The most frustrating part of your filmmaking career is when you realize that you are not entitled to success. Early in your career you wake up every day with an unyielding sense of possibility. You think about all the wonderful movies that you are going to make. You picture yourself walking the red carpet with flashbulbs exploding with an intensity of stardom.

You will hold this vision. And if the vision is strong enough, you will take steps towards the achievement of this dream. Maybe you will write a screenplay… Maybe you will pick up a camera and ask your friends to act your short movie. Maybe you will plan your first feature. And if you are lucky, you might even make a movie… And if you are  really lucky, your friends and family will support you because doing something in the movie industry is cool.

But here comes the rub…

Months and years will pass. Your friends will get married. They will have babies. They will have families. And you may very well find yourself living alone in your mid-30s wondering if going after something cool was worth it. It is at this point in life when you must answer one question:

“Are YOU serious enough about your filmmaking career to continue?”

My friend, the famed horror novelist (and screenwriter) Craig Spector once shared some advice with me that I have been rolling around in my head ever since. I had just moved to New York City and I was sleeping on my aunt’s sofa. I had no idea what I was doing…

At the time, Craig was one of the few people I knew who was actually making a living with his creative work. And one day I asked him what I needed to do in order to become successful. Never one to sugarcoat advice, he simply said:

“Work more. Do more. The work is reality. Nothing trumps reality.”

Speaking from my experience in Los Angeles, I have met countless people who have a gazillion great movie ideas. But they are searching for someone else to do the work. And the paradox is this – people won’t help you unless you do the work. Why? Because when it comes down to it, very few people are actually willing to put in the necessary sweat equity into actually finishing a project.

Next thing you know, another decade passes and you wake up realizing you haven’t done any movie work. You have nothing but talk. Talk. Talk.

Big deal.

I know you work a day job that sucks. And I know how tired you are when you get home from work. But if you don’t finish your screenplay, make your short, or plan your feature this year – you might just end up making the same excuses for another decade…

Get off your ass.

Make something. Even if it sucks. It’s better than nothing.

The following film producer suggestions provide basic action steps. But before we get started, a little disclosure:

In the following filmmaking article, I am going to mention products and services. You should know that I most likely get paid a small affiliate commission to promote these things. But this will not affect your purchase price. And hopefully this saves YOU time!

1. Break Down Your Screenplay
Break down your movie script into a schedule. Use the information from your schedule to create your initial production budget. You could hire someone to do this for you, or you could grab a copy of Peter Marshall’s Online Movie Script Breakdown course.

2. Create A Business Plan
Utilize the information from your movie budget to write your movie business plan. Your business plan will detail how your movie money will be spent – but more importantly, your business plan will also detail how you will  market and sell your movie.

Here is some movie business plan software: Movie Plan Pro

3. Create a Marketing Plan
Your business plan will also contain a your marketing plan. Creating a marketing plan is a relatively new step for filmmakers, but having an idea for how you will market and sell your movie is essential.  Please note: Getting your movie into and selling your movie at Sundance should not be part of your business or marketing plan, unless you can guarantee acceptance to Sundance.

Here is some marketing plan software.

4. Budget Your Marketing in a Plan
In order to succeed, you must not only create a marketing plan, but you must budget the cost of your marketing. Again, allocating funds to your marketing is a new step for us filmmakers. In the past, your marketing was handled by movie distributors.

5. Update Your Budget
In the past, your initial budget only included your production costs. Now that you have your marketing plan, you will have to pay for your marketing. You will need to decide if these monies will come from your production budget  – or will you go out and raise more money?

6. Crowdfunding To Cover Movie Project Legal

Once you are satisfied with your business plan, then you will need to find a lawyer – especially if you plan on approaching prospective investors. But doing this correctly can be expensive. So to raise the legal fees, consider testing your concept and marketing hook by creating a crowdfunding campaign. From this practice, you can possibly raise money to cover your legal costs.

7. Find Prospective Investors

Once you get the OK from your lawyer, you will need to reach out to rich people. If you’re from a small town, you probably already know who the rich people are. Pick up the phone and call them. Ask for a meeting to chat about your “business venture.”

