These people? Yeah they're in debt.

A while back Short of the Week Editor Andrew S. Allen told me I should write about my thoughts about film school strategy. Here are the seven things I came up with that I find essential to any successful film school career:

1. Find Your Voice

This is a murky territory that a lot of people get confused by. Your voice is the kind of stories you want to tell, the kind of stories that move you. If you come into school loving romantic dramas, but decide to make an action picture just to “try it out,” the odds are it will probably not be as good. Basically this means finding and trusting your intuition, being able to listen to yourself for what you find important. Miranda July said in a Q & A at the Los Angeles Film Festival that she wakes up every morning and asks herself what she really wants to do today. That’s not a bad start.

2. Make A Lot of Short Films, Finish the Damn Things, and Make Them Cheap

One of the things that still baffles me about film schools is how instead of making a bunch of cheap films, we make a couple very expensive ones. The learning potential for a film generally remains the same no matter how much money you spend on it. Putting a film together, and then being forced to watch it over and over again is the best way to learn how to make a movie. Shoot digital, shoot a lot, and set deadlines to finish. I wrote a post earlier called “Good Enough,” and I meant it. Not every film will be a masterpiece. The best films are the ones you learn the most from.

3. Write/Develop A Lot of Features (Including One You Can Make For Nothing)

If you want to be a writer/director, as it seems most people in film school do, you have to write a lot of features. As with the short films, some of them will be better than others. The most common story repeated in film schools is:

Jimmy just won Sundance/Cannes/Berlin/the Student Oscars with his short film, he got repped at WME/CAA/Paradigm, but he doesn’t have any features done, so now he’s going to spend 6-12 months writing/rewriting while the buzz dies.

For a first person account of this, see this post on John August’s blog: http://johnaugust.com/2011/missed-opportunities-and-second-chances

The second (and far more common) thing that happens is that your short film is not a massive success, and you don’t get the great agent/manager to guide you to new career heights. That’s why you have to write something you can make, no matter what, for cheap.

I wrote last week about how Ryan Koo raised $125,000 on Kickstarter. He has no major credits, as far as I can tell has never had a short film at a major festival, and is relatively unknown. He did have a blog though, which was free, and a lot of savvy and hard work, which is also free. The point is you can make your first feature, you’re just going to have to be realistic and do it for CHEAP!

Abe Sylvia, a UCLA alum whose Dirty Girl hit theaters this weekend, said that the one thing he wished he’d done in film school was write more. The more scripts you have, the more movies you can potentially make. If you don’t have any scripts, you don’t have any movies. Period.

4. Submit to Film Festivals/Screenwriting Competitions

Hopefully one or two of your short films will come out well. In which case you’re going to have to learn to start throwing money and DVDs into the abyss known as film festivals.

The second portion of this is applying with your screenplays to contests like the Nicholls, Goldwyn (for UC Students), the Sundance Labs, Zoetrope etc. Development interns and assistants in Hollywood power through the finalists for these competitions all the time, and it is one of the best ways for an unknown to get read without representation, and even to secure representation.

Submitting to film festivals and competitions is pretty straightforward, and I already wrote a post about short film festival strategy, so I’m not going to go too in depth here.

Basically it’s a lot of work. You’re running a little office (I have a spreadsheet) and every few weeks or so you:

1. See which deadlines are coming up.
2. Pay entry fees and mail dvds.
3. Check to see if new deadlines have been announced.
4. Weep over the innumerable rejections.

5. Intern

Yes, this is the part where people go, “Internships? Isn’t that slave labor?” The answer is: kind of.

An internship will teach you how the industry works from the perspective of the people who actually get paid to make movies. If you do a good job, they will become contacts that can help you in the future with job searches, script notes, general encouragement or connections to other film people.

This is your way to spend two days a week learning how people who can make your movies think, and should not be overlooked. I’ve done two in my two years here, and I wish I could have squeezed one more in.

Every school (at least in NY and LA) should have some sort of internship listing. If your last name isn’t Coppola or Reitman, I suggest you give them a look.

Bonus: If you work for a small company, you may even find a mentor.

