Making Indie Films

So everyone (yes, including you) has trouble getting the word out about their films. There are dreams of multi-million dollar contracts, and working with A-List stars, but the fact of the matter is those don’t come easily. It takes a lot of work and posturing to get those contracts lined up. Here’s where YouTube (www.youtube.com) comes in.

YouTube fills in that little area of filmmakers that haven’t been accepted into film festivals, and don’t already have distribution deals. YouTube allows you to freely promote your videos to the millions of people that visit YouTube daily. Here’s my ultimatum if you have a short film in the can take it right now and upload it to YouTube. Put the link in your email signature and spam the internet with it. I guarantee you you will be happy with the results.

Do you use a matte box when you shoot? If so, go ahead and post your favorites in the comments.

I have had my eye on the RedRock Micro (www.redrockmicro.com) Matte Box, but at $599 for the basic bundle, it is getting up there.

It is a beauty though…

Little Miss Sunshine is a perfect example of a Fan Favorite. It is charming, funny, and easily accessible. The question becomes, how do you make your film like this? Generally the fan favorite deals with light subject matter in many different subjects so that everyone in the audience can feel like they have lived part of the film. Also, the fan favorite tens to have many main characters for the same reason, so each person in the audience can identify with a character.

The dialogue in these films tends to be witty, kind of like the group of characters against the world…

It helps to make the film family friendly because if any indie film has a chance of making in big it is the fan favorite, and you don’t want to do anything to hamper that potential success.

Begging your friends and family and offering them nothing in return is not always the best idea. Family can get mad and things will never be the same between you when they realize that your film isn’t starring Tom Cruise (oops…). The best way to safeguard against anger on the part of your family is to offer investments, or shares of your film. Darren Aronofsky () funded his film Pi by asking his family and friends for $100 dollar donations, and if the film made a certain amount of profit, they would get their $100 back, plus $50 interest. This may seem like a bad idea right now considering that you have no idea of how much your movie will make, or even if it will make money. Just remember, if your film doesn’t make money then you don’t need to return the $100. There’s a bright side to everything!

Next time we will be looking at fundraising.

There is varying opinion as to which screenwriting software is the best. There is Movie Magic, Montage, Final Draft, etc.

Which one do you use?

(Personally it is a combination of Final Draft and Zhura (www.zhura.com))

If Final Draft is too expensive for you (about $200) or you are looking for something a little more…portable, Zhura is probably your thing. I use it any time I am away from the desktop that I write my screenplays on. It allows you to upload your script from Final Draft, or start your own script. From there you are able to write it, annotate it, and share it with others. The sharing works fairly well, but is really only useful if you are part of a screenwriting team, as people in our situation (poor) won’t have the need to send the script for review by the studio bosses.

Zhura is in constant development, so if its missing a feature you absolutely need, you should contact them with your proposal. Or you could just buy Final Draft, but that would take all the fun away…

Zhura

Keifer

One of the major problems that plagues independent film makers is raising money for their films. In order to make the money to make El Mariachi Robert Rodriguez enrolled himself as a guinea pig for one month. He made $7,000. The budget of his film, $7,000.

Many filmmakers have cooked up hair brained schemes to raise the money, from selling body parts (not really…hopefully) to opening lemonade stands. How will you raise yours?

The first, and most commonly used plan is asking. If you tell your family and friends that you are making a film, they will go into a trance, pull out their wallets, and fill your hands full of cash. It pretty much works like that. You need to have a few copies of your screenplay at hand so you can let them read it before they decide to take the plunge, if they are so inclined. After you tell your friends, and they tell their friends, you should be prepared to start your film.

This works best on budgets under $20,000, unless you have a rich uncle.

Keifer

RED’s newest addition is the Scarlet, which will be released in early 2009. It has the amazing resolution of 3K (to put that in perspective, most HD tvs project at maybe 1080i). It will have up to 120FPS shooting with a 180FPS burst. AND a built in LCD. Amazing, right. It gets even more amazing, the price is expected to be under $3,000.

Wowzers.

There are a few drawbacks, the lens for example (no interchangable lens). But this camera will undoubtedly be a boon to thousands of filmmakers around the world. Start planning your projects now, as it is expected to be released in early 2009.

Keifer

This is sort of the grand re-opening of makingindiefilms.com. We are a part of the 451 Press blogging network. If you look at some of the past posts, you will see that they were full of unsavory images that had nothing to do with film making. I do not have the ability to delete the images, but rest assured, there will be none of that going on if I have anything to say about it.

MIF is a blog about all aspects of making movies from screenwriting to casting, to choosing a camera, to shooting the actual film. Also, we will be profiling upcoming indie films, and talking about some ways they made the best of their small budgets and time constraints. If I’m lucky, we will be able to get an interview with some people in the indie film business, so stick around. We have a great ride ahead of us.

Keifer