Preproduction
   We started preproduction for Office Lunch in March 2018, which meant hiring a crew, getting the cast together, getting locations, making a schedule, getting props and wardrobe together etc. Even for a short film it is a lot to get organized. I wanted to throw as many resources as I could at this short film and really make it shine. I wanted to make a film that would be a cut above all the low-budget crap out there. I wanted all the bells and whistles: a dolly, sophisticated lenses, the best camera, the best lighting package. I made sure we hired a professional sound person. (More than anything else, poor sound quality will ruin a film. You can get away with bad lighting, cheap wardrobe, even some bad acting. Those can be excused as ‘creative choices’. But sound is non-negotiable. It has to be pristine or you’ll lose the audience.) 

Films are not shot in the order of the script. So it is essential to have someone making sure that people are wearing the right clothes for the scenes we are shooting on a particular day. If we are shooting the scene where a character enters a building in the morning and he is wearing a red jacket, we might be filming the scenes inside the building a week later, and that character needs to have that same red jacket on. 
We need certain props for certain locations on certain days. The art department needs to have a list of what we need, where, and when.
Call sheets need to be created and sent out so the cast and crew know where and when to show up.
It’s a lot of details that add up to a big picture.
Casting
For casting, we posted ads on casting sites such as Backstage and Boston Casting as well as Facebook and a few other platforms. People who wanted to audition sent in headshots and resumes. Then we held in person casting sessions after eliminating the people who just didn't seem to fit. For some characters, we needed a specific type such as a Caucasian male in his early thirties. For other characters, it didn’t matter as much. The actor who ended up playing David is a black man, but that actually didn't matter, even though he is the main character. I hadn’t thought much about his ethnicity, just that he should be in his mid-twenties. The story didn’t have anything to do with racism or discrimination, however, I think it lent to the story because it gave more of an outsider status, being that almost all of his coworkers were white. And it is possible that someone was targeting him because he was black.
This was my first time participating in official casting sessions (up until this point I had mostly cast friends) and  it was interesting to see how many women, and some men but mostly women, bill themselves as actor/model on the casting sites. I don’t know if they are trying to pad their resumes or if they think modeling translates to acting, but I remember two or three very gorgeous women who showed up and they could not act. I’m not sure if they thought they could act or if they would get cast based on their looks but I am very glad that I am older and have the foresight to not do that. I can easily see why a young man (or older man for that matter) would want to cast a gorgeous woman in his film, but that is a bad idea.
Casting is rough. There is rarely a clear cut choice, especially when dealing with relatively unknown actors. Even the most experienced directors make bad calls. Someone might be a great actor but just not right for the role. Some roles are written for actors such as Tom Cruise, Christian Bale, Viola Davis, and Emily Blunt. I can’t imagine anyone playing Rocky except Sylvester Stallone or anyone playing Apollo Creed except Carl Weathers. But other times it is not so clear cut. 
And I am not an experienced director. I often feel like a total fraud when I say no to an actor for a role. Who am I? I might be rejecting the next Marlon Brando. There is no science to it. You just have to go with your gut. 
Aside from being a good actor, the person has to be reliable and relatively sane. You can get a sense of this in the casting session and in rehearsals, but sometimes it doesn’t manifest until you’re on set and then you have to roll with it. Nothing really crazy happened with the actors, but one of them told us in the morning of our biggest shoot day that she had to leave early. I recall her saying something in the audition that acting was a side-hustle and that she had a “real job” which was a light red flag. I get it. Very few people make a living from acting. I don’t know any actors who don’t have “real jobs”. Some of them work in sales, have real-estate licenses, do retail, temp, etc. They try to have jobs that give them some flexibility to go on auditions and take gigs. But you don’t say that in an audition.
So we had to shuffle the schedule and shoot the scene she was in earlier. It wasn’t a huge deal, but it was not very thoughtful on her part. I had a lot of other things on my mind, and she had not let us know in advance. I have not worked with her since. There are plenty of other actors who do not leave early. 
Then there was Scott Murphy, the guy playing Mr. Johnson. At the time, he was an active police officer in Boston. He acted on the side as well, but never made his work schedule an issue. He was shooting on the same day as the woman who left early, but even though he had a seven am shift the next day, he stayed until two am (it was a long day). I didn’t know he had such an early shift until around midnight and when I apologized and said that we would try to hurry things along he just said, “Don’t worry about it.” I have worked with Scott many times since.

