Imagination
This is the most important skill to have as a filmmaker and not many that posses it. As Albert Einstein put it “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” and he was right. If you don’t have the imagination to conjure up ideas and stories then how can you create anything truly worthwhile?
What separates great artists from the mediocre ones is pure imagination. Great artists have the ability to dream big and follow through with it where as the mediocre ones just do what everyone else is doing, they try to join the club. Take a look at all the films that have been coming out of Hollywood recently, its always the same formula. The same stories get told again, and again and again… with more expensive visual effects and actors. People have begun to stop paying for these film because they’re not very interesting. Most of these film aren’t successful in terms of artistry.
It’s not just filmmaking, look at anyone successful in any given industry and you’ll realize that the reason they’re successful is because they’re imaginative individuals who do things differently.
The primal definition of imagination is that anything is possible. The ability to imagine is the most important skill you can posses as a filmmaker.
Persistence
It’s one thing to imagine something cool, but it’s another to really be persistent with it when the whole world tells you that you’re idea is nuts.
You’ve got to be able to do the same thing day in and day out, even if you’re not getting any results. Success doesn’t come overnight and the one that seem like they happened overnight didn’t really.
The key to be really persistent with filmmaking has only one solution which is to really love making films and telling stories. If you’re just in it for the money or fame then you’re going to have a lot hard time.
One thing that not a lot of people may not realize about being persistent is that it is a key factor for improvement and growth. Being Persistent is what helps you to learn from your mistakes. When you get something wrong on the first go, it’s not failure if you learn from it. When you know what went wrong the first time, chances are you’ll succeed the next time you try it.
Story Telling
What is filmmaking about? Fame? $10,000,000 pay checks? State of the art equipment, VFX or working with famous actors? No… not even close to it but this is what some people think being a filmmaker is about.
Filmmaking is just a medium at the heart of it is telling stories that captures our imaginations. It’s not about the size of the sensor in your camera or what lenses you use (although they do help). Imagine a writer fixated on using the best and most expensive pen available on the market, pretty stupid right? Most filmmakers get caught up in using the best equipment they can get and completely disregard the stories they’re telling.
Lets take “The Blair Witch Project” as a prime example, the film didn’t utilize state of the art technology, it didn’t have famous actors or directors and nor did it have a massive budget. It was made using a camcorder by couple of dudes out of film school and look how that turned out to be, after over a decade people are still talking about it and trying to emulate its success. Paranormal Activity anyone?
Why did it succeed? Because it captured the imagination of the audience. When it came out, everyone thought that the events of the film were real.
Technical Skills
“Wait… what? You’ve just been blabbing about how technology is not important?”
Probably the question on your mind right? Technology is an important factor in filmmaking, how else are you going to capture your stories? The problem is that most filmmakers get hung up on what the best “Gear” on the market is and that’s not what filmmaking is about.
Imagine a painter obsessed with how many bristles his paint brush has rather working on his techniques.
Imagine a painter obsessed with how many bristles his paint brush has rather working on his techniques.
“If the quality sucks then people won’t watch my films”
It’s very difficult to get “Bad quality” these days with how far the technology has come. You can pretty much shoot a film with a mobile phone and with some post-processing no one will know that it was shot on mobile phone. If a film has a good story and characters, people will generally forgive bad quality.
If you’re making short films chances are that you will be the director, editor, cinematographer, sound engineer and occasionally be the actor. Unless you can get individuals to help, you will be doing most of the work.It is essential that filmmakers have a general understanding of the technologies and workflows involved in making a film. Even if you have people who are taking care of the technology or workflow part for you, it is still a good idea to understand how things work.
Business/Marketing
You’ve got an Oscar worthy idea or a film, great but how are you going to get it out to the world?
Unfortunately, filmmaking is a business. In order to get funding or to distribute a film, filmmakers need to understand how business works and how to get investors to invest in your idea. For investors or film distributors to invest, they need to be sold on your idea and believe that their investments will pay off. Getting investments to make a film is probably the most important part of filmmaking, otherwise everyone would be making films.
How do you get investments? That’s a tricky area but generally its best to build some credit to your name and the only way to do that is to make films.
Of course it’s not as easy as that, once you make a film you need to know how to get it out to people and market your film. Generally most filmmakers use film festivals and websites like YouTube or Vimeo to market their films. Other ways you could market would be to screen your film at your local art house film theatre, online viral marketing and social networking websites.
Conclusion
There you have it. These are the five skills we believe a filmmaker needs to have or to develop in order to become a successful filmmaker. Indeed there are many more skills involved in being a successful filmmaker but the skills listed in this article few of the most crucial ones.
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