Keep in mind that boldness is rewarded and if you don’t ask you don’t get. And in the event you need more information on how to build relationships with rich people so they can finance your movie, check you the indie producer’s guide to getting movie money.

Now get out there and find some independent film investors!

If you have the same question, here are 5 filmmaking tips for making you movie:

1. Plan a story you can have fun with.
2. Make sure you know how to reach your target audience.
3. Use your weekends to make shorts (for practice.)
4. Break down your screenplay into a workable budget.
5. Collaborate with people who have more experience.

As a reminder, the biggest question you need to ask (and answer) is this:

Given the resources that I have right now, what is the feature that I can make this year?

As a filmmaker, you need to take action and make your movie NOW! The world awaits. If you want more information, make sure you reserve your spot in our filmmaking community.

With sites like Indie GoGo and Kickstarter, filmmakers can finally raise money without asking permission. And while the vast majority of filmmakers limit their crowdfunding campaigns to a few thousand dollars – some filmmakers get super ambitious.

Earlier this month Koo from NoFilmSchool decided to implement his own $115,000 crowdfunding campaign. And he stopped by Filmmaking Stuff to share his experience.

Jason Brubaker
It might help readers if you share a little about your background.

Koo
My name is Koo and I’m an independent filmmaker and writer. I run the website NoFilmSchool, which is a site for filmmakers and independent creatives. And I co-created the “urban Western” web series The West Side, which won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series.

Jason Brubaker
What are you working on now?

Koo
I’m now planning on making my first feature film, and I’m currently running a crowdfunding campaign to hopefully turn the dream into a reality.

Jason Brubaker
What made you start NoFilmSchool?

Koo
I actually started NoFilmSchool in 2005 as a personal blog, but in 2009 I told myself I should either quit wasting time with a blog and shut it down, or fully commit myself to re-launching the site as something larger. I pursued the latter with the idea that I could hopefully build an audience online by sharing as much helpful content as possible; if I was successful, it would allow me to run the site as a steady side job (while working on a screenplay), instead of jumping from project to project as a freelancer (and always putting off the screenplay, which is what I found myself doing as a freelance shooter/editor/writer/director).

Jason Brubaker
So you went for it?

Koo
Yeah. It took a year of living out of a suitcase and a lengthy detour into learning how to run a website, but eventually traffic to NoFilmSchool grew to the point where I was able to do just that – run the website, write my screenplay, and not have to seek out freelance work.

Jason Brubaker
It is great when you focus on helping other people. Good things come.

Koo
On a more basic level, NoFilmSchool is simply the website I wish I’d had to help me out in my career from the beginning. Whatever I’ve picked up along the way, I try to share it there.

Jason Brubaker
After your success with the website and also producing online content, what made you decide to make a traditional feature?

Koo
After our success with The West Side, we spent a couple of years trying to get our next idea made, and it just wasn’t happening. The economy was terrible at the time – this was 2008, when the first big crash was taking place. And our project, titled 3rd Rail, was inherently risky for film studios.

Jason Brubaker
What made it was risky for the studios?

Koo
It’s an online, interactive experience as opposed to a standard feature, and therefore established film business models don’t apply. Online content represents a great opportunity in the DIY space, but it brings with it a lot of challenges once you start seeking significant amounts of other people’s money.

Jason Brubaker
Yeah. Any time you involve money people, your responsibility increases. And you have to be ready for it.

Koo
When I co-directed The West Side I didn’t feel like I was ready to make my own feature. But once I started researching and writing Man-child, the voice of doubt that usually causes me to throw a script in the trash can was surprisingly M.I.A. The more I worked on it the more I became excited to make the project. After several months of researching and writing, I knew definitively this had to be my first feature.

Jason Brubaker
I love it when projects put you in the flow. Your current feature is focused on Basketball? How come?

Koo
I’ve played basketball all my life, so it’s a personal project to me. But just because I play basketball doesn’t mean I know a lot about the youth basketball world. I’m talking about middle schoolers, as opposed to the college and pro athletes you typically see in sports movies. The more I researched it, the more I felt it was a story I had to tell. And while it’s definitely a basketball movie, my hope is that the film will also speak to those who don’t have a particular interest in basketball or even sports, because it’s a fascinating and unique world.

