How To Make A Movie

All The Steps Needed To Know How To Make A Movie And Become A Filmmaker

Well, this is an online film school. As such, I suppose I should tell people how to make a move at the very least, right? I'll tackle this from a first timer's, low to no budget perspective. Obviously, filmmaking is an incredibly diverse and extensive process, but the basics are still there, whether you're making a film for $500 or $50 Million. So, here it goes:

Step one:

Come up with story that you want to tell.

Now, there is a caveat to this though, as you have to come up with a story that you CAN tell as well. As in, if you want to make a movie about Roman Gladiators battling lions in a massive colosseum, but you don't have any money, chances are good that movie idea probably won't fly. Of course, this is an extreme example, but the idea carries all the way through the filmmaking process, no matter how much money you're talking about.

Even high-end professional flmmakers have to think carefully about what kind of movie they are making. If the expense of shooting the film is far higher than what the film is potentially worth, it becomes very difficult to justify doing the project at all. So, ideally, if you are just starting out, you will want to try and limit things like how many people are in the movie and how many places you are trying to shoot the movie in.

The thing of it is, almost anyone can come up with a story that involves huge epic places and big battles and tons of special effects, but it's much harder to come up with something entertaining that is actually affordable to shoot. And, because those big huge budget films cost so much, the people that put up the money tend to give it to people that have a long track record of actually making movies that people want to watch. So, the first thing you have to tackle and learn how to do as a burgeoning filmmaker is to figure out how to tell a story in a relatively small space with relatively few cast members that still entertains people.

Step Two:

Write your story down.

It doesn't necessarily have to be in a standard script format, but it can help a great deal when you go to give it to other people to look over. There are plenty of resources out there that will help you format a script properly, a Google search will be a good place to start with that. At the very least, you need to have a coherent way of sharing what you want to do in your movie with the other people that will be working on your movie.

As long as you can convey what you want to make in a way that people can understand, you should be fine. The basic elements of any screenplay are going to be the chronology of events that take place in the movie, where those events happen and what the people in the movie say and do. Your best bet is to write it out in screenplay format, but you're not limited to that and there are no rules here, especially if you're making the film yourself.

Some people have made films where they just give notes to the actors that give a general sense of what the scene is about and then let the actors improvise the lines, sometimes they'll give a few snippets of dialogue just to get things going, though most commonly on professional films, everything is scripted. The point of all this is that movies can be made a variety of ways, and there is no one "right" way to write the information down and present to the cast and crew. It's whatever works for you and them.

Step Three:

Figure out where you're going to shoot your movie.

Now that you've written everything down, go through it all and see what locations your script calls for. If you can't find or can't afford one of them, consider changing the script to accomodate what you can find or afford. Here is a great opportunity to stretch your creative skills and see what sort of things you can come up with. Just remember that, the camera only sees small portions of an environment at any given time. To give you an example, I was working on a set once that was a mock up of a Boeing 737 Jet plane, but right next to the mock up was a small section that only have 4 rows of seats and a few windows. The camera crew would shoot footage on the small section and then edit them into scenes shot in the full size mock up and no one ever knew.

I bring this up because sometimes you can shoot the exterior of a building and then use interiors from a completely different location and edit them together to make it look like the same building. For an example, let's say you have a scene where a person locks themselves in a public bathroom while another person stands outside trying to talk to them. You could "sneak" a shot of the actor standing outside an actual public bathroom knocking and listening at the door (make sure no ones in there!) and then shoot the rest in a bathroom that you have more control over, like at your apartment, your office or your school. If you're careful, the viewer will never know that those two shots take place in completely different locations because of the illusion you create by combining them.

The point is, even though your locations should be limited, you can get a lot of mileage out of being creative in using what you do have ready access to and occasionally mixing in things that are a little harder to come by..

Step Four:

Find people to act in your movie.

The quality of people that you find to act in your film will vary quite a bit just on where you are and what kind of people you might know in your personal life. If you live in New York City or Los Angeles, there are TONS of actors and actresses to choose from. But, that doesn't mean that you can't find them in other places too. Almost every high school, college and university in this country has a drama department and students that have been participating in drama studies. They at least have a rudimentary knowledge of what acting is and might actually give you a good performance if you all spend the time you need to really get the scene "right".

You can take an ad out in the local paper, ask your friends if they know anyone and go to the local schools and see if they have a board where you can post notices for this sort of thing. Websites like LACasting.com and NowCasting.com are some free resources to put out audition notices, but they're usually frequented by people in Los Angeles.

Even still, you should have a pretty good idea of what the person you want in your movie should look and act like, so keep looking around until you find that person. Believe me, there's no shortage of people with dramatic acting training in the world, it just might take you some time. And, don't forget your friends as well! If you know someone who is really energetic or outgoing, you might approach them to try out for your film. If you spend the time to help them learn the lines and rehearse a lot, they might actually work out for you, but you'll never know until you ask. It's one of those things that some people just kinda "get" and others don't or won't ever know how to do well. Sad to say, but it's true.

Step Five:

Get something to shoot your movie on.

Most professional productions use very expensive 35mm film cameras and external sound recorders with extremely sensitive and directional microphones (they only record sound from a very narrow field in front of the mic.)

If you're doing it on your own though, that probably won't work for you. In between the really expensive movie making equipment and what you might record a birthday party with is a huge range of cameras and sound recording options. The cool thing nowadays is that people are so used to seeing films made with all manner of different equipment, I don't think what you shoot on is quite as important anymore.