Al parecer mi desesperación me trajo a reddit...

Hola gente, acá una audiovisual que por primera vez será dirección de arte. Es mi último trabajo del ciclo y la vrd la anterior flaca que fue arte, dejó la vara alta y estoy algo preocupada :,D. Entonces, necesito consejos para la pre y no kgarla en el rodaje, plz.

Hi! a little bit about me, im a small animator working on my own IP and i really need critique on my film, there are some cut i feel like its not right, but i cant explain it, and i couldnt push the animation further. Anytime i tried to put more frame, the scene seems wrong and out of place. I feel disappointed in myself. I tried my best to learn and watch many movies, but i still dont know whats wrong with my storyboard, and how i can fix it. Can anyone have a look and a feedback? I'll be very grateful! https://kinescope.io/c69qqXkekWj7v2zChBvVSt?fbclid=IwcGRvZgRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA80Mzc2MjYzMTY5NzM3ODgAAR7pLXKXIW1Ubp6xabbKjIFh75LeDVDM9STqUskDxbq-qUeFCKUR89JFrD4BoQ_aem_vA7ba8-NWa1SlKO678YvZA

Hello : ) ! My company is working on a drawing storyboard software for iPad.

Our idea is that it would be convenient for directors to be able to draw quickly wherever they are!

We recently started a closed beta available on Testflight! I'd love to hear your opinion and feedback.

https://www.upshotstoryboard.com/#beta

Just one note. This is NOT A GENERATIVE AI tool :D . Here we believe that artists are the ones that make movies great and no AI can substitute that. So, this is for directors that can actually DRAW :D or who work with real storyboard artists !
I feel like I need to specify that, considering how many people prefer AI slop to make their movies :( !

Which format for conveying content or a narrative do you think is better from the perspective of an amateur filmmaker who handles everything on their own? Learning to create a longer animation seems difficult and time-consuming for someone who lacks drawing skills or technical aptitude. But you can convey more.

I enjoy editing films and have basic recording equipment (a tripod, lights, and a camera), but I always struggle to find people willing to participate—especially for free. I’m a bit lost and unsure about which format I should use to tell my stories.

When it comes to scriptwriting, I have a few plans written down on my phone (and I used to have them in physical notebooks), but I don't like spending too much time planning and prefer to get straight to work. As a kid, I used to make YouTube videos with my friends, and improvising was what we were best at.

Here's the short film, A Quiet Winter.

I recently had the chance to sit down with Olivier Megaton, the French filmmaker behind Taken 2, Taken 3, Transporter 3, and Colombiana.

I've been a fan of these films for years, so it was interesting getting to hear his perspective on making them, working in Hollywood, and how his background as a graffiti artist influenced his career as a director.

We covered quite a bit, from his early days in France to directing some of the biggest action franchises of the 2000s and 2010s. We also got into his approach to filmmaking and what it's like working behind the scenes on major Hollywood productions.

Curious what everyone thinks of his films, particularly Transporter 3 and Colombiana.

Thanks to the mods for letting me share!

一句话故事：
口吃的女孩想把每天来不及回应朋友的“明天见”，变成两个人还能继续相处的约定。

情节：
01 镜中练习｜20秒
被雾气笼罩的镜子上，一张脸练习口型。“明……天见”，雾气散去，露出女孩的脸。门外家人催她出门。她离开，镜中留下空位。片名出现。

02 歪树与明天｜40秒
小女孩和朋友在教室课桌上画窗外的歪树。朋友转纸，想让树站直；女孩按回去，带着短暂卡顿说：“它本来就歪。”朋友歪头看，她也偏头，两人笑了一下。
放学收拾书包时，朋友说：“我这周上完，就去新学校。”女孩的笔停住。朋友说完“明天见”便转身。镜头靠近女孩的脸。她想回应，起音卡在“明”字，镜头切入课堂。