Jason Brubaker
Can you speak to that a little more?

Koo
These kids are nationally ranked by the time they’re 12, and they start hearing whispers of fame and fortune very early – but usually they don’t have a whole lot in their lives at that age. This dichotomy – what they could have in a few years as opposed to what they actually have, right now – could be larger in youth basketball than anywhere else in American society.

Jason Brubaker
I noticed you are utilizing crowdfunding to finance your movie. Can you explain crowdfunding?

Koo
Instead of the traditional route of independent film finance, where a few individuals put up the bulk of a film’s investment, crowdfunding is when you ask for small amounts of money from a large number of people. If enough people believe in your film enough to pledge $10 (in the case of Man-child, this gets backers a download of the full film when it’s done), your film is enabled by a community as opposed to an individual.

Jason Brubaker
How is your experience with the campaign thus far?

Koo
Crowdfunding can be a harrowing experience, because in many cases (including that of Man-child), the campaign is all-or-nothing: if you don’t make your goal, you get $0. At the same time, it can be incredibly empowering, to see support pour in from all corners of the world. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced and we’re only 1/3 of the way through the campaign.

Jason Brubaker
Why did you go with Kickstarter over IndieGoGo?

Koo
I think IndieGoGo’s got a great thing going, they originally launched with a focus on film projects, and unlike Kickstarter they accept international projects. They also allow for tax-deductible contributions for projects with fiscal sponsorship. However, I went with Kickstarter because I’ve always really liked the design of their site (I was a designer at MTV for three years, so I’m probably more sensitive to this than most), and they’re a more popular site. Plus, I’ve been a serial funder of other Kickstarter projects for the past two years, so I already felt like a member of the community.

Jason Brubaker
You raised a few thousand in the first few days. What do you attribute this to?

Koo
Crowdfunding $115,000 sounds doable only because it’s been done before But when you break it down I actually have to raise a few thousand dollars not just in the first days, but every day of the campaign. The campaign is running for 38 days and that means I have to average $3k/day to make the goal. I never know where the next dollar is going to come from and so I’m constantly scrambling to come up with new ways of reaching new people.

Jason Brubaker
What are some crowdfunding tips you can share with other filmmakers?

Koo
In terms of having a big launch, my tips would be to build up your audience online long before you even think about launching a crowdfunding campaign. I’m not talking weeks or months, I’m talking years. You’ve got to have credibility and it helps a ton if you have a mailing list. In my case I’ve been giving away a free 114-page eBook on DSLR Cinematography – you know about free eBooks as much as anyone, Jason – and I have been doing this for a year.

Jason Brubaker
Yes. I think we both focus on building genuine relationships with our audience. Which, I believe all modern moviemakers must now do.

Koo
It’s by no means a quid pro quo – you don’t have to donate to my crowdfunding campaign if you read my eBook or website – but I hope that people who come back to the site often and read my newsletters would be more likely to back my project than they would be a stranger’s.

Jason Brubaker
I really like your website and the value you provide to the filmmaking community. Has this positively impacted your campaign? I mean, did you get a great response with your initial email blast?

Koo
In light of how many subscribers and website visitors NoFilmSchool gets, I have 600 backers so far. It is not a huge number. But what I have been amazed at is how generous the backers are. There are more $120 backers than there are $5 backers, and this has been an unbelievably pleasant surprise! For someone you’ve never met in person to believe in you enough to pledge $120 (or more) to help you make your movie is an eye-opening, life-changing experience. Even if my campaign doesn’t make its goal, I will have learned a lot from the campaign thanks to all of the backers and messages I’ve received.

Jason Brubaker
What advice do you have for other modern moviemakers with a goal of making a movie?

Koo
Don’t put yourself in a position where a gatekeeper can tell you no. Grab a DSLR and do it yourself on the cheap. Even if you make something bad or otherwise fail at your pursuit, you’ll have learned something. You don’t learn nearly as much by knocking on doors and hearing “no.”

