Produce Your Short Film

1. Course Introduction: Hi. My name is Joshua Corte. I'm an independent filmmaker, a professional screenwriter, and an educator. I've got more than 17 years of experience teaching college courses in screenwriting, directing, film production, editing, and lots of other film related topics. In this course, we're going to be talking about how to produce your own short film. Some of you may already have experience with filmmaking. Maybe you've made some short films with your friends, maybe you've done some of logging or you've shot videos for TikTok or YouTube or something like that. What we're going to be talking about is how to take your films up to that next level for making a narrative short film. Some degree, documentary short, but we're going to focus primarily on narrative fiction pieces in this course. And here's the great news about filmmaking in the 21st century. You probably have access to a lot of the tools and resources that you need to make a quality short film. When I started making short films when I was a kid, back in the early to mid 90s, and my friends and I would shoot little movies on the weekends, we were shooting on this big clunky VHS camcorder. We would have to edit from tape to tape. We didn't have what's called non linear editing software, which is like, you know, premiere or Final Cut or Avid or I movie or any of those kind of systems. That stuff was all prohibitively expensive back in those days for the ones that actually existed at that. You guys have access to stuff that, oh my goodness, I would love to have had when I was younger and when I was starting off as a filmmaker. Nowadays, most people have a camera right built into their foam that you can make a film on. Sean Baker, who recently won a bunch of Academy Awards for his film Monora a few years back, made a film called Tangerine that was shot entirely on an iPhone. So my point is, if you want to make a film, you can do it. What you want to do is figure out how do you make a quality film with the resources that one of the traps I see a lot of starting filmmakers falling into is that their ambitions are bigger than the resources they have. Now, I'm not saying you should be ambitious. If you want to be ambitious and do something kind of crazy and out there, by all means, go for it. But I want you to temper that a little bit with a little bit of realism, some understanding of what you're getting into and what it might take to actually produce the kind of thing that you want to produce. So for the rest of this course, we're gonna be talking about the things that go into making a film that you can implement on your first short film. Or if you've made some smaller stuff, you can start implementing this on, you know, future short films. Alright, here we go. Let's produce your short film. 2. Course Project: The project for this course is pretty straightforward. Since this is a course on producing a short film, that's what I want you to go do. Produce a short film. I'm not talking about a half hour short film. I'm talking 5 minutes, 10 minutes tops. Don't make it something that's way unrealistic to do with the time and money and resources that you might have available. Do something that's realistically within your grasp. But go make a film. That's what I want to see. Go through the process that we're going to talk about with budgeting and scheduling, doing all the planning, post production, getting a cast and crew together, all that stuff. Even if it's a small cast and crew, if you want to make a short film go make a short film. There's no excuse not to. The tools are accessible these days, far more than they ever have been in the past. Oh, I don't have time to do it. I'm so busy. If you want to do it, find the time to do it because nobody's gonna go and give you that time. You've got to figure it out if it's something that you want to do. So that's the project. We're gonna make a short film. So this might take you a couple weeks or a couple months or maybe even longer, depending on what the project is. But I want you to work on producing a short film, and then at the end, you can post a link on YouTube or Vimeo or whatever and share it on the course page. 3. What a Producer Does: So let's dig in to how to produce a short film. What is it that a producer actually does? Most people have no idea what a producer does. We think of filmmaking in terms of the director who's working with the actors to block the scenes and elicit performances and has the grand vision. We're thinking about the cinematographer who sets up the shots for the director and directs the lighting. We're thinking about the art direction and how they put the sets together and the overall look of the film under the director's vision. We're thinking about sound, although, unfortunately, most people don't think of sound as much as they should. Or maybe we're thinking of post production. A lot of people want to be editors, and that's all great. But you don't have any of that if somebody's not producing the film. The producer is the one who's ultimately responsible for getting the film finished on time and on budget and delivering the film to whoever it's promised to movie studio or investors or whatever, or a distributor. That entails lots and lots and lots of things. And there are many different types of producers, like executive producers who are often packaging the project. They help raise money. They find people to put into key positions. They help with attaching directors or major stars or that kind of stuff. Or they might own an intellectual property. They might have the rights to a popular book or to a comic book character or something like that. Then there's the line producers. Line producers handle a lot more of the day to day stuff. They organize a lot of the films, scheduling. Ultimately, we have book producer who's really in charge of overseeing all of that stuff. They're going to work in collaboration with the writer, with the director, with the financiers, with post production, with all of that stuff in order to get the film Mt. On an independent film, you might only have one or two producers. You might not have a lot of producers. You might be producing your own film, and you might be the only producer on your film. Yeah, by core, I'm a writer director. But I realized early on when I started making movies that if I wanted to make the films I wanted to make, I was gonna need to produce them, as well. Finding a producer who shares your vision can be difficult when you're starting obviously, if you're watching this