If you wanna see your screenplay on screen - you gotta learn to direct, and probably not be bashful about putting some skin in the game as producer, too.
https://docs.google.com/spread.....;usp=drive_web#gid=1

Code Wr = Writer Dir = Director Pr = Producer cX = Co-Writer or Co-Director Almost all of these have multiple producers, so an "X" in the "Pr" column likely means the writer, co-writer, director, and/or co-director are among many others as the film's producer. XY | X | Y = indicates the co-writer was director, and the other co-writer was producer XY | XY | X or Y = indicates the co-writers were also co-directors, but only the other co-writer was producer XY | XY | XY = indicates the co-writers were also co-directors and producers X | Y | XY = indicates the writer and separate director were also producers

Again: Peddling spec screenplays is for rubes. :lol:


And I think it's safe to say this applies to direct-to-video/VOD/youtube as well.

I just spoke about this on another site. I'm teaming up with a Director, cameraman, sound operator and music producer to do a short next year. With a mind to gaining funding for a feature.

Directing is hard... you can't really just learn it on the hop, IMO. You really have to know what you're doing to direct everyone and everything at once. Same as working a camera... it ain't easy. Nor is making music. Come to think of it, neither is acting.

Using friends isn't a good idea, IMO. It will look a mess. Unless they are actor friends, of course. Even many of those, bleh.

That's why casting is important. Believe it or not there are plenty of actors willing to work for credit and their dinner, expenses, whatever. You do a casting call, they turn up and apply for the parts. You choose your stars.

Then there's editing. Getting every scene to look the same, cinematic-wise. Colour grading, etc. Not easy when you don't know what you're doing.

Any one of those stages messing up will make a film not worth watching before we ever get to the actual story.

Quoted from Nomad Me too.  I'm actually going to shoot a one man short this weekend if I get the time.   I'm using the following: Canon t3i GoPro Hero 3 Silver Sony Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12 ICD-PX312 voice recorder Cheap Radio Shack Mic and a Lav I'm just going to shoot the footage this weekend and then work on the foley, voice over, and score as time permits. I still need to learn about color correction/grading and sound effects, so hopefully it all doesn't turn out to be one big turd.   Time will tell. Jordan

by the way, how did all this go??  

Hi there, I've just started film making so here's something on sound that wont cost you a fortune. I got a Zoom H4n,  it's good on it's own but it depends if you can get it near enough the actors without getting it in the shot. If you do get one of these remember and get a dead cat to go with it as it picks up wind noises pretty easy. It also has 2 XLR imputs so you can plug in say a Rode NTG2 . The Zoom has heaps of functions so you have to do a fair bit reading up but worth putting the time in. Hope this helps

I forgot to say the Zoom comes in at about £250 thats about $400

Quoted from Guest by the way, how did all this go??

It went well.  I put on my "Tony Scott" red hat and went to work.  

I knew in theory what it takes to film something, but when it came down to actually filming it, I felt like a bumbling fool at first.

I have a treatment for my film but I still haven't written the actual script yet, so I drew up some rudimentary storyboards just to make sure I got the shots I needed.

Once I knew what shots I needed, I assigned camera positions to all the shots that were filmed at the same location so I didn't waste time moving the camera.

I got my first experience with the weather affecting my shoot.  It just happened to rain the day I was shooting and since I was borrowing a friends lens I didn't want to risk it in the wet weather to get the one outdoor shot I need.

I did use my GoPro with the waterproof housing to get some establishing shots while it was sprinkling outside, but I wasn't about to wander around with my Canon in the rain.

I learned the value of a wide angle lens when shooting indoors.  Even with a 16mm lens I still had to move a lot of furniture to compose the shot correctly.  If I had a full sensor on my camera I may have been able to get away with using my 18mm zoom lens, but the aperture only goes to f/4.

I learned the value of lighting.  With only having the clamp light and whatever practicals that were available in the house, I had to come up with some creative lighting situations.  I was forced to leave the aperture wide open on a lot of the shots just to let enough light in.  I may be able to fix some of it in post, but I'm not there yet.

Since I'm also "acting" in the film, I learned the difficulty of maintaining continuity between the shots, e.g. holding the phone in my right hand, stepping off with my right foot, pushing off with my left hand, going down the stairs left foot first.  I know that when editing I need the shots to match, so this whole continuity thing is a real pain.  Luckily I have an internal metronome, so I'm pretty sure my timing is similar between the shots.

I still need to get a handfull of shots, and then I'm off to edit.  Once I have a rough cut I'll record sound.  Mainly footsteps, bangs, growls, grunts, drips, cars, planes, voice over, and then score it.

Color correction will probably be last just to make sure I get the right feel, but I need to learn to color correct first.

Once it's all done, if I'm not too embarrassed by it all, I'll post it for you to see.

Jordan

Cool beans, man.  What's the film about?

It's a zombie film about a guy who is trapped in his house, his zombie family locked in the garage, and his internal struggle to go on.  More or less.

Jordan

Sounds badass.  

Yeah, sounds good.

Quoted from RayW Again: Peddling spec screenplays is for rubes.

What exactly is a rube? Not too sure what you're trying to peddle here, but half of the stuff you're going on about - well you're looking at 37% for your Anchor Bay films, so care to holla out for the other two thirds? The further down you go, the more likely you're to encompass multi-roles: Waffling on about lo-end production companies isn't a definition of industry mechanics. Are you just trying to put people off? Almost everything you say is negative - can't do this cos of that; can't do that cos of this. If you know so much then why don't you give people a helping hand - some kind of encouragement - reasons for in instead of out? I'm just glad there's enough people out there with some spirit who aren't going to be put off by you.

I just googled and it says they are country bumpkins. When I read it, I just skimmed over it, assumed it meant something bad and that was that. Now I've learned something. Not quite sure how much use it will be to me, but you never know.

I know what he means though, to some extent. Peddling spec's is hard, hard work. Not many sell. They are often little better than calling cards that showcase our ability. Despite the, most likely, utter pointlessness of it all, it is something that we have to do.