Jason Brubaker
I totally agree with this philosophy. Asking permission is a waste of time. Never do it!

Koo
When taking a DIY approach, I would say that you should just try to make the best possible short you can. Someone will click on a link, find your video, and if it’s not good, within 20 seconds they’ll click away. If you’re making a “calling card” type of project, there is no value to being prolific – no one says, “wow, this guy made 30 videos.”

All that matters is whether the one they stumble upon is good. And remember, these aren’t just friends, family, and anonymous people bored at work watching. If you get any sort of buzz, producers, agents, and other filmmakers will be watching it too. Put your absolute best foot forward and the rest will follow!

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If you would like to help Koo make his movie, follow this link: Koo’s Crowdfunding Kickstarter Campaign.

Screenplay Image via Wikipedia

Some screenwriters think that just about every screenplay should open with a bang of some kind: perhaps a literal explosion, or a murder, or a chase.

Those may well be good choices for certain stories, but my take on this is that what an opening actually needs to do is to prompt two questions and one feeling in your audience.

The questions are simple:

1. Who are these people?
2. What’s going on?

I’m not saying that your first scene has to answer these questions, just to raise them. They might be answered in the second scene or the third scene, or sometimes not until the very end in the case of a mystery.

The feeling should be some kind of emotional involvement. Often at this point it’s just curiosity but sometimes it’s sympathy—even when we don’t know who is being chased, usually our sympathy automatically goes to the one running away.

Sometimes it’s empathy—a character experiencing something that’s happened to us, too, so we relate. It could be somebody floundering at a job interview, or being asked for a date she obviously doesn’t want to go on, or somebody getting a big bill at a restaurant and realizing he’s lost his wallet.

I think checking whether your opening scene achieves this is a good way to tell whether or not it will grab the reader—and eventually the audience.

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Jurgen Wolff has written more than 100 episodes of TV, several TV movies, the feature film, “The Real Howard Spitz” starring Kelsey Grammer, and has been a script doctor on films starring Eddie Murphy, Kim Catrall, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau and others. His plays have been produced in New York, London, Berlin, and Los Angeles. He is the author of 9 books including “Your Writing Coach” and “Creativity Now.” If you would like to find out more about “The Seven Things That Are Stopping You From Writing And How To Overcome Them,” check out Jurgen’s screenwriting website: www.ScreenWritingSuccess.com

The good news is, you’re probably right!

A few years back, I read screenplays for a producer in NYC… And I learned a few things. The biggest lesson I learned was that most screenplays floating around the market are crap. And I’m not just talking about new screenwriters.

I remember reading screenplays from working, established writers that just seemed underdeveloped. Add the enormous amount of material that came from friends of friends and other producers and I was able to see first-hand how much garbage is floating around out there.

So I can tell you, if you have any talent as a writer, the odds are stacked in your favor. Write a good script!

SCREENWRITING

I’m assuming you want to make a movie. So I’m not going to provide too much advice on how to “sell” your screenplay.

That being said, weither you plan on producing your own material or selling it, there are still a few factors applicable to your end-goal. The first thing you have to do is write.  And that means actually sitting down and forcing yourself to put words on an otherwise blank screen.

If this is difficult for you, you might consider finding a writing partner and then sharing a story credit.

Here is the down and dirty lesson for today:

ACTIONS

1. Get some screenplay software. Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter are the industry standard. Or you could do a Google search for “free screenwriting software.”
2. Once you have the software, consider writing a feature script on the cheap. Think in terms of limited locations, with limited actors, with a short schedule that you can eventually shoot with limited equipment on HD video.
3. Consider making things funny. Some people think horror comedy works pretty well.
4. The story should be fun with a STRONG, marketable CONCEPT.
5. The name of the game is FUN. If you can’t have fun, you’re doing something wrong.

Putting the final polish on a screenplay is an amazing accomplishment. But just make sure you’ve created your best work. As they say, you only get one chance to make a good first impression – that same thinking applies to your screenplay.

You only get one chance to grab the attention of a potential actor or department head who may or may not decide to help you with your project. Two screenwriting books you might want to check out are: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting and How to Write a Movie in 21 Days.