course, you are thinking about doing some producing of your own. So you've got to think about, well, what does that actually entail? Ultimately, what it comes down to with the producer is the buck stops here. The project really lives and dies with the producer. Now that we have this sort of thousand foot overview of what a producer does, we're going to start digging into the specific things. One of the biggest jobs that the producer has is problem solving. Things are going to go wrong on your film shoot. It happens on every shoot. I've never had a film shoot that has gone 100% perfectly, because there are so many variables and we can't control all of them. Sometimes you have to figure out those issues on set in the moment. Oh, no, the truck that I'm hauling the equipment in, I lock the keys in and I can't get my gear out. What do I do? Okay, well, you got to come up with a solution for that. The lead actor just got to set and reveal that they have to leave at a certain time that's like 3 hours before you expected them to leave. And now you got to work around figure out how we're going to get all their shots for the day before that time that they have to leave. It's not unusual for these curveballs to get thrown into a film production. So what you want to do is make sure that you are not necessarily prepared for every contingency because you just physically can't do that. But you want to start thinking through those contingencies early on, one of the things that could come up so that you're more prepared. And then when the problems pop up on set that you weren't prepared for, don't panic. Just figure out a solution. Because the longer you spend panicking, the more time you're wasting. So when you start working on a project that you want to actually produce, think about the resources that you have at your disposal. Like, what actors do you have access to? Who do you know that could be in your crew? What locations do you have access to? If there's a particular set that you want, but you can't afford to build it, do you know the place where you could potentially find that set? Now, you can go out and look for locations. We'll talk about that more later. But if you're thinking, Alright, what do I already have going in, then you can develop your project in a way that you know you have resources and you know that you can actually go and accomplish some of these you know, you're not going to be shooting on some super high end camera. You're not going to be using, you know, an air camera or a red camera or something like that. Maybe you're only going to be using a DSLR or maybe you're going to be filming on your phone. Then think about, Alright, what could I film where that look of those tools isn't going to be a hindrance. Maybe you do a fountain footage type movie. Or maybe you figure out a way to light the scenes so that it looks better than it really is. Maybe you don't have a lot of professional lighting. So you figure out, Alright, how can I use stylized light lamps or I can do outdoor filming and use the natural sunlight or is there some other stylistic choice? So that's a big part of what a producer's doing. Figuring out, right, what's the project? Who do I need to hire? How much money do I have? How much money do I need? How am I going to schedule this? What problems are going to come up? How do I solve those problems? And then, you know, what can I realistically actually make? And then go and make that and keep it all straight and keep it all organized and make sure everything stays on track and on schedule. It's a big job. But that's why we're going to go through the individual pieces. 4. Developing the Story: One of the first things that a producer needs to do on a project is actually figure out what the project is. Usually, that means figuring out what's the story going to be? Is it a short script that you've written yourself? Did you find a script that a friend of yours wrote? Or did you go to someone and say, I want to make a film, and I want you to write it with me or for me or whatever? It might be something that's based on a true story, maybe it's something from your own life, but just be careful about doing anything like that because sometimes if it's something that's personal to you, it can be difficult to be objective about what works in a story and what doesn't work in a story. Maybe there's some emotion or some moment that you want to dramatize for your regardless, the story comes from somewhere and somebody writes it. Usually, most producers don't write the stuff that they're producing. Now, in the Indie world, that might be a little bit different. But in the professional film world, typically you have your writers, you have your directors, you have producers, and there are some people who do more than one. But typically, you know, it's fairly separate. When the producer acquires an intellectual property, they buy a script or they get the rights to a novel or a play that they want to develop or the producer is going to work with the writer or writers often there's more than one. They're going to work with the writers to develop the script. And depending on when the director comes into it, they'll work with the director and the writers to develop the script. And they're going to try to get that story into as good a shape as possible and to fit whatever the circumstances they're in. There may be times when a writer has to go through and scale certain things back in the script because maybe they don't have as high a budget as they thought they might to make the film. Or maybe an actor gets cast in a part that's going to bring something a little different to the part than what really is on the page. So you have to go back and rewrite that character to fit the actor that you've got rather than trying to force the actor into, you know, a role that they don't really necessarily fit. It might just be that the director has a particular vision and wants to just take it in a different direction. They want to put emphasis on different things or they want to change some aspect of it that they don't like or that they think it isn't working. It might just be that the script isn't working. There might be story issues. Producer really needs to understand how stories work. There's a structure to a story, and that stories are about characters, pursuing goals, facing conflict, struggling to overcome that conflict, and making choices that ultimately lead to a climax where something changes, the character learns and grows. That's the basis of what most narrative fiction stories are about. And a producer