6. Form Long-lasting Relationships With Peers

Another oft-quoted cliché in film school is; “keep track of your peers, you will be climbing up the ranks together.” This is very true. How many friends did you have before film school who could Assistant Direct a movie? Shoot one?

Your peers are the people who you can go to in times of need, who might be able to help you make that $50,000 feature by providing some of the slave labor it implies, and who (hopefully) have a vested interest in your success.

In some ways this can be the biggest gift you have coming out of film school; a group of like-minded, passionate and motivated people who you can always call if you don’t understand color correction or need a last-minute grip.

7. Finish Fast and Minimize Your Debt

The bottom line is that America seems to care less and less about the rising costs of education and the welfare of its students. I recently posted the following commentary on facebook:

While we can petition our government as much as we like, the bottom line is it’s going to get more and more expensive to study here in America, at least until the education bubble pops. The sad thing is that we’re willing to bail out the banks, but not the universities.

I’m choosing to graduate a year early from UCLA because I didn’t see the point in going any farther into debt that I already had. You learn how to make a movie in film school. My feeling was that once you’ve done it a few times, you’re ready to leave. The factors that I had the most control over that contributed to my debt were:

1. The cost of my films
2. My lifestyle
3. How many outside jobs I worked

For $50,000

For $100,000

For $200,000

In the end I still think film school is worth it. It’s a lot to cram into 3 (to 7) years, but that’s why we pay the big bucks, right?

A Son Like You: 17 Months

Jersey’s For Lovers: 12 Months

Honor Student: 8 Months

Between Us, A Dog: Still Unfinished (In Sound Design)

I’ve had many highs and lows throughout the postproduction of these films. This summer I decided that no matter what, all of them would be finished. In doing so I forced myself through the post-production process of locking picture, finding a composer, doing sound design and finally color correcting. It was difficult but very rewarding; you can learn a hell of a lot in color correction and sound work that will help you on your next project.

The way I got myself through it was to remember that sometimes something is good enough. Any of those films could have taken even more time in each of the processes, but I looked at the films and the deadlines I set for them and decided they were good enough. As a filmmaker you never know whether a film is good enough for Sundance, or Cannes or whatever festival you dream of going to. You can decide however when a film is good enough for you.

This summer I also embraced minimalism; owning only what you need to own, keeping only what you need to live. There are many similarities between finishing your film and embracing minimalism. There’s a tremendous feeling of accomplishment with every film you finish, every closet you clear, every shelf you liberate.

Some some of your films might go to the shelf, while others will go to vimeo or festivals, but every one is a triumph. So the next time you’re sitting at your computer, thinking about the unfinished projects, just ask yourself, “Is it good enough to finish now?”

When you export that final file, you’ll feel a sense of freedom and accomplishment that you can bring to your next project. It’s a wonderful place to be.

Director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean won the 2008 Sundance US Short Film Jury Prize with Sikumi “On The Ice.” He then participated in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab to develop his feature of the same name. There’s a great video of him discussing it in this episode of the Youtube series on the Sundance Directors Lab.

Crossbow

This brilliant short was created by director David Michôd to demonstrate his abilities as a director. He already had a feature script and needed to show how the film would be shot. That script was Animal Kingdom, which won the World Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The Raven

This short was recently picked up to be turned into a feature at Paramount Pictures. It was shot in Los Angeles for $5,000, and probably had at least $200,000 of free effects work. Shorts can sell studio features, but usually show a very specific world coupled with amazing effects work. Note that The Raven is less a complete film than one action sequence, showcasing a story’s world. Shane Acker’s 9, discussed later in this article, uses a similar teaser structure.

Gowanus, Brooklyn

This is the short that inspired the Oscar-nominated film “Half Nelson.” Winner of the Short Filmmaking Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

9

This short by UCLA animating alum Shane Acker was nominated for the Oscar for best animated short and won a student academy award. It was made into a feature in 2009 with Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly and Elijah Wood.

Next week I will discuss the different strategies these directors used. The first part is: make a damn good short.

