how did you start out?

Hey all, wanted to ask why you started making films, and more specifically how you got the ball rolling (regarding making money from video). What were your first projects? Personal narratives? Short free music videos? Commercials for mom'n'pop stores? How long did it take you to get to where you are? Where are you with filmmaking? Are you where you'd like to be? Should I be shooting for concrete goals (such as getting a corporate commercial under my belt) or just learning and taking opportunities as they arise? I wanted to gauge whether I'm on the right track with this whole filmmaking business. I do this because I love shooting video and I find editing to be exciting when I can make it my own thing (namely with music videos). Sometimes I feel like my videos should be of higher quality because I've been doing this for about 2 years now.
 
I made flipbooks as a kid, fooled around with a VHS camera in junior high, took digital video production in high school, bought a camera and computer, made forty shorts over four years, shot my first feature at 22, shot two more after that. Now I'm 29, run a moderately successful youtube channel, travel the world filming videos in jungles and other remote places, and working on feature number 4.
 
I made my first short at 10. It got into 3 film fests. I won some money and a karaoke machine. I made about 10-12 more shorts. I have won a couple grand doing so. I just made my first Feature over the summer. I am 17 and in High school. Yes, there is no back up plan with Directing/Acting. 2nd feature is in the works.
 
How did you start out?

I started out as a child...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiSvU1TuRZA


Actually, I started out as a struggling musician and finished up fairly well. When arthritis curtailed my musical career I got into music engineering/production in the recording studio and about a dozen years ago migrated to audio post. My niche is low/no/mini/micro budget indie film projects, I still work with singer/songwriters (hey, a paying session is a paying session and I do find it fun with the more talented clients) and do the occasional V.O. gig.

Every time I embarked upon a (new) career it was at low/no pay, and I built my experience, improved my work quality and built a respectable reputation.
 
Grabbed a camera, filmed what I could, when I could. By myself, with friends, it didn't matter as long as I was creating. Grew up on films, when to University, studied film theory. Now I am working hard, earning money to fund my projects. Maintain a blog, a YouTube channel and am forever working towards that end goal of one 90 minute film.
 
I started in high school, when a class assignment made me realize that filmmaking encompassed a lot of different disciplines that I was interested in - photography, drama, music/audio, etc. I went to film school, got an internship on Baywatch, and realized that I really had little interest in working in the film industry. The day after graduation I was PAing on a corporate video shoot, and over the next few years built a solid freelance career shooting and editing training and promotional videos, local tv shows, etc. After a while I started to get burned out, and I realized I was doing very little original work because of all the time and effort I was expending on the professional stuff.

Meanwhile I'd begun to grow interested in the multimedia side of things, so I went back to school to study that while I continued to freelance. I gradually transitioned my professional work to focus more on web and interactive development and sort of lost interest in filmmaking, but I also started teaching video production on the side. After a few years of that a group of my regular students helped rekindle my interest in filmmaking, and It Donned On Me was born - a project with no goals other than to have fun making films. After 6 years of that I've amassed a decent body of work and begun thinking long term again about pursuing independent filmmaking more seriously - not as a career though, just as a serious amateur pursuit.

I'm at a point now where I make a comfortable living as a developer with a company that I co-founded and which looks to have unbelievable growth potential over the next few years. My plan is to use some of the resources that's bringing in to fund my filmmaking pursuits in a completely independent manner - small scale production, no outside investment, fully self-distributed and marketed, and with a goal of achieving sustainability entirely outside of the traditional industry. Additionally I plan to leverage my skills and experience as a developer to build tools and platforms to help enable others to do the same. It's a long term goal, to be sure - I'm thinking in terms of the next decade here - but it's sort of the culmination of everything I've been working on for the last two decades.

Bottle_Rocket_100219.jpg
 
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My first dumb little short was made when I was around 12 with two of my sisters. We'd break out the family camcorder and come up with movies to make. The first one was about stalker (yes at 12(and I played the stalker)). Nothing much after that until I got into the hobby I'm into now. It took me years to realize that I wanted to make a documentary out of the footage I had been shooting.

