These days with all the awesome technology most people have access to the equipment needed to make an amateur film. The cost is no longer an obstacle in movie making. Creating a movie is a ton of work and filled with road blocks. If you happen to have a great story that can be created on a tiny budget you have over come the most important element of the film making processes. Filming the movie is fairly easy. You start with master shots and then go in for coverage and closeups. The tough part is the post production. Getting a good edit done is actually more work than filming or writing a script. So if you can find a great editor or do it yourself you have all the tools you will need to make a movie.
When you are looking for a script to film you should keep a number of things in mind. A movie script that can be filmed on a small budget usually has a limited number of actors and locations. Without money locations become one of your biggest expenses. So find a story that takes place in locations you have access too for free. If you tell a story that takes place over a small period of time you can limited the expenses of wardrobe and makeup. These things along with props can eat up a lot of time. Remember the saying time is money. So keep it simple be sure most of the movie takes place in one place.
A lot of people think that great acting is important to make a great movie. This might not be true. Famous actors are key for getting people to see your movie but if you direct the movie properly you can get a great performance from an average actor. If you allow for enough takes you can cut around poor acting. Obviously you need someone with a certain level of skill. Just keep in mind that a lot of bad acting can be fixed in post. Cut away from poor gestures or hide per vocal delivery with back ground sounds or music. You can even bring your actors back into the studio to re-record their dialogue.
When you do post production of an amateur film think of it as a multi step processes. First you want to get a rough cut put together. Second you need a final cut and lastly you need to finish the final cut with a final edit. The final edit includes your color correcting and sound. You start your rough cut by doing one edit of master shots. The second edit you go through the film and add the mid shots. The third edit you go through and add the close ups. The fourth edit you go through and insert the cutaways. By the time you get to your fourth edit you should have a fairly watchable rough cut put together.
Once your rough cut is done you can move on to doing re shoots. Re doing any shots that are just unusable. Be sure to plan on re shooting parts of your movie. you will need access to locations and actors at least for one or two days after completing the rough edit. If you ignore this stage of the process you will certainly end up with low quality production value. Once you assemble the new footage you can move on to a final edit. The final edit includes color correction and the sound edit. Sound is of the utmost importance. You can re-record the dialogue using a processes known as looping. Creating a good folly track will also add production value to your project. One of the most important elements of the final element is the sound track. Great music can make or break a film.
Now that you have a finished film it is time to market the project. Most of the time the first step is to take the film to the film festivals. Here you can get feedback from strangers about your movie. If you are lucky someone might see your movie and love it and buy it on the spot. Although this is rare it does happen. If you can't sell your movie in the festival circuit you can try taking it to the film market which is held twice a year. For amateur film makers the most popular way to market a film is online. Sometimes you can netflix to stream your film on their service or sell dvds on amazon's website. There are even places that you can offer pay per view for $1.
When you are looking for a script to film you should keep a number of things in mind. A movie script that can be filmed on a small budget usually has a limited number of actors and locations. Without money locations become one of your biggest expenses. So find a story that takes place in locations you have access too for free. If you tell a story that takes place over a small period of time you can limited the expenses of wardrobe and makeup. These things along with props can eat up a lot of time. Remember the saying time is money. So keep it simple be sure most of the movie takes place in one place.
A lot of people think that great acting is important to make a great movie. This might not be true. Famous actors are key for getting people to see your movie but if you direct the movie properly you can get a great performance from an average actor. If you allow for enough takes you can cut around poor acting. Obviously you need someone with a certain level of skill. Just keep in mind that a lot of bad acting can be fixed in post. Cut away from poor gestures or hide per vocal delivery with back ground sounds or music. You can even bring your actors back into the studio to re-record their dialogue.
When you do post production of an amateur film think of it as a multi step processes. First you want to get a rough cut put together. Second you need a final cut and lastly you need to finish the final cut with a final edit. The final edit includes your color correcting and sound. You start your rough cut by doing one edit of master shots. The second edit you go through the film and add the mid shots. The third edit you go through and add the close ups. The fourth edit you go through and insert the cutaways. By the time you get to your fourth edit you should have a fairly watchable rough cut put together.
Once your rough cut is done you can move on to doing re shoots. Re doing any shots that are just unusable. Be sure to plan on re shooting parts of your movie. you will need access to locations and actors at least for one or two days after completing the rough edit. If you ignore this stage of the process you will certainly end up with low quality production value. Once you assemble the new footage you can move on to a final edit. The final edit includes color correction and the sound edit. Sound is of the utmost importance. You can re-record the dialogue using a processes known as looping. Creating a good folly track will also add production value to your project. One of the most important elements of the final element is the sound track. Great music can make or break a film.
Now that you have a finished film it is time to market the project. Most of the time the first step is to take the film to the film festivals. Here you can get feedback from strangers about your movie. If you are lucky someone might see your movie and love it and buy it on the spot. Although this is rare it does happen. If you can't sell your movie in the festival circuit you can try taking it to the film market which is held twice a year. For amateur film makers the most popular way to market a film is online. Sometimes you can netflix to stream your film on their service or sell dvds on amazon's website. There are even places that you can offer pay per view for $1.
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One great way to create low budget films is to film on green screen using a Tricaster, or you can watch it on a Portable Blu-Ray Player .
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