Advice Needed- What skills are required?

Josh Hill

Josh Hill

Hey there,

This is my first post on this forum and I hope to be a frequent user on here!

I have a question for all of those who may have some advice for me! What skills do you think are required to assume the role of a successful indie film maker? Unlike other roles in the industry, I feel that this path is more vague, and there are many routes to take that could potentially lead to this ‘career’... but what skills are needed to get you there? I am really interested to hear what you guys have to say about this, thanks a lot!

Josh
 
What skills do you think are required to assume the role of a successful indie film maker?
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All of them. You either need to possess the skills or you need to recruit/hire someone with those skills. Either way, you'll need all the skills.
 
All of the skills? I mean what specific skills would someone need in themselves to make a career out of being an indie film maker, not what skill are required to make films.
 
How are you going to have a career as an indie film maker if you don't make films? It's either you make films, in which my answer still applies, or you don't make films, in which, you need no skills.
 
Josh Hill said:
what specific skills would someone need in themselves to make a career out of being an indie film maker, not what skill are required to make films.
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If you don't want to make films, Well, you can still make a career out of indiefilms. Be a publicist or a photographer of several locations or be a film critic. Chances are endless.
 
Josh Hill said:
All of the skills? I mean what specific skills would someone need in themselves to make a career out of being an indie film maker, not what skill are required to make films.
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unfortunately sweetie is right, being an indie film maker is more demanding than hollywood about how much the director must know. There is no professional DP, sound, gaffer, etc to guide you or an AD to help you organize.

Every single aspect of the film falls on your shoulders.
 
Technical skills for all departments you don't want to hire someone for: Camera, Sound, Editorial, VFX, Grading, Post Audio. You literally will need to be a jack of all trades, especially at first.

People Skills for Directing, working out deals for locations/cast/props/food/financing if needed

Creative vision to stand out and be different from the thousands of other filmmakers just like you.

And maybe a bit of naivety so that you push the limits of what's possible.

For me, being an indie filmmaker doesn't support myself yet, but I've learned the above mentioned skills and they got me a job with a small outfit that lets me do all the things I love, and get paid for it. The one drawback is that I'm always supporting someone else's vision, so I continue to do my own work on the side to fulfill myself creatively. And as a YouTube partner, I make a few hundred a month and use that money to buy gear and make more films :)
 
Thanks for your responses, I really appreciate it! :)

Once these production skills have been acquired and are under constant improvement and development. How would a indie film maker go about making a career out of the films and content he/she makes? What steps would they have to take and what skills do they require to make a living out of their content?

Thanks guys!
 
move to la and work your way up the ladder from the bottom rung but thats not indie
so...
acquire finance and create a captivating and great film that profits.

or do weddings and music videos
 
No idea. Except I have a business plan.

I'm going to shoot docs and a feature and one of them is going to make money. When one of these does, I finally have a platform to go and raise money.
 
sfoster said:
... being an indie film maker is more demanding than hollywood about how much the director must know. There is no professional DP, sound, gaffer, etc to guide you or an AD to help you organize.
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Not sure I can agree with this. 1. While I agree that a no/nano budget director would have to know more than a Hollywood director in terms of having the knowledge to physically fulfil many/most of the additional roles, there's a lot of other knowledge the Hollywood director needs which the no/nano budget director doesn't. 2. You appear to be talking specifically about no/nano budget indie film rather than indie films in general. Some indie films are made virtually identically to the way Hollywood makes them. Many more are not really made as Hollywood makes them but do use entirely professional crews and many, possibly even most, indie features fall somewhere between Hollywood and no budget, IE. Have a number of pro crew members but not a full compliment.

Josh Hill said:
Once these production skills have been acquired and are under constant improvement and development.
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There really is no "once"! It's not really practical to achieve the required level of competency in all the filmmaking disciplines in one lifetime. And even if it were, it would take so long to make and complete a feature that it just wouldn't be financially viable, even if the film achieved a moderately good level of profit. As far as making a living out of narrative film making is concerned, it's very much a team sport. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head who makes a living making narrative films themselves.

G
 
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