I hate short student films about 2 very serious "criminals" with no character, having a very slow and serious dialouge exchange with one of them at gunpoint filled with unnessecary silent pauses for no reason other than "well Quentin Tarantino does it so that means that's how you make a scene suspenseful"
Tarantino worship is the single worst thing to happen to first-time filmmakers and filmmaking in general. If you have to ape somebody else's style, at least pick someone everybody else isn't already aping.
I have so many ideas for a film that I want to do. The problem is I have no friends that I can shoot it with, and I'm camera shy. Edit: 4 years later, and I'm currently writing my first film, and I'm planning on shooting it very soon. Really, the problem with me was that i didn't have my own income. Now, I don't need friends, I can just hire actors. EDIT 2: The main actor/co writer to this film turned out to be a massive creep so i cut off all ties with him and now I'm back at square one
Joe Kerr I have scripts and I wanna be an actor too but my problem is the same as yours , I don't have that many friends haha , also I don't have money to buy a good camera :(
Joe Kerr best advise and it's what I'm gonna do in about a year just move somewhere with a lot of film buffs and people passionate about it (film schools or major cities) just gotta start doing basically
I'd say, if you have a camera (including a phone camera), just to try and film something yourself. Act out a small bit of your script, or figure out a way to write a film that will work with just you as an actor and the places you can film in as a set. You don't have to show it to anybody, but it is hands down the best way to build talent and confidence. Then you can build up to the projects you want to make. Don't worry if your first film isn't great - nobody's is. It takes practice to get good, and you can only get that by making films. Plus, it's just a lot of fun :)
Max Power Oh, and I do think having a top end camera is overrated. Films with a better camera will be better, yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't make good films with a cheap camera. The example everyone uses is Tangerine - screened at Sundance, shot on a phone.
Two months ago I shot a 3 to 5min short film on my apartment floor with my Lg stylo phone. I showed a couple of people and thought I needed a better camera and a more clear story. I was so worried that I needed a dslr and all this expensive equipment. I got frustrated and left it alone for awhile.This video gave me more confidence to keep trying and have fun.I am in the process of finishing it up now.
I know this comment is 4 years old, but just know it's never too late to try again (assuming you never finished it). This comment is more for everyone. Spend the next weekend writing a silly script and apply it to film. Notice the excitement you feel when you stop worrying about how it's going to turn out, and start focusing on the process. It's fun! It's exactly the reason you started out to begin with. You won't get better without making incredibly bad films. You could be the most ambitious person, you've wrote 20 different scripts, but when it comes to filming what happens? Your expectations come in and you hit a wall. It's hard to internalize, but I'll say it simply.. The quicker you understand that you're not going to make a good film immediately, the quicker you'll have something finished and moving onto the next. And then in a few years you'll have something you're truly proud of. Stick to it and apply, apply, apply! It's less about making something good, and more about enjoying what you're doing.
I think it's more difficult today in a sense that we live in a culture where everyone needs to broadcast themselves constantly. Back in the 80s and 90s, you could make hundreds of low budget short films that no one ever saw. This gave you a chance to actually build up your chops. Today, people want a feature length film right off the bat. Telling a story is the most important part of film making, it takes just as much time to learn how to do this through the camera than it does to actually understand the technical elements of film making.
It’s easier to find 5 cats that own te latest and greatest cameras than finding 1 dude that understand storytelling and knows how to write a compelling script. Anyone can shoot but not anyone can write.
Most of the video was great, but one of the things that pisses me off about modern cinema is that they DON'T take their selves seriously enough. Every fucking action movie has to have a couple of jokes before the climax. It's really annoying. For me that is being pretentious.. having a 400 million dollar budget, making a film that will reach the entire world, yet you HAVE to make it make fun of itself cause you're just oh-so above any of this fictional shit! I feel it's actually more accurate to say: don't make a big deal out of your personal drama kid, everyone has a hard time. What almost all pretentious shit movies have in common is that they try to make an enormous deal out of a break-up or something else that is pretty meaningless. But when you're doing action.. fiction.. every single aspect of your movie has to belong inside that world.. like Miyazaki's movies.. they take themselves 100% seriously, in ridiculously fantastic stories, yet they are believable and great, because the entire world is built in the premise of it being a real world, a real story. If you are pointing at the audience and shouting "H-hey guys!.. you know this is just a movie right?! Don't get too excited or scared!" you're shooting yourself in the foot, unless you're specifically doing comedy. If you disagree name me one fucking Marvel movie that doesn't at some point throws a stupid joke in an otherwise suspenseful scene.