03 卡在同一个瞬间｜30秒
课堂上，以相近景别接女孩开口受阻的脸，老师说：“坐下吧，下一位。”
女孩在其他同学流利的回答声中默默低头坐下。
镜头切回女孩卡在“明”字的脸，朋友已经走远。女孩望着她的背影，低下头。

04 写下号码｜15秒
夜晚。桌边放着两人画过的歪树。女孩看一眼旁边的电话，拉过一张纸，照着号码卡写下家中号码和自己的名字。她把纸夹进旧画，放入书包。

05 窗边的停顿｜50秒
又一次放学，窗边。女孩想问话。朋友抢先猜：“还要加树叶？”拿笔就画。女孩按住纸，口吃着纠正：“不是。”朋友停手，放下笔。
女孩画出半个窗框，把问题说完：“你新……家窗外，也有……树吗？”朋友答“还没去过”，手指捏着书包拉链。她重新拿起笔，想在窗框里画一棵树，笔尖停在纸面上方，落不下去。女孩放下笔，看着她等。朋友过几秒也放下笔，只补完窗框：“到了告诉你。”

06 最后一次留门｜25秒
周五放学。朋友已经把课桌清空，背着书包准备离开。女孩递给她家中号码，朋友递来自己手机号，并把空窗框的画给她：“这个还欠着。”女孩夹好，收进书包。
朋友走到门边，又收回迈出的脚，扶着门等她。女孩背好书包，两人一起离开。

07 告别改了口｜25秒
熟悉的路口。马路对面，朋友的妈妈等在车旁。朋友说：“我明天就搬过去了。那，明天……”她停住，改口：“再见。”
女孩想回应，起音受阻。朋友等了一下，对面的妈妈招手，朋友向女孩挥手，转身离开。女孩转身走了两步，停下，回头。朋友的背影逐渐被人流遮住。女孩转身追去。

08 把明天约下来｜60秒
她跑着穿过放学的人流。周围人影的黑色轮廓放大，环境声压近；她不停地穿过人群，重新看见了朋友。
朋友正要上车。女孩轻拉她的衣袖，朋友回头。女孩松开手，站稳，开口却卡住。朋友妈妈催了一声。
朋友朝妈妈摆了摆手，转过身体，面对女孩。女孩磕磕绊绊地说：“明天……见。”
朋友惊讶回应：“明天见。明天晚饭后，我打给你？”女孩点头。

09 窗里的通话｜35秒
女孩仍在镜子前练习说话，还没练完，电话就响起了，她下意识接起电话。结尾音乐开始。镜头切到窗外，透过玻璃，她边打电话边在纸上画画。玻璃渐渐变朦胧，呼应开场那面镜子，结束。
总时长：300秒，不含片尾字幕。

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My second short film, Office Lunch, was shot during the summer of 2017. It cost me about $40,000 and it was accepted into zero of the twenty-three festivals it was entered into. One reason might be that it is 24 minutes long, which is about twice as long as what festivals are willing to consider from an unknown filmmaker. 