Part 1: Development

Miguel Arteta, AFI Alumnus and director of shows such as “Six Feet Under,” “The Office” and “Ugly Betty,” as well as multiple feature films, including “Youth in Revolt,” was the first to go. After a short introduction, he screened his short, titled “Are you the favorite person of anybody?” Here it is:

He said that his then girlfriend Miranda July came up with the idea at 9:30 on a Sunday morning, and on 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon it was done. He praised the simplicity of the idea.

Next came Jay Duplass, of the Duplass brothers, whose recent feature Cyrus is still in theaters through Fox Searchlight, and who has had three features at Sundance overall.

Duplass said that he and his brother made a few features before they made shorts, all of which failed miserably.

“We kind of had an accident where I started filming my brother Mark one day, and the movie cost like 3 dollars. It was a mini DV tape that we got at this Circle K by our house and put into our parents’ home video camera. And this movie came out that was different from anything we had made. It was basically just one scene, it was something that had happened to me a week earlier, trying to perfect the personal greeting on my answering machine.”

Duplass said that shorts were a cheap way of trying to figure out who they were. What their voice was. He explained that

“We were trying to be the Coen Brothers for a long time.  Don’t try to be the Coen Brothers, they’re always going to beat you.”

He also said it took him 10 years to make anything he thought was decent, and that he was on the verge of losing his mind, and that that’s what that film was and what it represents. He emphasized that shorts were a cheap opportunity to discover your artistic voice;

No one in film school or on panels talks about it, but a big part of making art is trying to figure out who you are as an artist and what is unique that you have to offer the world.

Last came Peter Sollett, an NYU alum who showed his remarkable thesis film “Five Feet High and Rising,” winner of prizes at Cannes, Sundance, Aspen Shortsfest and South by Southwest. Sollett has participated in the Sundance Labs, where he developed his first feature “Raising Victor Vargas.”

Sollett told a great story about being a young filmmaker at NYU. The film he made before “Five Feet High and Rising” was a big production: lots of lights, dollies, and grips. When he screened the film, he said he got the best compliment anyone could give at NYU: “It looks like it was shot on 35 (mm).” It was a small comfort as he was very dissatisfied with the story and performances.

He decided after that that he didn’t want a big crew at all. He shot Five Feet without a DP, improvising based on a treatment and using natural locations with no permits. He had a very difficult time with it, and came out with something enormously beautiful and personal.

All of the filmmakers stressed that large productions will cannibalize your time away from story and performance. Multiple or elaborate locations, props, vehicles, costumes etc.will take all of your time and draw you away from your film’s story, performances, and camerawork.

Short filmmakers never have money (except in Europe, where they occasionally receive subsidies). The stories short films tell are generally small and simple, with minimal locations and characters. Often they are just one scene. Minimizing production hassle allows filmmakers to do what 2010 Sundance Short Film Winner Jeremy Konner recommends:

The best thing to do is to be prolific. If you look at a lot of the great artists, they made plenty of things that weren’t successful, that didn’t work.

Keeping costs down allows you to experiment and learn until you come up with something great.

It was a very inspiring day. Coming from a school where students spend thousands and thousands of dollars to make long, expensive and often confusing short films, a call for clarity, thrift and simplicity was refreshing.

A violent cop out for revenge meets an unexpected obstacle…

• Blue-Tongue Films – Hollywood’s Australia Collective – NYTimes.com
  “We run into people carrying $120,000 debt from film school,” Mr. Doolan said. “And all they want to know is how we did it.”

Here are three of the films the group has produced. I have blogged about Crossbow as a short good enough to get an agent.

Thanks to Short of The Week.