needs to know how that works in order to work with the writer and director in order to develop that story and turn it into something that can actually. When you're working with a writer, if you're not writing the script yourself, what I would recommend is give the writer some space to work. Don't micromanage and, like, hover over their shoulders, let them do their job, and then read over what they've got and offer your feedback. It might be real detailed feedback, it might be very broad feedback, and then just work with them and collaborate. But let the writer be the it doesn't mean that you don't get your say. You're the producer. You're in charge of the whole project. But you also want the writer to feel like they're having appropriate contributions to the project. Everybody who's part of the creative process wants to feel like they're contributing and that they're contributing meaningfully. And so make sure that you're listening to the writer and not just pushing back on everything that they're saying. Or if you're the writer, don't just push back on everything the producer says, but listen to what they're saying and try to figure out the best thing for the script and the best thing for the film, not the best thing for your ego. Ego, unfortunately, is often part of this process, but it really should it should be about making the best possible film. So work with the writers, develop the story. And if you get to a point where the writer just isn't going to be able to continue on with what you want to do, then you may have to find someone else to step in and continue the writing. A lot of times in the Indie world, the director will take a pass at the script. Sometimes it's a good idea, sometimes it's not a good idea. Regardless, you have to make those decisions. There's no one size fits all for how this works, but you do need to develop your story. And the writing process can be lengthy because you want to get it right. You have to do draft after draft after draft, rewrite the script, revise stuff, throw out scenes that don't put in new scenes that do or find ways to change the scenes that are there, or whatever it is. You might have to completely cut a character out if they're not serving a function dramatically. You might have to add a new character in. Maybe the theme isn't clear. So there's a lot that goes into the development process. Don't just write a first draft and go, Aha, we have a script. Let's go produce it. Because it's probably going to be bad. It's probably going to have overwritten dialogue. It's probably going to be clunky. The structure's probably not going to work because it's just the first ideas that pop in your head. Which also means it's probably going to be full of cliches because cliches are often the first ideas we have because they're familiar. And it's not creative, and you want to push and push and keep developing into something unique and interesting and original. So development is critical. 5. Pre-Production and Budget: Once you have your story pretty well developed, you can start getting into what's called preproduction. Pre production is the part of the process where you do the planning for the actual production itself. Inexperienced filmmakers want to just get right onto set. They want to just go. Alright, let's go start shooting. Let's get a camera. Let's get some actors. Let's go film. The reality is pre production is essential because it's really the foundation of all the choices that you're going to be making on set. Alfred Hitchcock used to say that by the time he got to set, there was nothing left for him to do. Hitchcock, of course, he's exaggerating for effect, but the point he was making was as a director and a producer wanted to plan his films so thoroughly that by the time he actually arrives on set, pretty much all the major decisions have been made, and he can just sit there and call action cut and we're good to go. Again, that's a bit of an exaggeration. There's a little more to it than that. But the point he's making is plan, plan everything. What I'm directing, I'm making a shot list. Listing out all the shots I want to get for each scene. And then I'm usually going back and revising it because I probably have overwritten it, and there's probably not time for all the shots I want. But from a producing standpoint, not only do you want the director to go through undo all their planning, but as a producer, you need to do planning, too. So the producer needs to be figuring out where are the costumes coming from? Where are we going to be filming? What are our locations going to be? Are we going to be on sets? Do we need to build sets? What about gear? Own gear? Can we borrow gear? Do we need to rent gear? Where are we getting our equipment from? Where are we going to get our actors from? What about food? We have to feed the cast and crew on set if we're going to be filming long days. We have to provide lunch. We want to have snacks and water and coffee and those kind of things. So where are the good deals I can get that stuff relatively cheap? I got to check on dietary needs in case anybody is allergic to stuff, or if I've got vegetarians or vegans or people need gluten free. And then, of course, we need to figure out things like schedule and budget. Now, budget is a tricky one a lot of times with Id films because we usually don't have a lot of money. There are really two ways to approach budgeting your film. There's the Alright, here's how much money we need. Let's break the script down and see, here's how much we need. Alright, now we need to go and actually raise that money. Or you say, Alright, well, how much money do I already have? I've got this much set aside, I've raised this much or I've saved this much. And this is what I have, and I've got to figure out how to make the movie with this money. And of course, most movies, you're probably going to be somewhere in the middle. But either way, whatever situation you're in financially, when you know how much money you're going to be working with, you have to figure out, then of course, how do you allocate those funds. Where are you spending money? You know, are you spending money on equipment? How much are you spending on food? Do you need to spend money on costumes and props, sets and stuff like that? Are you paying your cast and crew members? On a lot of short films, people volunteer or if it's a professional short film, they might work on a deferred payment, where technically they get paid, but only if the project is making money. So it's not necessarily free labor, but from a practical