Making a Film Alone

4

4Spades

I am working to gain more experience in the film industry and wish to make more movies. However, I unfortunately do not have people to work with to do this. Is it possible to make a video on my own? Please keep in mind that I want to create something decent, not just for the sake of filming. Please let me know what I could do.
Thanks.
 
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If I were you, I'd beg, borrow or steal my way to volunteer on other peoples film sets. Once you do that, you'll find out why you can or cannot do what you want to achieve.
 
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Have you ever seen a good movie with just one person in the credits?

Go out and meet some people who do this stuff all the time. You'll probably have to volunteer to get on someone's project, but you'll make connections that way. Your network is your net worth.
 
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directorik said:
That's quite a challenge. If it's true that there isn't one so far
then being the very first would be huge.

Suddenly my creative mind races....
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There was a great project called The Lone Filmmaker where he set out to do exactly that. The BTS video diaries are really fascinating (amongst the most entertaining film production videos I've ever seen) but, unfortunately, it all just kind of came to a halt. Too big a task, seemingly.

EDIT: Here's the YouTube channel.
 
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I've done a few projects almost entirely by myself. They're nowhere near "decent" quality, but the point is that it's possible to film by yourself, especially if you're a beginner like me. If there's no other options it does provide some experience.

Maybe an easier option for lone filmmaking would be stopmotion or puppetry, which are easier than animation (in my opinion), and a lot of fun. Or animation, if you are knowledgeable about it or want to spend a few hundred hours learning.

Of course, as others have said, finding people to help you is the best solution. If you know people but they aren't interested in filmmaking, maybe you could get them involved by making it more of a social event?
 
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Yes! You can absolutely make stuff by yourself. There are plenty of one man bands making shorts and things, some of them suck but it's better to make bad stuff on your own than nothing at all, at least you'll learn.

I've made a short film with just myself and another person to hold the boom in a number of shots, which I could have used a mic stand for instead. A lot of the shots were just me alone with the actors. (Actually, shot 98% of it, the Actor got a haircut before we'd finished shooting)

As far as features go, I personally wouldn't try it without a butt load of experience. Try and make as many short films/music videos/interviews/product videos as you can, but don't just make them for the sake of making them, you have to learn and build upon each one and make each one better than the last. Just get out there and hustle and shoot heaps.
 
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I came as close as I could possibly come to making a feature alone.

I did all the pre-production and post-production myself, but realistically it is basically impossible to work alone on shoot days. Most days I had 2 or 3 people helping, plus the actors.

I do not recommend doing it this way, however (I did it out of financial necessity). I plan to surround myself with as many likeminded creative people I can find for the next film :)
 
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moonshieldmedia said:
I came as close as I could possibly come to making a feature alone.

I did all the pre-production and post-production myself, but realistically it is basically impossible to work alone on shoot days. Most days I had 2 or 3 people helping, plus the actors.

I do not recommend doing it this way, however (I did it out of financial necessity). I plan to surround myself with as many likeminded creative people I can find for the next film :)
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I have to say, your project is pretty impressive given the way you made it.

Is there anywhere you break down how you did it, what sort of budget you had, etc? Because it certainly doesn't look or sound like (to my ears and eyes on my home computer and headphones at least) such a small production.
 
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moonshieldmedia said:
I came as close as I could possibly come to making a feature alone.

I did all the pre-production and post-production myself, but realistically it is basically impossible to work alone on shoot days. Most days I had 2 or 3 people helping, plus the actors.

I do not recommend doing it this way, however (I did it out of financial necessity). I plan to surround myself with as many likeminded creative people I can find for the next film :)
Click to expand...

cheeseandachallenge said:
I have to say, your project is pretty impressive given the way you made it.

Is there anywhere you break down how you did it, what sort of budget you had, etc? Because it certainly doesn't look or sound like (to my ears and eyes on my home computer and headphones at least) such a small production.
Click to expand...

Where can we see it?
 
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cheeseandachallenge said:
I have to say, your project is pretty impressive given the way you made it.

Is there anywhere you break down how you did it, what sort of budget you had, etc? Because it certainly doesn't look or sound like (to my ears and eyes on my home computer and headphones at least) such a small production.
Click to expand...

Well thank you!

There's a pretty in depth interview I did a while ago here: https://lightsfilmschool.com/blog/how-i-made-my-first-feature-film/2654/

But I can sum it up basically by saying...

