|
I want to know what you did and what mistakes you made on the path to earning an income as a freelance filmmaker, or on another track as an indie filmmaker working on narrative films. Should I buy a camera and some kit to just go chasing my own projects paid and unpaid, to build up a portfolio? How do I get work editing? Should I offer to places to come in and do work for free on their stuff for a while? It's worked for me before. What are good ways to find crew and actors? What would you say to someone who wants to start doing this in 2022? I want to move into working on narrative stuff as quickly as possible but I do not mind working on corporate, promotional, or whatever event stuff if it pays because I obviously need money, too and it will at least let me improved on skills. Anything you think is important on top of those questions, let me know. Context, if it matters: I've done a little bit of it in the past. A few shoots where I was an additional camera operator (wedding, car racing, wrestling, lottery videos). I found a politician and made a campaign video for them. Just called them up and ended up getting paid. Besides that I used to make shorts and animations. They were poo poo, and never had any audience. I was mostly trying to be funny on youtube back then. I also have a film studies (not practical, so I'm not very skilled). So I don't have zero experience, but it's all low level and at least 5 years in the past. I want to get back into it and I know I can do some of the same things I did before - emailing little production houses to see if I can get on a shoot, emailing businesses/individuals who might want a video, and getting back to making some stuff of my own. I'll do all of that. I have absolutely zero connections, not even friends who can help right now, and I know that's another big thing.
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 04:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:29 |
|
|
you would have more success asking about this in Creative Convention, where all the filmmaking threads and people are https://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=31
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2022 11:47
|
|
|
I once had a job as a freelance filmmaker in my late teens. I figured it would be a good way to make money and get experience, but its actually a really good way to get scammed since everyone moves the goalposts on what they agreed on and never pays you. This was probably in the late 80s when I started. I decided to get the top of the line ten speed motorola camera. This information is useless to you since those don't exist anymore. My friend group would film short films next to school each afternoon and they usually came out pretty good. We'd show them to people twice a year. All the other people's movies were complete trashcan poo poo because its like old movies from the 1960s where they don't cut anything so you see actors walking around the city for 3 minutes with no dialogue and boring as a rock. A big business man turned up one time and he liked our stuff, so asked us if we'd make him a feature film. We agreed and he gave his demands on what he wanted and said he already hired a crew for the acting. I asked him if they're a bunch of eggheads and he said no. You don't want eggheads as your actors. This is the most important rule. The most important thing you need to do is not hire an egghead cast of actors. It turned out all the actors were eggheads. We start filming and doing the lines but theres one big problem. People were making stinky faces and holding their noses like someone let a big one rip. One of the actress's salami smelt really bad like it was rotten and was filling up the whole room. It was the queef smell that for some reason was wafting thru the entire place. We had fans on for special effects and it was spreading the queef smell all over. We couldn't open the windows because that would ruin the lighting in the shot, so we had to keep them closed. The smell was so freaking bad oh my god. Most of the actors quit so they can save their noses from the atrocious smell. They ran out of the room and huffed clean fresh air into their poisoned lungs. There was only 2 people that stayed but they were the egghead bad actors and they had tears in their eyes from the smells even though it was supposed to be a happy scene we were filming. Really bad acting from the eggheads who were crying during the celebration scene. You shouldn't ever hire eggheads for actors. I showed the film to the businessman and he said he wanted some changes before he paid me. I told him to fung off and pay up. He refused and didn't take the film. So now I was stuck with a film with a bunch of egghead actors where they're crying during the triumphant ending, and didn't get any money. Don't trust business man with egghead actors to pay you because you'll get scammed by the stink smell.    
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2023 22:21
|
|