I think that's part of the last tip. It's a bit more convulluted to get, but back in the 80s you had b movie flicks that were so bad they were good, yet nowadays all that seems to be done in this self aware wink at the camera kinda way, somehow trying to elevate the work by being self aware. Thankfully we still have Neil Bren.
Yeah, I like silly movies too, but they are just completely different. One movie that has comedy, goes over the top in multiple occasions and yet still can take it self seriously and deliver powerful punches is 7 psychopaths. I recommend it to anyone trying to understand what the fuck it is I am saying.
I loved Mad Max. It's 100 times better on cinema than on a small computer screen though. Anyone that just saw it on their laptops needs to see it with a decent 5.1 sound set-up and a big-ass screen. It's a great experience.
I completely agree with "don't take yourself too seriously" Especially now trying to find low budget features to help inspire me always end up being boring horribly acted/written romances or dramas. When you have NO producers or other influence's to tell you what you can and can't do why not try and do something different and experiment? You know trying to make art, the whole point of filming
"Let your limitations guide you" includes script writing. Big budget film makers start with a script, knowing they have the whole world to scout for locations and swarms of acting hopefuls wanting to be in a big budget movie. A micro-budget film maker has to go the opposite route: First, scout to see what locations are available for you; and look at the capabilities of each actor you have and how they can work together. Build your story around available locations and available actors.
Werner Herzogg would probably tell you that filmmaking itself is the problem solving device itself that you can lean on; it’s a good idea to set up realistic expectations certainly but also not to diminish the ability of the craft to rise above heights one might perceive as possible. You just have to solve problems creatively.
@@xenoherder6491 That's an excellent point. When a low-budget (or, in my case, "no-budget") filmmaker writes a script, there's the temptation to omit some good ideas because they don't seem possible. My approach is to put the idea in the script anyway. Every script undergoes some changes during the filming process, anyway; so, keep it in unless you have to change it then. By the time the scene is to be filmed, you may discover a way to make it possible. I'm currently working on a short film on how to create otherwise unavailable filming locations by using commonplace technology such as PowerPoint and Paint. I intend to release it around January 2024, concurrent with another project.
What about movies like Primer? How the hell did Carruth craft such a wonderfully shot, edited, scored, and written film? I get he did the bulk of that and knew the actors (who weren't anything special) but it astonishes me how such a professional looking film can be shot on such a micro-budget.
Carruth taught himself photography so that he could shoot the film. That's why it doesn't look like Clerks and the others. The DPs of those other films either had zero experience or had only shot shorts. Carruth on the other hand had been shooting test projects for years to refine the look of the film.
And all this great advice is practically ignored by most people wanting to make films and trying to get into "the industry" in the age of a new 4K camera coming out every other week, technophiles and people who believe that if you aren't making a film exactly the way Hollywood would, you "aren't being professional".
Every time I doubted myself on making my first film I come back to this video. As I’m about to start filming in the next few weeks I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for providing the perfect amalgam of both examples and inspiration to start my journey of filmmaking. If it weren’t for the stuff in this video, I’d probably still be sitting on my ass dreaming but now, I may just have a shot.
I guess you can argue that you're limited by the size of your sd card. If you want to force yourself to be more frugal, precise, and thoughtful with your cinematography, get a small size card.
"you have to let your limitations guide your story."...that is on point. Everything if have written, with purpose to shoot, was motivated by what I had access to...i.e actors, locations, equipment.
The last advice was great, i written and directed a short film on my grade project about time travell and i put some comedy elements on it. My crew were very upset about that and they were reluctant to film it. At the end my script was the only option to film and we done it. The presentation day of the grade projects was awful because all the directors take their films so seriously that they were boring as hell, until i presented mine with silly jokes and special effects. People were laughing and enjoying the film, so awesome. By the end of the day i didn't win best film because there was a comrade director that made a really fun horror short film that was better than mine, but still was a great expierience.
"Hannah Takes The Stairs" is a great indie film. You can't say "Let your limitations guide you" and then bag the people who do. You like splatter movies. Fine. Other filmmakers are trying to do something different, and that's not a bad thing. What, are you gonna start bagging John Cassavetes now? Come on.
Beautiful! I have shot, edited, recorded, written and directed no budget films before and have experienced a lot of what was said in this essay, using locations and what little you have to your advantage, and working with just precise footage (enough to carry the scene) and not having a master to work with. Now knowing so many famous and acclaimed directors have done the same filled me with a great sense of joy and it makes me feel better about the work I have done. Amazing video Andrew!