standpoint, it is. Are you going to spend money on batteries because your sound is going to eat up those batteries. So making sure you got money for batteries, for tape, for any weird supplies you might need. You're gonna be filming in the winter? You might want to buy some of those little handwarmer packets that people can put in their gloves. Gets real cold outside, depending on where you're located. And remember, you got to plan. You have to think this stuff through ahead of time because when you're in the middle of the hot and suddenly you go, Oh, no, everybody's freezing cold, what do I do? Well, now it's too late. I mean, you can find a solution, but it's better if you have that solution up front because now you don't get in that situation. You want to try to think through all those contingencies and then plan the money that you think you're going to need. On most film shoots, we usually pad the budget padding the budget often sounds kind of like a shady business. It's not a shady business practice. It's not to try to somehow swindle anybody. It's the idea of just having extra money set aside for emergencies. Sometimes you'll pad the budget with miscellaneous categories in your line items on a budget sheet. You might just have a specific contingency budget. Most major movies do that. A lot of times they say at least 10% of your budget should be set aside for contingency, just in case something goes horribly, horribly wrong, and we need to throw money at it, and there's no other solution, money. We need money. Also want to think about post production and what happens after post production. Are you going to have to pay to use facilities for editing? Are you going to have to hire someone to do sound editing or visual effects? Are you hiring a composer? Are you spending money to license music? What about the actual distribution? You're going to need potentially hard drives to ship the film to different film festivals or a distributor or whatever. You might need to have money to print posters. Printing is not cheap. So making sure that you're thinking through all of that stuff is really helpful for when you're creating a budget for your film, and that budget is a big part of the overall planning that you have to do. It takes a while do not skim on preproduction. 6. The Schedule: So you're planning your film, you're figuring out your budget, you're doing all that stuff. One of the big things that you need to do in this early planning stage is schedule your film. Figure out what are your shoot dates gonna be? So there are a lot of factors you have to consider. How many days are you need to be on set? That can vary depending on the length of your script and the complexity of your script. If you're doing, you know, three or four page script, you can probably shoot it in one day, most likely. If you're doing, an entire feature film, that's a lot harder to do in a quick amount of time. We're probably talking at least two or three weeks for an Indie film, but a lot of big Hollywood films will shoot for months. They'll go two, three, four months on a really expensive movie, maybe even five or six months. Typically, on smaller Indie films that are a little bit more dialogue heavy, you might be getting through, you know, three or four pages, five pages a day, something like that. Maybe if you're really, really booking it, you might be getting through seven or eight pages a day. But again, it depends on what kind of scenes you're doing. If you're doing a lot of really heavy dialogue and not a ton of blocking or effects or anything like that, you might be able to get through more as long as the actors know their lines. If you're doing something more complicated, if there's a lot of camera movement or stunts or anything like that, then that's going to take time. And you want to make sure that you plan you're doing a five to ten minute film, I'm going to say you're probably going to want two days, maybe three, depending on how complex it is. If it's real simple, you might be able to do it in one day. But I would say for most short films, two days is usually pretty good. But again, it depends on a lot of other variables. So, in addition to figuring out what days you're filming, you also have to think about what external factors can affect the order of the scenes because we don't shoot films typically in script order. Usually, we film in whatever is the most efficient order to get through everything. If your movie takes place at one location and then goes to another location and then back to the first location, we don't film it at one location, then the second location, and then back to the first. You just film everything at the first location. Then move on to the next location. And we try to do that with actors as well, you know? If there's an actor who has a bunch of scenes that we can do in one day and then they don't have to come back, great. Rather than spread out, like, one scene a day for, you know, five days, if we can do all five of their scenes in one day, that's even better. But there are many variables, and it's a puzzle, and you have to find the best way to arrange those pieces. If you're making a short film, you might be working with people that are not getting paid or that are doing deferred payments, and you really have to, you know, be respectful of their schedules. They might have other jobs that they're doing, and there may be days they can't get off work for you. If you're paying your actors, then hopefully they can, you know, commit to the dates that you need them. Doesn't always work. Sometimes they have things in their schedules that can't move, and you have to just figure out how to work around that stuff. Especially in the ending world, that's very true. So actor schedules, crew schedules, those kind of things. When you get into locations, which we'll talk about in a little bit here, you have to think about when the locations are available, not just what days, but what times. Think about things like weather. If you're filming outdoors. What's the weather going to look like? If you're filming in the middle of July, it's going to look very different than if you're filming in the middle of January. Typically, I would scheduling your outdoor scenes at the beginning of the shoot, if possible doesn't always work out that way, but if you can, it's helpful because then if there is a delay, if something happens and you get rained out or something goes wrong with the weather that's not going to match what you need for the film, then you can potentially swap it with a later scene. However, if