What the hell do I do

I would begin to get in the habit of writing within your means. Write what you could realistically and practically produce.

Shorts. Like between 5-10 min in length, told visually with no dialogue.

Pace yourself. 10th grade. You got all the time in the world.

Look at the resouces your have around you and write to them. If you know three good actors and know a pizza joint you can shoot in, then write a script around that. Comedy: Two brothers who are pizza delivery guys who fight over who gets to deliver a pizza to the hot girl. Comedy or Drama: Mafia hitman comes in looking for the pizza that didn't show and wants to take out one of the delivery guys.

If you go to school, write around school locations.

Just avoid movies set in boring white walled apartments.

Scott

Start looking into film schools. If you go to a film school you get a free pass to utilize all the equipment they offer. Plus, you'll be around other's who share your passion.

Most importantly find a camera for cheap and start shooting ... EVERYTHING!!! Practice makes perfect. When I was in 10th grade, I suffered a season ending injury in the second game of our teams football season (this injury kept me out of most of the basketball season as well), I offered to help out the man that was shooting our games, and that was the first semiprofessional experience I got in this business.

It wasn't great, I stunk it up at first. But it laid a foundation, and today I get paid for shooting video, and someday I will get paid to make films.

Poke

Do what you can

It doesn't matter whether you are just starting out, or have years of indie film making experience, at the start of your project make a list of all the assets you have.

For instance, any friends you know who might like to act in your piece. There are always a couple of wannabe actors in any school, usually in the drama club. Then have another look at the area you live. I can guarantee that there are dozens of fantastic locations, right where you live. If you have a digital camera, carry it around with you and take photos of places that look interesting.

Once you have some actors and locations, you can build your characters and plot aound the kinds of people who live in those locations.

Shoot these on any camera you can get hold of, however cheap and however redundant the technology. Edit these any way you can, even if it means editing between the camera and your home video recorder. However, a cheap mini-dv camcorder and some basic video editing software for your computer would be a good start.

If your first film doesn't turn out to be the masterpiece you hoped, just think, the next one will be better, because of what you learnt on that one, and that it takes 19 bad ideas to get one good one.

I have always wanted to be in the film industry. I dabbled but never committed. I did a little acting, took a couple of classes in college, but I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. Take my advice on this (and all others that have posted.) Try. Don't ever let budget or having to use corny effects hold you back. Use what you have and put your creative ideas to film. If the only person who ever appreciates it is you then you have accomplished something. Ron Howard shot cowboy and Indian shoot out on an old home video camera. Do wait till you are my age to start doing what you are destined to do.