By Paul Kampf
The best advice that I would give to every filmmaker starting out, is the advice I wish I had prior to making my first feature film: complete a film. Any length. Any budget. Just make a film beginning to end. Get as much ‘time on task’ as possible. That advice is so simple, but within it lies the key to your future success.
I came from the theater as an actor, then a playwright, and eventually as a director. For fifteen years, I developed and found a way to produce world-premiere theater. The greatest lesson in that facet of my life was to accept any limitations as stimulations for finding unique solutions. Every obstacle was teaching me the essential foundation of what is necessary to take something from idea to final product. Through thousands of hours of time on task, I learned to produce theater from idea to opening night.
I jumped into filmmaking by directing the feature film version of a play of mine. I shot it on 35mm, with a sizable crew, budget, and production team. All things sounded great to me as I look back, but I hadn’t accumulated the time on task in the film world that would have given me more control of my vision. There were blind spots everywhere. I knew how to bring the best out of the actor, but without experience with a DP or any of the crucial filmmaking team, fear and trust were battling me all the way through the process.
It was the long journey in post-production that shined an essential light on how a film is actually made. That is where you see which shots weren’t necessary, where you discover how money was wasted and where it was underspent, and why some accidents during the shoot can actually provide golden moments in the film. Equally important, you learn what is really necessary in the frame that might not necessarily be explicit on the page. In other words, it isn’t until you’ve completed your first project from beginning to end that you really start to grasp what you’re doing as a filmmaker.
I made my next film with talented but less experienced actors from my training program and a new crew that was hungry for a total team approach. The film was shot in three days for a fraction of my first film’s budget. But the whole experience was a breath of fresh air because I had a stronger grasp of how to solve problems in the shoot – because I knew far more about what would be needed in the post process. When time was slipping away on an already short shoot, I understood what was absolutely necessary.
Let me say that I’m fairly sure that if I was offered a million dollars to shoot my second project, I would have taken it. But I’m grateful that budget wasn’t thrown my way because it forced me to find ways to make a project with what I had available to me. Capital can sometimes cause you more problems if you aren’t aware of how to use it in support of a vision. Lack of money is no longer a barrier to bringing a strong, character driven story to life. If you have a smartphone, an inexpensive audio recording device, and Imovie, you have a film studio. It might not seem glamorous, but a small, completed project gives you a wider foundation from which to grow your craft than all of the expensive filmmaking toys. When you sit down to write a script after completing one project, you’ll be creating with more economy and a deeper understanding of what is necessary in the shoot.
Equally important, you’ll gain a real knowledge of who you are as a filmmaker. Are you visually driven? Do you focus on characters? Can you move the story without words? You won’t answer all the questions of filmmaking, but you’ll start to get a better sense of your aesthetic and what is important to you in storytelling. As you expand your knowledge of all aspects of the process, you’ll start to identify others who share your vision. They may have strengths in your weakest areas. Now you can build a team that will take on many projects and grow together.
After my second film, I moved on to two larger features highlighting the talents of over sixty actors. I knew that budgets prohibited special effects and car chases, but I recognized that my approach is propelled from story and character. Having taught each of the actors I cast, I was able to construct scripts and develop characters that came to life with their unique talents. Although we shot twenty pages a day, we were in sync in front of and behind the camera. I was still learning and yearning to explore more styles and stories.
As you shoot projects of any size or budget, you can create a momentum around you that entices and inspires. There is nothing more attractive in this industry than people who start a project and always bring it to full completion. Sometimes you’ll create something you believe in that very few people see. Other times you’ll present a film that has flaws in your eyes, but gets a wider distribution. You might win awards or fight hard to get recognition.
Regardless, you are creating projects and guiding them to completion. You will be putting yourself in the rare percentage of people in this industry who actually complete a project. Keep going. Ignore limitations. Eventually the time on task you spend growing your craft will open doors that you don’t even know are in front of you.
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