Or maybe the story didn’t work for them. Or maybe it wasn’t the type of comedy people could relate to. 
Or maybe they had too many films to consider and didn’t even watch mine. 
Or maybe because we didn’t use SAG actors. 
Or maybe because I am a middle aged white man and not part of the diverse demographic festivals are looking for.
Or maybe they just thought it sucked. Maybe they thought it was juvenile and lacked depth and they found it cliche with no pay off. 
And while that may be true, I consider it a success. I worked as a grip for five years in New York City. I worked on many low-budget projects and most of them never got finished. I am not criticizing those filmmakers. Things happen. Money runs out. Actors get sick. There is a flood, a fire, a hurricane, whatever.(Watch the documentary Lost in La Mancha to see how badly it can go, even for experienced filmmakers with lots of money.)
So I consider it to be a success because I started it and finished it. And many people don’t do that.
***
I was doing short, comic videos with a small studio in Milton, MA and I needed actors. I went on Boston Casting’s website and saw a video by Maryilyn Johnson, contacted her, and she was good enough to come down and act in about ten of the videos.
The videos centered around a guy named Dave Reardon who works in an office doing some bullshit. He is repeatedly called into meetings with the Human Resources administrator or enforcer or whatever it’s called about things he has been doing such as eating from the garbage can, telling ‘Yo Momma’ jokes, carrying an emotional support ventriloquist doll around with him, and stalking his coworkers. 
The videos were 2-3 minutes and posted to YouTube where maybe a dozen people watched them and very few people thought they were funny. I thought they were funny but I am in the miniscule minority on that.
One night after shooting, Maryliyn and I had dinner at an Indian restaurant. I told her that I had a script for a short film and was looking for a studio to work with. I liked the guys in Milton, but they were mostly a music production studio who did videos on the side. I needed people who did shorts and feature films as their focus. Maryilyn gave me a card for Jefferson Productions in Brighton MA. She had done some projects with them and said they were very professional and might be interested in producing my project. I checked out their website and liked the work they had produced. They also seemed like the right size and had the right vibe: small, just starting out etc. I sent them an email and we agreed to a meeting at their office.
We did not get off to the best start. The appointment was for 11am on Saturday morning. Eleven came and went and they were a no-show.
   I thought, “Well, that’s that.”
   Part of me was relieved. I was nervous about jumping off the cliff and leaping into a creative project. I was going to have to commit a significant amount of money to get the project moving and then more to get it done.  Them missing the meeting was an excuse to not do it, a sign from the gods. But you can always find an excuse to not do something. It’s fear. Everyone has it. I was afraid of failure; that I wouldn’t be able to do it; that I would suck as a filmmaker. Even more frightening, that I wouldn’t finish it. 
They got back to me later that day and apologized about the confusion, some scheduling miscommunication and I thought okay, let’s give it a second chance. I have made plenty of errors in my life.
And  so I could have used the fact that they missed the meeting as an excuse to not move forward. to not move forward. I could have used many excuses for not making a film. Such as I have no training, little experience, no resume, no reason for thinking I am capable of directing a film, etc, etc, etc. I have all those and more. But that won’t be very comforting  when I am 80 years old and wondering why I am disappointed with my life.
I didn’t want an excuse. I wanted to make a movie.

***
The main character, David Bright, is starting a new job at Gold Crest Enterprises LLC.    David is nervous. He is a young guy starting his first real job, embarking on his career. We don’t really know what Gold Crest Enterprises does or what David’s career is; it didn’t matter. (In my view, these types of corporate jobs are all the same anyway: people sitting at computers doing a bunch of bullshit..)

The story takes place over the course of three days. Each day, David’s girlfriend, Constance, makes him a special lunch and each day someone steals David’s lunch. He doesn’t know who is doing it, but he has his suspicions. One is the office bully, Frank. Frank is an asshole and a creep. He makes nasty comments about coworkers; he takes pictures of a female employee’s ass and, as it is revealed, is using his position to force another female employee, Eleanor, to have sex with him or he will give her negative performance reviews.
  David has a coworker named Carl, a mature gentleman in the parlance of human resources. Carl is a bit of a sad sack. He has issues with his bowels and is in general old and confused. He doesn’t seem to understand how to use his computer or the copier. Other employees, like Frank, make fun of Carl, but David is nice to him. He even goes to Carl’s car and gets the inflatable ring that Carl sits on when his hemorrhoids are flaring up. This is because David is a kind human being.
  Another one of his coworkers, Kathy, is knee-deep in her own pathology. She is an avid scrapbooker who is not shy about bringing it into work and revealing the most personal and painful details of her life. At one point, she grabs David to show him a picture of her and her two boys on the day that she moved out of the house because she and her husband had finalized their divorce. The caption reads: THE DAY DADDY STOPPED LOVING US.
   David doesn’t know how to react beyond saying, “Oh, that’s great!”
   Because David is a kind human being..
  All of this is being watched over by surveillance cameras.
After his lunch is stolen for the third day in a row, David tells Constance what is happening. She insists that he must file a complaint. David visits Mr. Noah Hegely, Director of Human Resources. Mr. Hegely is quite disturbed by this revelation and has David meet with Mr. Johnson, the HR enforcer. They assure David that justice will be served swiftly.
In the end, all of the employees of the company are gathered together where it is revealed that Carl is the CEO of the company and he has seen everything. Frank is there with a black eye and a much more humble, more civilized attitude. He was attacked and abducted by Mr. Johnson at a cheap motel where he had taken Eleanor. HR had to teach him a lesson.

