Amateur Film School — Development Supplemental

I’m making a movie. I’m making a short movie. I’m making a 4 page script I had spit out for a contest, that I liked the verbiage and then shelved for a year. As much as this series of articles is about others development into the filmmaker they can become its also a journey of my own. I’m the amateur too, I don’t by any stretch want to call myself a professional. I actually hate the term. Hearing it in my day job makes me cringe since it usually comes from a some overly self respecting douchebag. Or when someone is trying to boost up anothers ego. So I may have a slight bias towards the word.

This short thought I’m blurting out is about developing projects. I have a habit of obsessing. I wrote this script (its called “Hardcase”, previously “Two Men and a Case” previously “Hardlife”, previously etc.)because of obsession. I wanted to say something about fate. Fate seems ultimately to be what I write about. I don’t truly control it, but its a theme that comes into my dialogue. But I know when the obsession needs to calm down. After the script is where I want it to be then the rest of pre production begins. I have developed the habit to create something in the pre production stage for every piece I make. Whether its a shooting script or something else. But that first step allows you to feel like you can take the next production step if you’d like to. This is to say:

Don’t make one project at a time

Don’t. Just don’t do it. Don’t let obsession and perfectionism be a scapegoat to not making something else while you make something else. What I know about developing a project is that time is your friend. You should have a good relationship with time. Because you will always be at odds. If you have a day job and then get home tired, I get it, we all just want to unwind. I’ve also found unwinding helpful. But I like to compartmentalize. I like everything having its own space. But time can be helpful when creating something. You can stay in a vacuum and do the hustling after the piece is made and in the can. You can let it all loose and see where it takes your piece. Neither is wrong, both come with its set of problems. But I’ve been letting this one small project stop me from making other projects, because I obsess. So I’ve been limiting myself on only what needs to be done for the current project. Time allows for many things to be moving at the same time, you just need to be a strong mechanism and make the thing. Dates need to be held to a standard and deadlines need to be set.

I use some tools to help me do this:

1. Wunderlist — I love this app. Its cohesive throughout. I have either a s a shortcut or app on every device I own and its great. Task lists and sub tasks are amazing to help organize you as a creator.
2. Gdrive — Writers, editors and just people who need document management and storage that you can access from anywhere with an internet connection. Get a google account. Always keep a second copy on a drive that you have but if you need people to read scripts or need to print them remotely gdrive with gdocs and the rest of the suite are what you need.
3. Evernote — This is a different cloud style note saving and document creating app. I liked it at one point when the widget universally worked on all my devices but in recent years I havent had the best luck across devices with this. It does all kinds of note taking but is not something Id rely on for sending out finished documents. I use it when I need to jot an idea longer than a statement to put into wunderlist.

I’m talking from experience. Not from wisdom. I’m living this again. But the fire beneath my ass is getting hotter. I’m relegating, which is never a great thing but sometimes necessary, to a short film a month. Something I can at least make in a day or two. If I can end the year having at least shot 12 pieces. Thats 12 more than last year. Being someones crew is one thing entirely, I’ve learned so much and it made me thirstier for bigger productions.

Make many things, all the time.