This year 2023 I made my first feature. 50 cast and crew. 23 locations. 5 weeks principle photography. Shooting on yachts, in hospitals , doctors rooms, restaurants, camp sites, shops and parks. I wrote it, shot it, directed it, produced it, managed costume and locations. The budget was £2,500 and I came in under budget. Oh and that covered 350 meals. To anyone that says they can't do it these days I say STFU and go make a film. Ps I'm nowhere. Small town middle of England.
Great video overall but I don't agree with the end. I know some filmmakers take themselves way too seriously and make movies like BvS but some filmmakers just aren't funny people. If they make a comedy or make a genre piece, it's gonna be shit and they don't want shit. They like serious films because it speaks to them. Did you even watch Moonlight? That was a super low budget film that was very serious and it did it pretty well. What matters is being honest to what you're making and not wasting time.
8:21 I know you're talking about the acting and how mumbling doesn't make something seem more emotional or deep, But... Whoever set up that audio recording, whoever planned that scene in that room with the audio equipment at hand like that deserves a slap across the face. That amount of reverb is equivalent to diarrhea. And you can't polish diarrhea.
I think they're criticizing mumblecore as a genre. The mumblecore movement was loosely based on principals of meandering post college twenty somethings trying to find purpose in their seemingly pointless lives. Production value or lack there of was part of the aesthetic, as a lot of them were filmed on crumby digital cameras using native audio
@@rainemara1755 agreed. That style was completely intentional to further invest the viewer into this world of essentially middle-low class post college students. For these films, dialogue and the conversations were oftentimes more important than the plot. "Films about nothing"
The purpose of using black and white film wasn't to disguise the budget it was caused by the budget. Following and Clerks were shot on a particular type of film stock called Black and White Reversal. It was the cheapest type of film on the market.
Hey, loved this viedeo. As an independent filmmaker i assure you this was my first idea for my no budget film. Just didn't know it was this deep. Thanks man.
As a filmmaker going from $100K+ Music Videos [2 day shoot] to $100K Feature [10+ days] where I'm also the Cinematographer, great little reminder of what's important/prioritize. Man nothing get's your blood & brain pumping like low-budget narrative filmmaking. Cheers for the vid.
ive been watching youtube videos on how to make a short film/ no budget film every day for like 3 months straight and this is by far the best one, and had lessons and tips that I had never heard before. thank you so much
To be completely honest I liked the video before you began ranting about student films that are “full of themselves.” Yes, there are some really bad ones but to say that no matter what a young student’s film isn’t as good as they think it is can honestly discourage someone when all they are doing is growing and following their passion for film. You started to remind me of a few people I’ve met in their 30s or 40s where all they do is trash talk young ones that they see as a threat to their skill, possibly jealous that they weren’t as passionate at a young age. You may be right that a lot of peoples films are not as good as they make it out to be, but without this mindset young filmmakers will only be negative and question if their films will only be bad, when in reality they could be something great.
Completely agree with you. Being humble is key, but how do you expect your film to do good if you don't think it is and if you're not excited to shoot it because you think it's that good and it's going to be received as one?
I searched both B&N and Amazon for “THE ABC'S OF NO-BUDGET FILMMAKING” before it occurred to me to click the link... The other two books I’ve read to tatters.
This was fantastic. I will recommend this to film friends far and wide. I released my first no budget feature film Son of Clowns last year and man can I say that when you just embrace your surroundings and give up on a million and one ways to make it look like some big to-do you finally unlock something even better. The truth. Comes through performances too. Keep making stuff!
Incredibly, despite starting principal photography on my feature in 2011-2012 (with a few shots filmed as far as 2007) on digital I still managed to get that same situation as with film: the limitation was that my awful Sony Handycam was a Mini-DVD camcorder so I had 25-30 minutes per disc and I usually only had two or three on me. The downside is that a lot of footage is not looking that well as later footage filmed in HD after 2015, as camcorder's maximum was 720p, but... It's just another limitation and I view it like this: in edit I'll be forced to make that watchable and I know I will.
I was in Stripped To Kill and Stripped To Kill II. I don't think there was a third. But the director and producer did make a third movie titled Streets with Christina Applegate. All were Corman films.
I've found every excuse in the book and wrote another book just to catalog more excuses. Doing my first short this December. Been through hell these past two years but watching this has given me hope. I have a very good cellphone and filmic pro. Time to make history.
Funny coincidence, right after watching this, I decided to watch a video of the Russo brothers chronicling their career, and what's one of the first things they mention? Robert Rodriguez making El Mariachi for 7000 bucks.