Thank you.

Hey all! This is my first time posting in one of these threads, so bear with me!

I’m 22, currently based in Colorado. Writing and filmmaking have been passions of mine for as long as I can remember. I have a few films out, a few festival winners, and way too many scripts written. I enjoy working anywhere on a film set and pop into any spot I can because it fills me with joy. But now I am looking for my next best move to grow.

The problem is that I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find work or break into the industry. I have connections in LA who work on or produce some pretty major productions, and even they’ve told me how difficult it’s become to find work and get involved in projects.

I’ve been considering moving for a while now, but I’m struggling to figure out where my time and energy would be best spent. I enjoy LA, I’ve never been to NYC, and I’ve spent some time in Georgia, which I also really like. I’m open to opportunities outside the US, too, if there are compelling reasons to consider them.

Ultimately, I’m trying to figure out where I’d have the best chance of meeting the right people, getting involved in productions, developing my craft, and actually growing more as a creative.

I am headed to LA this week for a few pretty significant meetings and am feeling the area out more.

Those working in the industry, or those who’ve made a similar move, where would you go in my position?

I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences!

All Love, Thanks!

Hey everyone! I’ve not posted here before but I’ve got a problem and this feels like a good place to come for advice.

I’m a young writer/ director from England in the early stages of my career. I’ve made a handful of short films, two of which have been on the festival circuit. Until the beginning of this year, everything was fine, and I was on a clear upwards trajectory with the projects I was working on, and the calibre of projects I was getting involved in was getting pretty strong. However at the start of this year, I had a pretty bad mental breakdown due to external stress and other personal issues, and for the last 5/6 months, everything feels like it’s been on pause.

My latest short, which I finished in December 2025 has doing its festival run, so I’ve been attending festivals and accepting awards, where I got to chat to other filmmakers, but since my breakdown, I’ve not actually done much, I’ve just been coasting on the coattails of my last project. I made a 60 second short a few months ago, but that’s it. On top of this, because my breakdown isolated me a lot, I feel like I’ve grown distant from the strong connections I’ve spent the last 5+ years building.

This has been a really difficult time, and it’s put me in a situation I never expect to be in. Ultimately I just want to know how I can get things back on track. I’d hate for the last few months to push me back and stop me pursing the career I love. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The Sunken Place from Jordon Peele's Get Out. I know the sunken place from Get Out had to do with systemic oppression and losing agency, this a bit different.

I have been making films since the age of 17, ten year anniversary approaching soon. I have never been opposed to adopting new technology but I have stopped understanding the world around me. I feel a deep sense of hopelessness. I am traveling to an east asian country tomorrow to film a docu-fiction about communism and my grandmother's mortality. I've not filmed outside my country of origin so its scary and exciting as we all know making films tend to feel like that.