1. Director
2. Boom Operator
3. Assistant Director
4. 1st Assistant Camera
5. Gaffer
6. Director of Photography
7. Sound Mixer

All seven people in my group (6 directors and 1 DP) went through this rotation starting in a specific position. I started out as boom operator and directed last. Some interesting combinations that come out of this:

1. You AD for your DP
2. You AC for your DP
3. You DP for your AD

I shot my film, A Son Like You, last weekend and telecined last night. It was an expensive but rewarding experience and I am excited to go into editing in the spring. Here are ten important things I learned on these shoots:

1. Block it. Light it. Shoot it. As a professor said, “if you’re not doing one of these three things at all times on set, you’re not making a movie.” Set the blocking with the actors, show it to the crew, let them light it, then shoot it. We got better at this as the shoot went along, but it’s a surprisingly difficult thing to remember when things get hard.
2. The director sets the tone on set. If the director is calm and focused, so is the crew. If the director is frantic and emotional, so is the crew. There are many things you can’t control as a director, but your tone and mood is a big one to watch out for. The crew sees everything the director does on set.
3. Respect your crew. The crew works very hard at all times to make your movie as amazing as possible, knowing that an audience member is probably not aware of how difficult it can be to get proper focus and exposure. Feed them well, have good craft services, don’t make them go over unless it’s absolutely necessary. Spend the little extra money to make sure you have a proper vehicle to transport equipment and proper beds for the crew to sleep in on location. They will pay you back by making your movie happen. On a side note, the crew should not only be physically taken care of, but emotionally as well. Outbursts and infighting should be kept to a minimum, and criticisms should never be public.
4. Trust your collaborators. A distrustful director is a burden on everyone, and generally makes them do their jobs worse. If you have hired a number of people to fulfill certain position, trust them as much as possible to fulfill those positions. This is difficult for us, because the films we made before coming to UCLA were usually self-produced, designed, managed, etc. A crew exists so the director can focus on their specific task: getting the performances they need on camera. There was a quote I read about Cassavetes the other day: “He thought of you as a hero, and you became one in response … believed someone into doing more than they thought they were capable of.” A big problem for directors is that there are certain moments where they feel they have nothing to do. These moments are often filled with helpful suggestions to the crew. It’s probably better to be thinking about the next shot at that moment. Let the crew do their jobs.
5. How to take light meter readings. You point it at the camera, not at the light.
6. How a DP prepares. A director of photography is a creative artist who works with light and framing to create images that convey your story. On a practical level this means creating detailed lighting plots and being very involved in scheduling with the AD in order to make sure that your shared vision is realizable on set. I believe that after extensive preparation with a DP, including storyboarding, you leave them to express your vision photographically on the set. Other directors have different approaches.
7. Check the frame constantly. This is more as a DP than as a director, but on a larger set the damndest things will wander into the frame: water bottles, PAs, the script supervisor. Check the beginning frame, the end frame, and 45 times in between, especially when working on small spaces.
8. How to work with a script supervisor. I had the benefit of a wonderful script supervisor on my set. By the last day we would have a brief meeting in the morning to discuss the day’s shots. A script supervisor can save you countless headaches in the editing room. They make sure wardrobe and props match from take to take, as well as keeping an eye on eyeline, entrances and exits, gestures, and anything else that can give you a major headache in the editing room.
9. How to incorporate improvisation into a shoot. This is very specific to me, and came out of a lot of practice, study, mistakes and frustration. I ended up getting some wonderful, spontaneous performances on set. The way I worked was I did extensive improvisation of backstory in rehearsal, then slowly allowed actors to change non-key lines of dialogue to make them more natural for themselves. When they came up with something I felt worked, I would “set” the new line, and that became what they said every take. On occasion I would rewrite the line myself, seeing what I finally needed. It was a wonderful, exhilarating process, one that I began a year ago in Berlin.
10. Patience and forgiveness. Both of myself and others. These are student films. We all worked our hardest, but we are all learning. Each of us will improve in different ways with every film, but much of these shoots were learning about ourselves and how we collaborate (and conflict) with people. Most of us coming into the director’s program made small films ourselves and our friends. It’s much different directing a set with 20 people on it; it requires an amazing amount of people skills. Some things came out brilliant on the shoots, others didn’t. In the end we will learn more from our failures than our triumphs. I know I did.

Watch on Youtube.

The therapist in popular culture is hackneyed figure. Usually a small, stocky, jewish-looking man, his fate is to listen to the lucrative if dull problems of the rich, problems more easily solved with a bit of common sense.