Hey Andrew, I don't know if I could agree with you on this one. All the "no money" films you gave us as example had at least a 6 000 USD budget. I know that it's not a big amount of money from the perspective of the film industry, but if the filmmaker is really a "came from nothing" director as you virtualize, it can be a problem, as so many other things. Things have really changed since '87 and 98' and you know it too. Chris Nolan's film really looks like it had no budget but the other ones are different. - Bad taste looks like tons of SFX and looks like it needed a lot of things that a big project needs (masks, location, props, more props and guns, which costs a lot then and now, even if they are shitty). - Slacker has professional camera and sound work (even if it's minimal), you show a shot in a restaurant or bar which was made with a tripod on a dolly (or I don't know may be from hand on a wheelchair, but I don't think so and it's not the french new wave anymore) - I'm sure it was not easy to film in Mexico in 92' but that shot when he lands on a bus after sliding on a rope... do you really expect LITERALLY no budget filmmakers to do that? Nowadays it's a horror to get locations in a city if you are not a producer or a studio, just a film student, I experienced it. And if you decide to film in 'guerilla' you will have problems publishing your work. I have some stories about it. - Nowadays all the people care about is looks, according to my experience, if I did something like El mariachi, I would be laughed on, If you don't look professional at least a bit, people would not take you seriously. - The 8mm footage you showed at the beginning, I don't know if it is part of Slacker or not, nowadays could be used only for videoclips for hipster bands, which is not bad, but cheap dslr and phone footage looks much shittier and doesn't have that nostalgic visual style either and if you try to mimic it with filters it will look bad. When we talk about no budget filmmaking it's never REALLY no budget, or if it is most of the times something that doesn't cost money, has to be brilliant (the story or the actors who work for free, etc...) Even "À bout de souffle" was made from a shit ton of money (shit ton for an ordinary guy, like me). If your picture and sound is crappy (like amateurish), it is really hard to enjoy a film in my opinion. I'm glad that your channel exists, and all I can say is keep up the good work and thank you!
Well Following I think had a $6K budget but I'm pretty sure most of that was because of film (getting it, developing it, cutting it) In the digital age that we are in, its so much easier and cheaper to do. It definitely doesn't look as nice but it works.
Anyone else notice how weirdly the one guy in Bad Taste (1987) by Peter Jackson is dressed like Harry Potter before Harry was invented? He's got the red & white Gryffindor scarf and the circular glasses. You start seeing him at 7:28, but there's a good closeup at 8:58 too
Here's another one. Lots of these no-budget movies were made in an age before digital photography. Most of the $7000 of El Mariachi went to buying film stock and developing it. If you're watching this, you probably have a camera (or a friend with a better camera) that doesn't need film and that gives you a leg up on Rob Rod. You have 7000 to make a movie? Great! Put it into production Design. Hire a better actor. Buy a bunch of green paint and turn your garage into a greenscreen studio. Use it as a contingency fund. Pay people! There's a lot you can do with $7000 when you don't need to spend it on making the movie exist.
Thought it was a good idea till you did the take yourself less seriously thing. Ironically you are exhibiting the behavior you're criticizing by condescending new filmmakers. And I haven't watched many mumble core movies but they lend themselves to people who dont have a large film budget. Where you suggest people should make action, sci-fi or horror, how is a new filmmaker supposed to do that without a budget?
I used to watch this video at least twice a year since 2016. 5 years later and I'm watching this video again but this time I finally have a feature film under my belt. Times have changed drastically since the films mentioned in this video were made. Sales agents and festivals really couldn't care less about a no-budget film with no stars. If you're going to make a no-budget feature film, it needs to be one of the best films ever for you to have any chance of breaking out. Best of luck to anyone reading this.
I think I have an idea down that I can do by myself but it will rob me of camera mobility and my favorite directors like Jackson and Raimi are really crazy with their shot movement and I love that. I’ve seen so many student films - including one I was the editor on - where every shot is static and it looks so boring and lifeless to me. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I didn't quite get the last lesson. like what if you're trying to make an action short film thats supposed to be serious? should't you take yourself pretty serious then? do you mean that instead of trying to make serious films, we should make more goofy and funny films as a beginner? thanks!!
