To run good rehearsals and not drive everyone (especially yourself) crazy, a storyboard helps you figure out how you want to film before showing up to shoot. When do you really need a storyboard to plan and direct a short film? Probably the best way to answer that is to explain …
How dialogue works in film – artistically speaking What’s good dialogue? Words that efficiently express character and plot, while also drawing people into the drama or comedy of the situation. Dialogue can be witty, erudite. Dialogue can reveal the subtext of motivations and desires for the characters. But at a …
Independent film director Hal Hartley has been making movies, including many shorts, since the 1980s beginning with “The Unbelievable Truth“. His first short, “Theory of Achievement“, was made with money left over from an art grant funding another of his films (“Surviving Desire“). Hal Hartley monetizes his short films by collecting them …
A short film can be a vehicle to illuminate the special talents or unappreciated, against-type abilities of an actor or actress. Without waiting for a director or producer to notice your potential, just craft a project with yourself in mind. This is why several projects I’ve written are vehicles to …
Here’s the complete list of my ideas for short films. With links to log lines and other details about the screenplays. A brief polemic on Recycling for Filmmakers. Short film ideas are everywhere. Developing them takes time. Some filmmakers find script development tedious. Others struggle to come up with new ideas. …
Part of the art of filmmaking is film funding. You may have the greatest idea for a movie ever, but no one will pay you to make it unless you can convince them you are worth the investment. What makes it more difficult is that the creative mind and the business mind seem to speak in completely different languages.