I know this is a comedy, and I watched it with my mom and enjoyed it. Clichés are easy to digest and enjoy. Comedy is full of them, and they are necessary for comedy to thrive. Still I have real problems with what this film is saying.

“Our Time is Up” begins with a bored psychotherapist, very reminiscent of Lester Burnham from American Beauty. He goes through his morning routine before ending up in his office, where he receives a phone-call from a neophyte therapist eager to hear how he treats his patients. Our hero is not so eager to talk, and rudely hangs up the phone.

Thereafter we meet his patients. Here are a few of the clichés he works his way through;

• a playboy who goes out with a different girl every night of the week and can’t find love
• the thin, attractive and bulimic model who’s convinced she’s obsese
• the classically closeted homosexual
• the (asian) hypochondriac
• a man with a turtle phobia
• a man who loves his wife despite the fact that she throws plates at his head
• the compulsive ass grabber
• a middle-aged man who’s afraid of the dark

After hearing them out with boredom, he receives a phonecall from his doctor telling him he has six weeks to live. It is, not surprisingly, a life-changing ordeal.

He proceeds to tell all of his patients exactly what he (and the audience) thinks they need to do. They get angry, do what he tells them, and miraculously heal themselves. All is well in psychiatry.

I understand the need for tropes in comedy but this film is disrespectful to anyone who has ever been in therapy. It proposes the classic argument that people in therapy don’t have real problems, and if they just went to their cousin Jed he’d fix ‘em up with a little bit o’ common sense.

Aside from all of that, and this is so common in short films, it’s just not a very interesting movie. There isn’t the least bit of surprise throughout. Each character presents their clichés, then are healed from them. Real people’s psychological problems often take years of concerted effort on behalf of both therapist and patient.

I once read a book on hypochondria that said that people generally go to their traditional medical doctors with psychological problems. Their GPs, trained to treat the body, offer them medication to numb the symptoms of stress, depression, anxiety etc. Their patients then wander around doped up, grateful to avoid dealing with the roots of their problems for the price of a few more prescriptions.

Their problems would have been better dealt with in therapy. Of course, if that person had watched a film like this, they might be afraid of being seen as silly or weak. One of the comments on youtube was from a high-school student whose teacher showed the film in an AP psychology class. I’m sure he’ll be the first to visit a therapist if he has problems his traditional doctor can’t handle.

This film, albeit humorously contributes to the view of psychotherapy as ridiculous and unnecessary. Not every therapist is fantastic, nor is every film. It takes a long time to find a good therapist, as it sadly does to find a good short film. I’m starting to think the Oscar-live action category is not the best place to look for them.

Even if it’s a small piece, you will most definitely need people to help you. In fact at least half of a director’s work is managing people.

The first impulse is to look to your circle of friends for collaborators, and it’s both natural and good to do so.

A warning; your best and most film-fanatic friends might not make the best collaborators. I have learned this through a lot of sweat and blood and felt compelled to pass on some characteristics of good collaborators, based partially on John August’s excellent Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amateur.

In doing so I assume that you already possess these qualities yourself, or are working very hard to gain these virtues.

You are going to demand a lot of time, effort and respect to make your film, and should exemplify the qualities you expect in others.

John August writes that his five qualities of professionalism are:

• Presentation, a.k.a. “Giving a shit”
• Accuracy
• Consistency
• Accountability
• Peer standards

I highly suggest you read his article. If you need help getting organized, try Getting Things Done by David Allen. It can be a little kitschy, but it is very effective.

I’m looking at these qualities from the perspective of the no budget, first-time short film director and am basing this partially on a difficult collaboration I had with a good friend.

You are starting to cast your film, prepare a schedule, storyboards, perhaps even a budget and have one or many good friends helping you.

These are some negative qualities (hope to god they’re not habits) that should be commented upon, criticized in a straightforward and impersonal manner, and eviscerated.

1. Lateness

Many people work very hard for no money on short films. They should not be made to wait. I have done so often, and it is a painful and disappointing way to spend your time. If someone is running late they should know it and call in advance with an estimate of how late they will be. Make judgments based on how accurate their estimates are.