I think for most beginner's one of the new DSLR cameras combined with an externally mounted directional microphone would be the best bet. But, even just a regular camcorder that records audio can be used. It's not as bad as you might think, trust me, there have been films that have done quite well that were shot with exactly that. In fact, there is actually a film that was recently made by an avant-garde filmmaker that was shot on an old VHS camcorder from the 80s and that film opened one of the biggest, most prestigious film festivals in the world!

Step Six:

Shoot your movie.

You have to do it at some point, right? Now, if you check out my lecture on film production, you'll see that there are several ways you can approach shooting a movie. The most common approach used by professional filmmakers is shooting for what's called editorial continuity. As in, they shoot a lot of different pieces, sometimes completely out of sequence, with the knowledge that they're going to eventually edit it all together to make it look like one continuous scene after another. This approach to filmmaking requires the most technical expertise and time to get right, but with time, practice and care you can get it right.

As a beginner though, I would suggest a much easier approach, which is very similar to what they do on reality television shows and a ton of independent films. It's basically shooting non-continuity footage and then utilizing what are called "jump cuts" to assemble the footage together in a cohesive fashion. 

Often times, much like reality television, there is no true script, but rather the director will give the actors a conflict scenario and just let the cameras roll as the actors improvise a scene. Once they shoot a few of those, they move on to the next scenario and so on until they have enough footage to tell the whole story. When it comes time to edit it all together, they basically cut in and out of the scenes wherever the filmmakers feel that the story will be best served.

There are dozens of fairly good examples of what these movies look like, check out films like Hannah Takes The Stairs, Humpday or Nights And Weekends to see how to kinda pull it off yourself.They all employ these non-continuity, jump cutting techniques on some level and most of those films have gone on to do quite well. Humpday actually played at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France and got released theatrically!

Things to watch out for are making sure that it's quiet when you're shooting a scene (like no planes flying overhead or traffic or background noise) and that you get enough footage to convey whatever story you're trying to tell. The most important thing is that you don't rush! Take your time and make everything look as good as you can. Be sure to spend a lot of time rehearsing until the scene feels like it will go pretty smoothly before you roll that camera, which is to also say that you should be practicing where the camera is going to be pointing during rehearsal as well. It's no good to have actors know everything and your cameraman being clueless as to how the scene is going to get shot!

Step Seven:

Edit your film.

This part can take a fair amount of time and, if you're not familiar with how to use editing software, you'll have to either learn or find someone to edit for you. Nowadays though, Adobe Premiere Elements, Sony Vegas, Final Cut Express, even Apple iMovie and Windows Movie Maker all offer fairly user friendly versions of video editing software. Even if it seems intimidating at first, you have to realize that somewhere out there is a 10-year old kid who is using this stuff without even batting an eye. If a little kid can figure out how to, certainly you can too, right?

Now, much like any other aspect of making a film, editing is a skill that takes time to learn and become good at, but I'd say the best way to learn how to do it is to jump in and start doing it. Every editor out there had to make that step at some point, and the only way you'll ever get better at anything is by doing it, making mistakes, learning from them and then doing it some more. Of course there are editing techniques and best practices in post production that can make the process go a whole lot smoother, but that would take a lot more time than I could devote to an article.

While you're editing, you can do things like add music, clean up the sound (you were careful about keeping it quiet though, right?) and add some titles. All of the editors I listed above have the capability of creating titles and editing sound to some degree. You've all seen enough movies by now to know what the titles should roughly look like and you have ears. If it sounds like crap, make it not!

Now, for the most part, you can't really use music that you don't have rights to, which means most music out there. You have to have specific permission to use someone else's music, and if you're motivated, you can ask for that permission, but it usually comes at a cost. You might be surprised though, some artists are actually pretty okay with people using their music in a limited fashion (like if you were just playing at film festivals), though if your movie does well, they'll probably ask for more money when your movie sells.

There are places that, for a very small fee, will sell what are called royalty-free music cues. I've used a company called Shockwave Sound for a couple of music cues and some various audio effects through the years. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, they just seem pretty good to me, their music is actually pretty usable and the fees are reasonable if you need some music or effects. Other options are to have a friend (or friend's band) give music to you, or you can even make it yourself if you have any talent in that direction.

Step Eight:

Output your movie to a DVD.

In truth there are dozens of different ways to output your film and make it available for other people to watch, but I think the most readily available, easiest and most efficient method is to output a file of your movie and create a DVD from it. Some of the more user friendly editing systems even offer a way to straight from the editor into DVD burning software almost seamlessly. Again, this is something that a 10-year old kid is probably doing in his or her bedroom right now and isn't even giving it a second thought. It might take a little figuring out, but if you've made it this far, making the DVD is going to be a piece of cake!

Here's the cool part of having your movie on DVD. You can show it to other people! You can use copies of the DVD to submit your film to film festivals, play it for your friends at a party or even rent out a local theater and play your movie straight from the DVD (provided the theater has a DVD player and a projector hooked up to it.) Other ideas are to rent a good sized projector (or go to your local electronics retailer, buy one, and then return it when you're done screening your film) and find a large open space with a big white space on the wall. You can seriously even use a sheet if you're really in a pinch. Set it all up, pop some popcorn and have a private screening all on your own.

Summing it up:

Now, of course, making a movie can be a huge and daunting process.

If you really want to make a professional quality film, these days it's actually really "doable", but getting the knowledge of how to do it well can take a bit of doing. Obviously, I put this online film school here to teach people exactly that, but I also want to show people that making a movie really is something you can do. If you want to learn about filmmaking more in-depth, be sure to check out the various film courses I offer here on the site, or check out some of the sample lessons to see some of the other topics I lecture on. Also, feel free to read to the other filmmaking tips and articles I have. I write them fairly often and the tips section is growing all the time.

Hope this helps and good luck on your shoot!

-Danny