Money-wise ------ YOUTUBE, BABY!
 
Hey all, wanted to ask why you started making films, and more specifically how you got the ball rolling (regarding making money from video). What were your first projects? Personal narratives? Short free music videos? Commercials for mom'n'pop stores? How long did it take you to get to where you are? Where are you with filmmaking? Are you where you'd like to be? Should I be shooting for concrete goals (such as getting a corporate commercial under my belt) or just learning and taking opportunities as they arise? I wanted to gauge whether I'm on the right track with this whole filmmaking business. I do this because I love shooting video and I find editing to be exciting when I can make it my own thing (namely with music videos). Sometimes I feel like my videos should be of higher quality because I've been doing this for about 2 years now.



I started this journey about 7 months ago and Im finally starting to get some traction as far as client work. Im no professional but I do know the basics of filming and editing. I have done a quite a few low paying gigs but it is experience. Its one of those things that you have to practice and learn on a weekly basis. do the first few for free so you can have examples for future paying clients. Thats how I have started and make sure the customers are overly satisfied because I have received more business through word of mouth than anything else. Good Luck.

No film school just research and practice is how i have started
and lots of tutorials on lynda.com, youtube, and vimeo. I didnt even
know how to use a camera or software 8 months ago.
 
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in Oct of 2012 my friend and I just decided to make a movie despite not knowing anything on how to do it. we had a script done by December of that year and filmed the entire thing in 2013. However after filming we had nothing to edit with so we had to wait. now in 2015 the movie is almost done.
 
Made skits and videos on my family's VHS video camera when I was little. Around 2002 or so I was hit with the bug to work in movies in some capacity. I thought making films would be impossible because you needed money, equipment etc. so I figured I'd go into acting. Did some theater acting in 2002/2003. Around 2003 I met a couple local production companies in the area and started acting for them. During this time I would be on set and watching how everything worked. When I wasn't in front of the camera I would help out in an unofficial PA role on set. Eventually, I found very little acting work so I figured I'd write my own screenplay and act in it and have the production companies I was working with produce it. One company was more than happy to produce the short but also thought I should direct too.

So I wrote, acted, and directed my own first short film in August 2004. I enjoyed it so much I stopped acting entirely (probably did a favor to the world) and became a writer/director. I made a slew of short films from 2004-2007. I then transferred from my community college to a 4-year college for film school. Graduated in 2010. Moved to NYC and struggled for 2 years trying to make ends meet. Made no films in 2011 or 2012 and kind of got away from filmmaking.

Moved to the Boston area in 2012 with little desire to keep making films. I think my time in film school and NYC kind of soured me on the filmmaking experience. Then in 2013 I really got the urge to create again. Wrote and directed 5 web series episodes between 2013 and 2014. Now I am as passionate about filmmaking as I have ever been. I hope to shoot a couple shorts this year, possibly a web series pilot, and some random video work around New England. I work full time outside film but weekends have pretty much been a mix of quality time with my wife and working on film projects. I feel like I am just getting started despite doing this stuff for 11 years now. I feel like a beginner, and to be honest I probably still am.

My five year plan is to register my LLC, learn as much as I can and shoot as many projects as I can. Then in a few years I'll glance at Los Angeles or Austin and see if a move would be timely and beneficial. If it is, I'll relocate. If it's not the right time, I'll still be here working on projects and hopefully asking you guys some dumb questions so I can learn a thing or two.
 
I used to make flipbook animations during class as a teenager.
At that time I was often daydreaming about making movies and joking about winning a raspberry with a movie full of terrible effects. :P

It started to get more serious when some friends and I started to think about making stuff. One of my friends had a computer and a webcam. It could handle 14fps at 200P in black and white.

We were also brainstorming about sketches and stunts, but never made anything: we had no gear.
Few years later Jackass appeared on MTV...

In 2001 I went to artschool to study audiovisual design.
In 2007 I started my own business. My first gig was directing the video part of a show for a themeparc. The main actor was a Dutch A-list actor I never heard of :P
 
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