you start with all your indoor stuff, and then you put your outdoor stuff at the end, and then something happens, you get rained out or whatever. Well, now you can't switch it because you've already shot everything. So all you can do is add another day to your film or cut the scene. So try, if you can, to put your outdoor stuff at the beginning. You also want to think about time of day. Is it something that needs to be filmed at night? What time is sunset? What time is Sunrise? If it's an indoor scene, can we film it during daytime and black out the windows to fake nighttime? If you're working with children, you have a limited number of hours that kids can be on set. So you have to be careful about that kind of stuff. You also want to think about what kinds of scenes you're shooting. Sometimes you want to put the really hard stuff at the end of the day so that you don't wear your actor out before they have to go and do all these other scenes. Have them do the easy stuff at the beginning of the day and then work up to the really hard stuff, then they can go home and decompress from it, whether that's physically difficult stuff or emotionally difficult stuff. So there are a lot of factors that go into figure out your schedule in terms of the dates, in terms of the order of the scenes, what scenes are you going to do first, second, third, whatever, what scenes are you going to lump together? What can you do at the same locations, different locations? What actor crew availability, gear, location availability, all of those things. So those are all things you have to consider when you make a schedule. Work with your cast and crew. It's not something you just do in a vacuum. But once you have that schedule figured out, make sure that you're share pieces of it, at least the overview of it with your cast and crew so they know what days they need to be there. You might not need every actor every day, or there might be certain crew members you don't need every day. So they need to know what days am I going to be on set. When you get closer to the shoot, then you can start revealing, like, call time. Like, Okay, we're gonna be at 9:00 on this day, or we're gonna start at 7:00 A.M. Or we're going to start at 6:00 P.M. Because we want to use the darkness or whatever. What you don't want to do is show up on set and go, What scenes should we do first today? Because now you're just wasting everybody's time. And if you have a small budget, you're wasting money, too. Figure that stuff out in pre production as much as you possibly can. Do the work, schedule your film. 7. Casting: Okay, let's talk about casting. Casting, of course, is an essential part of doing any narrative fictional film because you got to know who's going to actually play the characters. Maybe you know some actors. Maybe you have some friends that are actors or maybe you knew some actors when you were in school. But if you don't know actors, you've got to find actors. On a big Hollywood movie, there's usually a casting director. Will help find options. They might run the early stages of auditions, or they might contact people's agents and managers to try to book actors, and they'll essentially present options to the producer and director. But on an Indie film or a small short film, often it's the producer and or director that are really running the casting. So what you want to do is put together a casting call, a document that lists out important information like the characters names, what age ranges you're looking for, what gender, possibly what race. But more importantly, than that stuff, you also want to include a brief description. And when I say brief, I mean, a sentence or two max. You don't need a big thick paragraph to explain who the character. Just enough to let the reader know, Okay, this is kind of the gist of this character. This is something I can play. Oh, it's a fast talking reporter type. This is a really serious businessman. The quirky best friend type. I would typically stay away from doing too much with physical description in your casting call because you don't want to limit the actors that are going to come in, especially if you live in a town that isn't like a big hub for actors. You want to be open to a variety of different choices so that if somebody comes in who doesn't look the way that the character looked in your brain, you can still be open to the possibility of them stepping into the role and being great. Focus more on things that are really vital. Also in the casting notice, you're going to want to include important information like your log line, a one sentence description of the film. What's the story about? You may want to include, you know, the shoot dates if you know them, if you've got your schedule done, or at least approximate shoot dates so that the actors will go, Oh, I'm not available. I shouldn't audition for that. Or, Oh, I am available. I should go audition. Also include the actual dates and times for auditions if you're holding in person auditions. Nowadays, especially since the COVID pandemic, a lot of people have been going more and more to virtual auditions and doing auditions over Zoom and that kind of stuff. That's fine, too. Or even if you're doing in person, a lot of people are doing more by appointment, as opposed to just walk in auditions. Whatever they're going to do, you want to let them know what the instructions are in that casting notice. You also want to let them know upfront whether it's paid or not. I see lots of casting notices that don't mention that. And then the first question people ask is, is it paid? Just be upfront. Don't try to lie about it if you're not paying people, if it's a volunteer short film or something. Fine. Some people aren't going to want to do that, and that's okay. There are other people who may still be interested. Don't try to con somebody and trick them into doing your film if they only do paid work and you don't have money. But you can still let them know if there are other things that are beneficial to them like, well, you can have footage for your real or there'll be IMDB credit or careful about trying to sell it too hard. You know, this is a great opportunity. It's going to get you all kinds of exposure. Actors look at that and go, Okay, come on, amateur. Yeah, I know what that means. Exposure means no pay. We all know what that means. That stuff is all very transparent. You know, just be honest. Be honest. Once you've written your casting call, you need to get it in front of people. Look for casting websites. There are a lot of them. On social