How to Make Your Own Short Film

Video Transcript

"Okay, folks, in this clip we're going to talk about how to make your very own short film. First, write the script. Come up with the story, obviously. Write the script. Get a really good script, too. Short films, while they're fun and definitely a lot easier to do in this day and age than they used to be, they're still a lot of work, and once you're in the thick of it you'll realize it takes a little bit more than just, you know, a little free time one afternoon. It takes a great deal of commitment, not just for you but for everybody, so make sure that they're there for something that is actually of quality. That's first and foremost important; find a really good story to tell. Secondly, you're going to want to bring your team together. Your cameraman, your editor, your producers that are helping you out, your costume people, your actors... everyone. Hit up your friends and buddies... first of all, they're more likely to help you out than your perfect strangers will, but you know there are--depending on where you live, especially--a lot of job sites, such as Craigslist, where there are people that are more than willing to come work on your project as long as you give them credit for it. So build your team, and make sure it's a good reliable team. That is very, very important as well, almost as important as having a good story. From there, figure out exactly how and where you want to shoot it. Take the time to really plan everything out and make sure you have everything you need. Shoot the movie, then... obviously the very very important middle phase is production. Get everything really covered well... have the script locked in and cover it in many, many different ways, depending on your vision, giving yourself a lot of material, especially since you'll be shooting most likely on digital videotape. Getting into the editing room later on, it's much much nicer to have a wide variety of options than to have very few options, even if you were very specific in what it is you wanted. Shoot for the editing room, give yourself a lot of material to work with. Which obviously then brings us to the editing phase, where your movie comes together. Just about anybody can edit these days, just because of the computers that we have, they came with software more often than not that allow us to cut together our little home movies, and this is more than sufficient to cut together your very own first film. Cut it together, really make sure it's exactly the vision that you had in mind or at least close to it, and start the process all over again, because... yeah, you successfully created your very first short film."