I try taking my films to film festivals to find its audience which has worked well enough. I guess you could say that is a chain of distribution I put my trust in or rather put my chips in regularly. Naturally, most of my correspondence are regarding film related opportunities (labs, grants, incubators, festivals etc.) nowadays the emails look different. Just yesterday I received an invitation to apply for a feature development lab, fees were waived, as I went through it they had a "mandatory requirement" for a 1 minute of sample of the film concept, AI generated video were accepted. I don't know what that even means. You know, I never really liked the "treatment" part of dossiers because it does not contribute anything to the making of the film itself but this is fundamentally different. What skill of mine am I supposed to communicate in the 1 minute AI generated video? Before I carry on, this is not an anti-AI rant. To each their own. I know change is inevitable, so be it. But what has this thing I put all my heart into becoming, making films is not only about me making it but other people making it too and me participating in it as a viewer or working on it. I've practised this craft all of my adult life and now I do not understand the language itself. I've closely worked with Sundance, Sundance Collab in particular and I actually find them very cool but yesterday they lauched this AI resources guide or something along those lines and honestly what I was reading could've been in spanish or mandarin. I could not understand a word. Not the letters but what was being said. I don't know if this a language I am accustomed to coming from artists. I don't know if I am articulating this well enough but the words people who I consider artists use I do not understand anymore.

I used to write poems and short stories when I was young. They were awful. But I wrote it because my mother liked reading them. It was never about being brilliant or creating something extraordinary. Same with films, I just want to speak my truth. Simultaneously I wanna hear other peoples truth, their perceptions of their human experience. I sometimes give feedback to film students screenplays, they regularly use AI, which again I am fine with, not like I haven't used them either, but I hear the reasoning and again, "to make it better", "to make something good." I just do not understand these words. What do you mean make something good. Is it not ok to make something crappy that is more true to you? How will you find your voice if you outsource "the voice", to make something good? Is it because the insecurities are so high in artists that we do not want to put out things that are not spectacular spectacles.

Would I right now feel the same if back then I had generated those poems for my mother?

And for what, to make it better? Make it more perfect than it already was. I do not know if I am in the sunken place or the rest of the world is regardless the effect is the same.

Hello hello!

I'm an LA-based screenwriter represented by Verve Agency with two feature screenplays sold.

I'm excited about the feature sales, but I also genuinely miss the art of the short film.

I'm looking to connect with directors and filmmakers looking for a writer to help with their next short.

I'm open to all genres. I'm interested in collaborating on projects and hopefully building some long-term creative relationships.

If you've got an idea you'd like developed into a screenplay, an existing script that needs work, or you're looking for something original, feel free to comment below or shoot me a DM.

Happy to share writing samples. Thanks!

Hey Directors!

Last year, I directed and produced an indie tv pilot called BOOKS starring Spencer Grammer(Rick and Morty, Greek) and Ajay Naidu (Office Space) with Deepti Menon, Melanie Brook, Ulisses Gonsalves and Henry Temple.

It came together within seven weeks of my team meeting the writers, Tim Cahill and Kristina Libby, at a table read during Lake Placid Film Festival.

We all bonded over our love of bookstores.

It’s finally public so I wanted to share it online.

The creators wanted to create a show that could showcase real authors and new books to audiences. The full season would find ways to incorporate authors into the show.

Our pilot features appearances by Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted, and Daniel Mendelsohn, author of Three Rings.

We shot the pilot over 5 days in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, wrapping on Jan 1 2025.

Our bigger challenge was obviously finding a location! Luckily the bookstore we shot in let us shoot the pilot when they were closed.

My DP, Adam Muro, and I in our location scout planned every angle and where every light would or could go.

Tried to focus on opening every scene with some moving master and then break into coverage. Getting only what we need. Definitely didn’t have time to get everything. We had to find a way to cover as much as we can within the blocking just to get through the day as fast as possible.

Biggest thing I can pass on is that we have a great community of film and theater in Upstate NY, where I’m based. People really came together to help out. Most of our casting is local!

If you have any questions about the making of, I’m happy to get into it!

Guys, I'm a first-time filmmaker working on a dialogue heavy argumental script happens in single location. The script has good emotional shifts, but I'm struggling to figure out the rhythm as a filmmaker.

Like, when to hold silence, when to cut, when to let reactions breathe, and how to show a character slowly changing emotionally. How do you guys approach this?

Hi I’m an indian student currently pursuing BTech IT.
I want to become a director in Hollywood, and I have no clue how to get into Hollywood. I have made a short film, but I haven’t completed it because I made it with my friends, and I am not happy with how it came out. I have written few scripts and I am currently learning how to develop scripts/story.