media, there are lots of forums for casting. You could try sending your casting notices to local colleges that have theater departments or if there are, like, local theater groups, you can send them there. But you want to spread the word as much as you can, because the more people that are aware of your casting notice and the aware of your film, the more options you're going to get, and then you're going to have a better chance of finding the right person for the part. If you only have one or two people come in and read for you, that makes it rough. Or worse, no one comes and reads for you. I've been in that situation. I've seen students in that situation. I've seen other Indie filmmakers in that situation. And it sucks. So, you need to get the net thrown as wide as you can and see how many fish can you actually pull in and then decide, you know, which of those fish you want to cast. For the auditions, if you're doing in person auditions, you need to make sure you have a space to do it. Maybe there's a room you can check out at your school or at your place of worship or maybe at your business, there's a room that you can use for something like this. I wouldn't recommend doing auditions in your home. That can get a little a little sketchy, sometimes. You never quite know who's gonna come in for these things. But when you're doing auditions, you want to have sides. Sides are printed pages of the scenes that you're going to be reading. Just those scenes, not necessarily the whole script. For a short film, it might be the whole script, if it's real short. But usually, you just need a couple pages for each character. Someone will read with them and they'll read the scene and you'll listen to them, and hopefully the director will be there and can give them notes and can hear how they take direction and see how they fit, be polite to everyone, even if they stink, because let's face it, some of the actors that come in aren't going to be good. It happens. But be kind to everybody. You don't know what they're going through. You don't know what their situation is. They're other human beings. Be a nice person. Don't be one of those filmmakers that gets a bad reputation for being a big jerk. There's enough of that that goes around. We don't need to do that. We don't need to put more of that into when the actors are done with their readings, you can thank them, give them an estimate of when you might let them know. So if a week goes by and they haven't heard from you, they can go, Okay, yeah, well, he said that we'd find out within three days or she said we'd find out in a week or whatever. So when that time goes, they know they didn't get it. I still like to send him an email just in case, just to let them know. Thank you. We decided to go in a different direction. We appreciate you coming in just so they're not sitting around waiting. The people that you do want to cast, contact them first before the people you don't want to cast because what you don't want to end up with is a situation where you decide who you want tell everybody yes or no, and then the people you want come back and say, Oh, yeah, I hadn't looked at the dates. I can't do it. And now you go, Okay, well, who's my second choice? But you've already told them that you weren't going to cast them. That's an awkward position to be in. You don't want to be stuck in that position. So don't turn people down until you have confirmed that you've got the actors that you want. Sometimes we have to do what are called callbacks, where we bring actors back for a second or third or fourth read or whatever. On short films and indie films, I don't usually do more than two rounds of casting. And if I'm having actors come back in a second time, it's usually to do chemistry reads. Like, I want to pair them up and see how they read with each other, as opposed to reading with me or with an assistant or somebody like that. If you're going to do that, make sure to notify people really quickly and get it scheduled as fast as give yourself lots of time to do the casting if you're able to. You don't want to be like three days out from production, and you're just now looking for actors. Better if you can do that stuff a few weeks ahead of time. For a feature film, you may want to start your casting a month or two months early. For a short film, you know, three or four weeks, you're probably fine. 8. Locations: One of the places where I see young inexperienced filmmakers struggling the most and even experienced filmmakers is locations. It can be really difficult to find places to film your movie. Which is one of the reasons why I would say, you know, when you're developing your project, try to develop something that you can film in locations you already have access to. It makes life a lot easier. But that's not always the case. Just like with actors, you don't always necessarily know the right people for each part. Sometimes you have to go find people. Play those parts. And it's the same thing with locations. Sometimes you don't have the locations you need, so you have to go find them. So you can go scout locations, go check out businesses or ask your friends if they know people who know people. It's difficult. It takes time, and you're going to want to find backups. I see this all the time with students where they think they've got a location booked, and then about two or three days before they're supposed to start shooting, they realize, Oh, wait, they never confirmed we actually don't have a location. What do we do? Or a location just falls through because of some crazy variable that no one can control. I once lost a location a week before production because the location flooded. It was January and there was a heat wave and all these piles of snow melted quickly, and the river behind the location went up real fast and the location flooded because of it. We had to find another location in less than a week. This is why you want to try to get yourself options, and it can be difficult. You have to find places that will match the aesthetics of what the director wants for the scene. Does it look right for the film? You have to find locations that match your budget. Is it someplace you could afford? If you're shooting in LA or New York or one of the big movie cities Chicago, Vancouver, Atlanta, those kind of places, you may end up having to pay a lot. To rent locations. In cities that aren't necessarily big movie cities, you might be able to get more free locations. If you're filming in public, you might have to get a permit from the local government, and that takes