Talk to someone about their lateness the first time it happens. Make sure that they know it is unacceptable. Be friendly but firm.

If someone is more than a half-hour late more than three times, get rid of them. This is something I wish I had been able to do. Friendship and serious work do not always go hand in hand, and you only have to experience it once or twice to see how quickly one will corrupt the other. Believe me. People have different methods of working, but they have to be at the same place at the agreed upon time to make films.

2. Excuses

These are not only for lateness. They are for forgetting things, losing things, misscheduling, and the host of other problems that beset the no-budget short film. This falls under accountability. We all make mistakes, and as a first-time director you will too. Admit them. Lame excuses break trust. Have a talk with the person, if they can’t change, find someone who can.

3. Bad Criticism

Constructive criticism is a good thing. You should seek out as much as possible for your scripts and storyboards before you’re on set.

Criticism also has a time and a place, and it is not on the set in front of everyone. If a collaborator is openly critical in a demeaning or uncalled for way, take them aside and talk to them. If it continues you know what to do. The balance of trust in a first time director is tenuous enough to begin with.

4. Lack of Respect for People and Equipment

Undue criticism is not the only form of disrespect. While there is a lot of disrespect for people in film, there is also disrespect for equipment. The cheapest, oldest camera is still your means to bring your story to the world. Learn everything about it and learn to love it. As Mike Figgis writes in his excellent Digital Filmmaking;

The first thing a soldier is taught is how to dismantle his gun and put it back together – make sure it’s clean, make sure it functions – because that’s the thing that will save his life. You don’t want your gun to jam. You don’t want your camera to jam either. If something goes wrong with it, you want to know how to fix it or adapt it. That’s why i say it’s always important to own your own camera, because you have a different relationship to it.

Respect for you, who are probably financing the film, is respect for your equipment as well. No camera no film. Broken camera no film. Respect it.

These are just a few of the qualities I have often found lacking in my collaborators and myself. I have tried to improve with each film as I hope those who I work with do as well.

As a director you lead by example. If people know that you’ll be on time and prepared, they will be too. If they’re not, talk to them.

Every time you’re late or make an excuse you break a small part of the trust that is essential to all human relationships. If people seem unable to change, find a replacement. You will save yourself frustration and friendships.

John August writes;

You don’t get to pick when you’re going to be professional, and when you’re going to be amateur.

In fact, he concludes

You don’t get to be an amateur at all.

Do your best to be a professional. People will respect you for it. No one is perfect, but we can always try a little harder to make this crazy job a little easier and more enjoyable.

Pay attention, work hard, be on time, be respectful and expect the same from everyone you work with. Chaos will always be there in the outside world waiting for you. Save the chaos for creative problems, there will be enough of those.

Good Luck!

1. Be Professional

Every choice you make surrounding your screening either adds or detracts from the perceived value of your films. So:

• Be punctual and prepared.
• Make sure the films you have chosen to show fit together thematically.
• Respect your audience’s need to adjust to the process by choosing “easier” films first and working your way up to the harder ones.
• Have a program so people know what they’re seeing.
• Test all equipment beforehand. Never make the audience wait.
• Have a place where people can write their comments if they like.
• Have a poster with the event, your website and the means of contacting you.
• Have a list where people can write down their emails to hear about further events.

If you do all these things, people will implicitly understand that the event and your films have value. They will take you  and your films seriously. They won’t gripe about a two or three dollar cover charge and may even buy some of your films (which you of course have for sale).

2. Choose a good venue.

What’s a good venue? A good venue:

• Has comfortable, well-organized seating.
• Appropriate equipment for projection.
• Reasonable prices for drinks.
• Friendly staff.
• A reachable location.
• Maybe free popcorn.

You may not have all of these elements, but ask yourself: What do I enjoy? What would annoy me if I were at one of these things? It makes sense to sit down and have a brainstorming session about how you can make the screening as enjoyable as possible. People will appreciate you and your films more.

I would recommend John August’s Professionalism and the Rise of the Amateur for further advice on professionalism.

Good luck!