YT's "How To Be A Filmmaker" video checklist: - Using clickbait (there's literally no reason why any of this wouldn't apply to a high budget production); - Glorifying average mainstream directors; - Giving stoic advice as deep as those found on some Brazilian truck bumpers (i.e. not very good advice); - Being ignorant on key areas of the subject being discussed, such as speaking about "embracing" and letting financial "limitations guide the story" (or whatever all of this means) while showing footage strictly shot on analog film; - Advocating for the use of filmmaking techniques that are more than a century old (in this case, using a window for lighting); - Giving obvious advice such as showing a location that is "the real deal", or whatever this naturalistic fallacy meant... [This is called good stage design].
So you know nobody is good enough to be at the level of Antonioni or Fellini (because people fail right out of graduation, etc.), but everybody is just about good enough to make genre films? Wow. And we wonder why people keep regurgitating tropes. This is what they're teaching at school. Fuck authenticity, personal voice, etc, just keep making slight variations of genre films, because you know you'll succeed!
Lmao, this video is so fucking wrong. "Just look on the most popular film directors, where they came from" yeah i remember, Lynch's first film was Eraserhead. Jarmusch's first film was Stranger Than Paradise. Nolan's was Following, Steve MqCueen's was The Hunger.. and so on and so on. So these guys take themselves seriously and worked hard, they were highly idealistic. I don't want to give some credit to your videos because your information only acceptable for unsuccessful people. And thats the reason why you made a youtube video channel, because you are unsuccessful with your movies and trying to hide it with working on other mediums. You are unsuccessful because you may not have the talent for cinema. You may have much more great talents on other mediums. But the whole video is just a soothing operation for unsuccessful film students. I don't care the highly intellectual pretending hate messages i get from this message. This has to be said. Stop expecting to be a good director while sitting in home and watching the videos of other failed film students. This only keeps you in low level.
Money isn't the problem with bad films, mostly all the movies in the last 20 years are completely %)#*%!!! Least in my opinion there are only a couple handful of good movies out of all of them, and most seem to be lower budget films. It's about presentation, cast, character progression, having the right things in the scenes, I find that mostly all the movies I can't stand have long boring scenes with characters having the most annoying boring conversations that are less interesting than the worst social interactions I have on a average day with people I have nothing in common with... Having characters in locations where you can't see them is annoying too, or just having things that don't fit in the scene, if you can't find a reason to put something in the scene then it shouldn't be there, it draws the attention and mental focus away from what ever the scene is about. Character progression is a must mostly too, I just watched a movie which was so horrible though I pushed through it hoping that it would get better cause it had one of my favorite actors in it as a extra, though none of the characters were described, in fact every time the camera pinned in on one of them who died I thought to my self, who the heck is that guy? or wow cool I don't care cause I don't know who he is... If a film maker claims that budget is a problem for location then he surely is limiting him or her self with a major excuse... just look at the movie "The Lighthouse"... This was one of the most interesting movies I have watched in ages, and it was so secluded with only a few actors involved with the whole movie....... I find with most modern day movies that they start out great, but after about halfway through they become so damn boring and the vibe of them just dies, even with big budget movies. I think it comes down to writing mostly for this though, but you could have a horrible written movie with great characters and extras, music, themes, camera angles and comedy that writing is no longer a focus, I mean look at a recent masterpiece movie "Bullets of Justice" for a example on that.
Hello, this is a really nice one. We have made a modern day no budget film. I will like for you to take a look and feedback. Let me know if you are interested
I think the biggest problem I have is really the cast. I have no friends that can be convinced into making a movie. I mean I have a short all written but I don't have actors to act it
I simply cannot agree to take shooting less serious. It has nothing to do with whatever " full of yourself" or "earth shattering genius". In fact it has nothing to do with anything personal. The cost of production is always the concern. Unless you are the one financing the project it. I am aware this video is about no budget lesson but your misguided statement to encourage this " less serious" thinking, is terrible advice.
solid video, for this you get a subscribe. Thanks! and I loved the part about being so serious because sometimes I take my work way too seriously, I love the truth in that :)
Kevin Smith has only made one good film. he used his limitations effectively and made high art. he let the ego from his praise goto his head and now everything he's made is garbage.
Agreed, I think Chasing Amy was really good and so is Clerks 2 (I think it has a better message theme than the first). Red State, Mallrats, and J &S are some fun times too, although not "high art". I'd give my opinion of Jersey Girl but people would probably chase after me lol
OP's comment couldn't be further than the truth. I mean the making one good movie is your opinion but Kevin has always been self deprecating. If you ever hear him give speeches, he always mentions how he has no idea how he got a career in filmmaking and that he's still surprised that anyone is willing to watch his films besides him. Kevin has always made films for fun. That's why he always casts his friends and now family.