time. So you want to make sure, again, that you're planning ahead. When it comes to filming indoor stuff, if you're shooting in a private location, you just need to make sure you get permission of the owner or someone who manages that property. You also want to think about the logistics of the locations. Are there proper restrooms handle your cast and crew and the number of people that are going to be there. Is there sufficient parking? Is there space to store your equipment? Is there a space for the actors, a green room, where the actors can go to get away from sex? Is there a place where you can set up food, the craft service table, or serve lunch, those kind of things. Making sure that the light is going to be what you want, making sure the sound is going to be what you want. A group of my students was filming at this warehouse, and when they had gone to scout the location, they were there very briefly. They went in, checked it out, said, Yeah, this is great. And then they went back on the day of filming, and it never occurred to them that the railroad tracks right next to this warehouse were active and that trains went by, like every 45 minutes, every hour, something like that, and were incredibly noisy and would wreck their takes. Make sure you're paying attention to what's around. Sometimes you have to get creative with problem solving. And if you know there's going to be a noise issue, figure it out ahead of time. One time I was shooting a short film. It was a spy film, and these two characters were hiding out in this basement. And we were filming in, like, kind of a suburban area. You know, we didn't show the outside because it's supposed to be this kind of secluded remote space, so we use a different exterior for it. And every now and then you would hear dogs barking down the street. And so I told the actors, If you hear that, just go with it. You're on the run, you're hiding out, you're spies. So if you hear dogs, just react to it, like, did they find us? And we just incorporated that noise into the film. And that doesn't always work. You can't always do that. Figure out what are the pros and cons of the locations, and then make sure that they actually work with your film. What you don't want is a scene where it's like, Oh, it's supposed to take place in some opulent ballroom, and you end up filming in, like, a school gym. And it just looks like a school gym. Get stuck with a location that doesn't really match what you need, you might want to go back to the script and see if there's a way you can make that location work as opposed to trying to force a location to pretend it's something it's not. Sometimes you can do that. Sometimes you can fake locations. But sometimes it just doesn't look right, and you're just not going to get away with it. How do we address this at a script level to make this make sense? That's to say locations are difficult. You are going to have to, you know, be assertive if you don't have the locations that you need, and you're gonna have to go talk to people and find the locations that you want. And then you're gonna have to make sure that they are the right locations for what you're doing, and that the logistics are going to be appropriate for a film shoot. Put in the planning, find backups. 9. Legal Stuff: When I was in film school, I took a course on producing, and one of the things that I wanted to learn from that course that I didn't get from it was the legal side of producing, the paperwork side of producing. All the logistical stuff that isn't necessarily part of the creative process. A lot of times young producers don't really know the things they need to do to protect themselves legally. I'm not a lawyer, just to keep that as a preface. Sometimes you want to just hire an entertainment lawyer because they're going to be able to help you, but that can be expensive. And on a short film, you might not have the budget to do that. So a couple of things that you're going to want to probably do just to protect yourself. One, have your actors sign release forms. The actor signs off on you using their likeness, their face, their voice, and so on, and reproducing that for the movie and then distributing the movie, and that they are waiving the right to that footage. That is really important because what you don't want to have happen is you shoot the film and then, you know, couple of years later, maybe the film has gone viral or got picked up by a distributor or whatever, and suddenly somebody comes back and says, Well, you didn't have my permission. You have to pay me all this money or I won't sign off on it. That doesn't happen often, but you just want to be protected, just to be safe. And it protects the actors, too, because then it means that they know what your expectations are up front, as well. If it's a deferred payment or volunteers, then you can put that right in the agreement. So that way, there's not any question when everybody signs off on it, that this is what's happening with the film and here's what permissions you have, here's the permissions they have and so on. And you can find templates for release forms online. You can do a search and find those and then tailor them to your own needs. For a short film, like a little no budget or low budget short, you know, a page is probably going to be fine. Similarly, you're going to want to have releases for your locations that the owners of the locations will sign off on. If you're in public, you may need to get an actual permit from the local government to be on that location. But if it's a privately owned place, you may just want to have them sign a release for that location so that you have permission to be there and to put it on camera and record it in case there's ever any legal if you're shooting with a crowd of extras, you also want to have releases from them. And that can be a pain in the neck. There's a few ways you can do it. You could do it the hard way and have every single extra sign a release form. You could also have one release form that just has a whole bunch of lines for signatures. And so just, you know, all of the extras sign the same release form. Or you could do a crowd release that you post. Posted notice we're filming in this area. By entering this area, you are giving permission to the producer or the production company or whatever to cord and reproduce your likeness on camera. They do this kind of thing at sporting events, that kind of stuff. They'll have it on your ticket. Or if you go into a big event, it might be right on the door when you walk in. That by entering, you are