-I wrote the script knowing I'd have very little money (choosing locations wisely, and writing characters for friends who were already talented actors).

-Spent about $12,000 which was mostly my own savings.

-Stayed incredibly organized during pre-production (many many detailed lists of all sorts of things).

-Got the crew together and got through the shoot (despite much rescheduling and many unforeseen setbacks).

-then took my sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet time in post.
 
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Interesting and impressive. In New Zeland filmmaking there is constant debate and complaint about the lack of funding from the Film Commission (since we're a small country with a tony industry, its hard to attract investors, so local productions often rely on govt funding). Granted, budgets are small, but when I hear people talking about their tiny $1 million budget, i dream of all the possible films i could make with that. Your film (granted ive only seen the trailer) seems to surpass the quality of these higher budget (so called no budget) productions. As someone aiming to shoot a feature in the next five or so years (I'd like to have one under my belt by age 25), it's a nice to know people can make good films with tiny budgets.

Not that I think having a small budget isn't at all limiting in terms of stories you can tell, crew and actors you can attract, etc - I just think some filmmakers tend to use their small budget as an excuse for poor quality.

Sorry for going off on a tangent there! But there you go op, you can do pretty grea things with few people and little finance.

As for making a film entirely by yourself, it would be difficult, but interesting if you pulled it off. Here are some suggestions:

1),If you're comfortable acting, you could write stories with only one character (or experiment with *other* characters-eg ghosts, doppelgängers, etc) and shoot yourself on a tripod. To make it visually interesting you'd have to have strong shot composition, and/or play to the style of having still shots, oorr, shoot in 1080p and add some movement in post (then export in 720p).

2) start shooting other things. Nature, cars, people on a sidewalk, bugs in a forest, etc. find a story in the real world through observation, or construct a new story out of these images. Look into observational documentary (such as the work of Frederick Wiseman) and maybe try experiment with something new in the format. You could always do other modes of documentary. Maybe something like the photographer who does "Humans of New York"?

3) animation. It's time consuming, very difficult, and hellishly frustrating. But I think it's a lot of fun, and stop motion films were my first experiences constructing films as a kid. You could do it through digital animation (when I was really young, id draw thousands of slides of stickmen skateboarding in PowerPoint and play them back quickly to form a "movie" - you could of course look more into stuff like blender and flash and so on) or stop motion type stuff.
 
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moonshieldmedia said:
Well thank you!

There's a pretty in depth interview I did a while ago here: https://lightsfilmschool.com/blog/how-i-made-my-first-feature-film/2654/

But I can sum it up basically by saying...

-I wrote the script knowing I'd have very little money (choosing locations wisely, and writing characters for friends who were already talented actors).

-Spent about $12,000 which was mostly my own savings.

-Stayed incredibly organized during pre-production (many many detailed lists of all sorts of things).

-Got the crew together and got through the shoot (despite much rescheduling and many unforeseen setbacks).

-then took my sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet time in post.
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Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh you did Ever, I didn't even look at your Avatar.

I remember seeing a trailer for that somewhere and thought it looked really goood so I liked the facebook page and hoped I would be able to see it one day. Good work!

Any idea how/when it will be released? I'd love to watch it!

EDIT: Reading the interview now, sounds very familiar with an idea I'm working on, except the girls are younger, around 13 years old.
 
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So I loved the idea of this thread immediately, because I have often toyed with the idea.

The conclusion I've come to is that it is absolutely possible, but your mediums are severely limited. As has been mentioned, if you want to be a one-man-band filmmaker, consider taking up animation of sorts. Many animators online create stunning projects with themselves, or themselves and a couple other people. Hell, if you notice at the Oscars every year, there is a category for these short animations, and usually a team of 3-5 people accept the award.

Personally, I'd say the strongest avenue to try something like this would be to shoot a run n' gun documentary of sorts. Find something that you can capture purely by interviewing people or actually getting out and shooting stuff. I saw a documentary last year by an 'Urban Explorer' in New York where he just took a camera with him to all these amazing places he was basically breaking into... incredibly interesting. There's no reason you couldn't shoot something by yourself. Let's go back a bit, before there was Bear Grylls there was Survivor Man! That dude handled it pretty exceptionally.

So, sure, I think there are a few outlets to be success solo, and there's no reason not to try - regardless of whether or not you succeed you learn something performing all the jobs.

A good reason on this that I would suggest is Robert Rodriguez's 'Rebel Without A Crew'
 
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