it was fun to shoot. The problem was that when I got to post there were missing scenes because I scheduled everything too tight and had a couple flakey actors that couldn't make it to one afternoon of pick-up shooting.

I eventually finished, but it was horrendously painful to take a story I really liked and felt proud of and just butchering it all because I wasn't ready. While I learned a lot, it still seems like a waste if the final film, something that took time and money to produce, is a stinker.

Looking back on it, I really wish that I had done short films for maybe 2-3 years before even thinking about a feature. Had I done the short film route, I might have ended up with a turd of a film on the first few, but would have gotten better with each film and would have been much more prepared for a feature.

This doesn't relate to the experience above but, features are not cheap, heck shorts can be pretty expensive too. While I would love to make an awesome feature, the return on the time and monetary investment is most likely nothing unless you have a well known actor in your film, or at minimum some celebrity like Paris Hilton (personally I would not want her in my film). The good thing about shorts is that if you make a gem of a short, people are more likely to watch it. When I say people I mean anyone, both your friends or some studio exec. While a feature is usually 90 - 120 minutes running time. People can think up lots of reasons to not watch something that is one-and-a-half to two hours long. A good example of shorts getting someone exposed is Neill Blomkamp, the guy that Peter Jackson picked for the director of the Halo movie, based on a few of his short films.

I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. I am not attempting to discourage anyone from going through with a feature. I hope my story was helpful.
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Great post. I tend to agree. I also agree that this thread isn't about discouraging anyone. I'm just curious as to what everyone else thinks. Thanks for being so honest.

Mike
 
Robert Rodriguez made EL MARIACHI after dozens of shorts. Shane Carruth made PRIMER without having made ANY films.

While shorts and features have similarities from filmmaking POVs, from a scriptwriting POV they're quite different. No offence to short film writers, but you can write a good short film script with one good idea. Writing a feature length script is MUCH harder.

But if you can write a great feature length script, you're ready. Shane Carruth is a pefect example.
 
My friend and I made three shorts before we made our first feature. It wasn't the best, but ironically it got distributed and people liked it. I learned more making the feature than I ever learned making a short. My problems were mainly about controlling my environment and bad planning. "Wages of Sin" went a lot smoother.

-Nate
 
You can do a lot of shorts but you can't really appreciate how much time and work go into the extended shooting time and commitment a feature requires until you actually work on one.
 
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