And one more resource (It’s my own) – The Indie Producer’s Guide To Writing Screenplays That Sell

Happy Filmmaking!

Mad Scientist in Movies Image via Wikipedia

How to sell nonsense in your screenplay (the Klein-Hasslepark Effect)

Recently I saw “Source Code,” a movie I enjoyed even though ultimately the explanation for what is happening is nonsense. (I know some of you will disagree, but I can’t get into it without spoilers and the point below is valid even if this one isn’t nonsense, because plenty of movies are.)

The key to movies like this is keeping things moving so the audience doesn’t have time to think about it until afterward, and keeping the explanations short.

“Source Code” has a repetitive aspect but each iteration moves quickly and introduces another element to keep our interest, and the keeps things moving along at a good clip. It’s like hucksters at the county fair or time-share salespeople who talk so fast that your brain can’t keep up and just gives up.

However, don’t give your mad scientist too much exposition because in all probability it will be boring and the audience will switch off and that gives them dangerous time to consider whether anything is making sense. You don’t want them to do it. Better to say something like, “This is the first time the Klein-Hasslepark Effect has affected anything larger than a proton! That’s why your wife no longer has human form!”

And then hope for actors and a director as good as the folks behind “Source Code.”

Get Your Screenplay Read. Image via Wikipedia

A few years back I finished the first draft of my first screenplay ever. Like a lot of folks who dream of Hollywood success, I was eager to share my work with the world. Problem was, I had no idea what I was doing.

Through a friend of a friend, I was put in contact with an “entertainment attorney.” I put the words in quotes because while there are tons of people with a strong work ethic and great integrity, this particular guy was not one of them.

I remember getting off the phone. I was super excited because this guy had agreed to read my screenplay and offer me feedback. So like most writers, I sent off my screenplay – packaged with the appropriate cardstock cover and two brass brads… And a few weeks later I get a email:

“Jason. Thanks for sending me your screenplay. I read it. Because you want to produce your own movie, I think you will need a lawyer who understands how to put together a private placement memorandum. And also, while we did not talk about this prior, you owe me $250 dollars for the hour I spent reading your script. Please send me a check ASAP.”

These days I would tell him to go “F” himself. But back then, I had no idea what I was doing. So I sent him his money. And to make it even worse, $250 dollars represented an entire week’s salary.

The whole point of this is – if someone agrees to do you a “favor,” it’s best to get reciprocal expectations in writing.

Scissors can be used to foreshadow your screenplay Image via Wikipedia

A screenwriter sent me an email saying she understands the need for foreshadowing but wasn’t sure how to do it. Of course the specific content depends on the story but here are some general ways you can adapt:

1. A visual clue. A very obvious one is letting us glimpse a gun in a drawer when your protagonist is looking for a pair of scissors. We know that gun will be used at some point.

2. An innocent verbal clue. This could be something that we don’t even notice standing out in any way, but later it pays off. For instance, someone might mention that he used to enjoy hunting, and that makes sense later when we see that he’s a great shot.

3. A verbal cue that stands out. By this I mean something that is out of the ordinary and you do notice it. For instance, if somebody is asked casually which school they went to and they answer, “I don’t see why that’s important,” it signals that at some point in the story we’ll find out a reason why they’re touchy about that subject.

4. A musical cue. This often is the province of the director and the person who composes the sound track. In a thriller, for example, a particular piece of music may tip us off that something awful is about to happen.

To avoid having any one element of foreshadowing be too obvious, often the writer will throw in some red herrings–some things that could be foreshadowing but in fact don’t pay off or pay off in a different way than we expect.

The person who has the gun in the drawer may become an immediate suspect in our minds, but later maybe we see him use it to light his cigarette and we realize it’s not a real gun (of course he may have a real one somewhere else….). That kind of misdirection keeps the audience guessing.

The goal is to make your foreshadowing subtle enough that it’s only in hindsight that the visual or verbal cue takes on significance.

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Jurgen Wolff offers a new screenwriting tip here every Tuesday; also see his site,www.ScreenwritingSuccess.com and his book, “Your Writing Coach.”