Can you guys please guide me?

This is one of the few things I really enjoyed doing.

Hi guys, this is my first post here. I think I’m in the right place to ask a specific question about the making of the Pusher saga, in particular, the first film.

I’m an independent director currently preparing to shoot my first feature movie, but I’m having a really hard time finding locations and casting actors.

I recently watched the documentary Gambler, which covers one of the hardest periods in Refn’s life. Watching a bit of his creative process, I was amazed by how easy he makes it look to shoot in authentic locations with non-professional actors.

Most of the time, he cast real people off the street, drug addicts, sex workers, ex-cons. As for the locations, he shot in public places with regular pedestrians going about their day. How did he pull that off so naturally?

I mean, it looks so simple on screen, but in reality, it feels extremely difficult. Approaching people on the street and saying, "Hey, want to be in a movie about a drug dealer? You've got the right look," seems like a bold way to cast. Same goes for using fake guns or staging a robbery in a public space when you're a complete nobody.

Has Refn ever explained his approach to this in an interview? It would be incredibly useful for someone trying to break into the industry.

Thanks a lot, everyone!

I've spent much of the last ten weeks sitting in a small room, surrounded by scribbled notes, dirty teacups and increasingly ambitious piles of washing. Occasionally I've remembered to leave the house.

A good chunk of my year has been taken up by making a series of short documentaries, a project that took me to Edinburgh for 10 consecutive shooting days and then required me to turn around five short documentaries in record time.

It’s been a lot of work but something I really, really enjoyed. The whole affair felt creative in all of the ways you hope making your living as a filmmaker will. This was especially welcome as I started the year feeling burnt out and questioning whether I wanted to keep going with the career I’ve put most of my life into so far.

I guess I’ve realised now though, having done this for a while, these feelings pop up every now and then. The ebbs and flows of adoring the work you’re doing and then occasionally being caught in a run of projects that might not speak to you inside where the art you lives. 

This is what happens when you turn your passion into a job. You have to find ways to make sure you’re nurturing the type of work that brings you joy.

I know it can sound naive and a bit Lloyd Dobler-y but I’m not willing to surrender it. Do you want to be a filmmaker or a salesperson? Maybe that’s too binary a way to put it? How much of your creative life are you prepared to sacrifice in order to sustain your professional one? I like that better. Deciding how you weigh those particular scales defines all sorts of things about your life, career and maybe even your happiness.

In this current moment a lot of making creative work is talking about that work in order to satisfy the algorithmic overlords. Now more than ever, the process is the product. It can seem like the performance of being a filmmaker is kind of detached from the experience of actually being one.

So, everyone has the same lighting set up in their spare room studio to film their talking heads. The same overhead rig for the gear reviews. The same top 10 lists. That stuff’s fine - some of it is even important. Well, useful at least.

But what’s the real reality of being a working filmmaker? Sometimes it’s a messy house and not showering until 10 because you need to get rolling in the morning or you’ll lose the day to procrastination. 

It’s growing to understand your own work cycles. Accepting that nothing productive gets done between 3-6pm but that the hours either side could host all kinds of discoveries. 

It’s a graveyard of empty teacups and washing piled up instead of packed away because every moment you’re not sat with your head in the edit, you feel like you should be.

Then in other moments it’s taking little breaks to play chess on your phone, even though you’re shit at it. Walks to the shop or to the park with your head in the clouds in the hopes you’ll be able to hijack the flow state that surges from a new idea and run back home to wrestle it into the project you’re currently struggling with.

These can be some of the best bits. 

Living a version of that creative life you fantasised about as a teenager is so often different to the one we imagined. Some ways good, some ways bad - plenty that are just neutrally different.

The exterior aesthetics are messier and at the same time blander than we might’ve hoped but the interior world you get to climb into when an idea is really firing and you’re truly discovering it is one of the best feelings in the world.

Anyway, I’ve just finished all my drafts.

Hi guys I'm working on my first short film for a competition. It has to be 2–5 minutes and revolve around a historical event that happen in my country

My idea comes from a small real story that happened to my father when he was a teenager around the time of this event. I want to build a fictional short around a present day conversation between a daughter and her father, where she discovers this story.

My problem is that every version I imagine starts feeling more like I'm interviewing my father about the past than making an actual narrative film. I have one strong visual image from his memory that I really want to use, but I'm struggling with how to build a dramatic scene around it rather than just having him tell the story.

I don't want someone to come up with the story for me, but I'd really appreciate advice from filmmakers: what makes a dialogue heavy scene like this feel cinematic rather than like an interview? What should I be thinking about in terms of dramatic structure, visual storytelling, and directing?

This is my first short, I'm shooting it with basically no budget and an iPhone, so practical advice would really help.

Art, HMU, Props, Wardrobe
I had no money to pay anyone, so we had  no one doing hair and make-up. During the scene in the park, Dave gets roughhoused by Steve and Mike, so in the following scene his shirt is torn and he has dirt on his face. To achieve this effect, the guy playing Dave ripped his shirt collar and rubbed dirt on his face from the soil around a tree on the avenue. This is not how it is done to real shoots. They have a hair and make-up department (HMU) and a wardrobe department to create the rip in the clothing. They would also have a special soil for the shirt; it would not be dirt from the side of the avenue with dogshit and god knows what else in it. We washed it off with Gatorade. He was a great sport about it.
A guy named Cliff did some art work for us. He is a very talented artist and hand drew the face of a young boy on a milk carton. This was to reference the idea that Mike is into some very shady stuff. When we first meet Mike, he has just gotten home from jail. We don’t know why he was there, but it seems like it has something to do with kids. In another scene, Mike is sitting near a stream in Prospect Park. (We managed to sneak into the woods and film a few scenes there.) He is distressed, looking all around, paranoid. He then takes a back pack, the kind a child in the third grade might have, and tosses it into the stream. The DP got a great shot of it floating away. 
We make a few veiled references to Mike’s other activities. Towards the end of the film, Mike pulls out a lunchbox and Steve realizes that he is back up to his old ways. He drives Mike to a secluded area on Long Island and shoots him in the back of the head. We had a very real looking gun, but it looked terrible on film. We had no special effects, the blood looked fake, the gunshot sounded ridiculous. Rather embarrassing. 
At the very end of the film, Dave performs his "ventriloquist" act.  His biggest hope in life is that Steve comes and sees him at his best and realizes that Dave, not Mike, is the one for him. However, Steve does not show up. Dave is humiliated. 
And then he kills Steve. He stabs him in the neck. I sat in the theater with sticky fake blood down the side of my face.
Getting pulled over in the van.
We shot this in 2002 so 9/11 was very fresh in everyone’s mind. There were all kids of security check points, especially at the bridges. The cops were stopping any vehicle that looked suspicious. 
I was driving a white rental van with the DP which certainly looked suspicious. We were traveling on Flatbush Ave from the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge towards Manhattan when the van was suddenly surrounded by cops with one of them pounding on my window. I stopped and she, rather impolitely, ordered me to pull the van to the side of Flatbush Ave. We were told to get out of the car and then interrogated. They separated us and started in: What were we doing; why didn’t I stop, blah, blah, blah.
I told them that we were shooting a short film and the DP was filming me while I was driving. They asked if I thought that was safe and I replied that we just needed one quick shot but maybe I should have thought it through more. Chris told them basically the same story. They were being somewhat over-dramatic in my opinion. 
Then the Anti-Terrorism Unit showed up. They were more reasonable in their tone (the NYPD was rather aggressive) and gathered that we were not terrorists. 
So those are a few of the highlights from my first film venture. It did get edited and onto DVD and I had a little watch party at the apartment and gave some copies to friends and family. People were impressed that it actually got finished. I never did send it out to any festivals, but all in all I am satisfied with the accomplishment.

What's your go to source for visual reference these days? Thanks!

Hey yall - I’m looking to get some feedback on this reel of mine if you have the time!

Also what are your thoughts on whether or not reels have a place in getting work as a director?