tacitly agreeing to be part of the video as long as it's in a position where people coming to set see it, and it's not like hidden somewhere. Other circumstances where legal things might come into play would be if you're licensing stuff. Like, let's say you want to include a piece of music that is copyrighted. You have to get permission to do that. You can't just use any music that you want in your film. You have to get permission from the rights holders, which could be the composer, could be the artist, if you're using an actual recording, could be the publisher, could be all three of those or some other combination of them. If you're going to use a piece of music and record your own version, you won't necessarily need the artist's permission, but you'll need the composer and possibly the publisher, for instance. Music is old enough to be in the public domain, let's say it's something written by Beethoven or Mozart or somebody like that, hundreds of years old, not protected by copyright. You can use that music as much as you want, as long as it's original recordings. If you're using someone else's recording of that music, that recording might be copyrighted. Their performance might be copyrighted. So you can't just use any recording that you want. There's lots of royalty free music online that either you pay, like an upfront fee and then you don't have to pay any residuals or royalties on it if your film makes money. Some of it you can get totally for free, as long as you put the on it. I like to just hire a composer whenever possible to create original music. That way, I know it's going to fit the film, and we're not going to run into big legal disputes over rights. The same thing goes for art and graphics. What you don't want are big logos on screen. You don't want to have a huge Coca Cola logo right in the middle of your shop. Couple reasons. One, because it's distracting and the audience will be staring at it, but also because you don't have permission, those logos are trademarked by those companies. When you finish your film, you're going to want to get it copyrighted. Copyright is a way to demonstrate ownership of intellectual Copyright only applies to intellectual property in fixed form, though. So if you have an idea in your head, you can't copyright that. You can only copyright it when it's in a fixed form. So if you write it down, if you write a short story, you can copyright that. If you paint a painting. If you record a piece of music or write a piece of music, write a screenplay, you can copyright that. If you actually film and edit and finish a movie, you can copyright that. And you can do it right through the copyright office website, copyright.gov. It's a little bit confusing. The website is not the most user friendly. You can hire a lawyer to do it if you want. But I usually just do my own copyrights. It does cost money to do that. If you're doing it as a collaborative process, if you're doing it for a company, then it costs a little bit more than just an individual. So like, if you're writing a short story or a novel or you've done a painting, and it's your personal copyright, it's a little bit cheaper than if you're producing a film that has a lot of people on it or that you're collaborating with a production company or something like that. But the reason you want to do that is just to establish dates of ownership. So technically, you own the copyright on your intellectual property the moment you got it in some fixed format. The trick is, how do you prove that in a court of law if there's a dispute and somebody wants to sue you over stealing their idea or something like that? If you have that certificate from the library of Congress that says, You have this copyright, and you can go back and say, Well, look, this is the date that I copyrighted it. When did you copyright yours? Part of those lawsuits also comes down to opportunity. I mean, if you never saw their script, can't be accused of copying it. These are all just things to keep in mind, keep yourself protected. Copyright law is complicated. And again, I'm not a lawyer. If you've got your releases, if you've got your film copyrighted, those are all just helpful things. And later on, if you make a film that actually gets picked up by a distributor, distributors often want to see that stuff. They want to know that they're not going to get sued for distributing something that you don't have permission on. So make sure that you keep all of your paperwork in order, make copies of it, scan it into digital formats, and save all of it because you may end up meaning it. It's there just as, you know, a safety net just in case. But if you fall and need a safety net, you want to make sure you 10. The Crew & Production: Once you have done all of your planning, you have a script that you're happy with, created your budget, your schedule, raised whatever money you need, cast your actors, look your locations. Hopefully, you have a decent crew at this point. Maybe you're doing a lot of the jobs yourself. Maybe you've got friends from film school or whatever. Once it comes time to actually get on set, if you have a full crew, the producer, honestly, doesn't usually do a ton on set because the director is busy directing actors and directing the department heads like the cinematographer and the production designer and art director. And then the set itself is being managed by the assistant. First AD is the one that's really maintaining the daily schedule, when you're on set going shot by shot. And then there are, of course, all the other people on the crew doing wardrobe and props and lighting and the script supervisor who watches continuity and stuff like that. When all that stuff is happening, the producer really doesn't do much other than planning ahead for the next day or next week or or, of course, if there's an emergency, the producer can step in and say, Alright, how are we going to fix this? What are we going to do? We need to take care of this problem. So a lot of what the producers really doing on set is just putting out fires, figuring out how to fix problems, and sort of generally overseeing things. Hopefully, if the production is running like a well oiled machine and everybody knows their job, it's going to go smoothly and you're going to get everything you need. Now, on a small Indie film, there's a good chance that the producer is also the director or that the producer is also the assistant director. That happens. I would very strongly recommend do not have the director also be the assistant director because now you've got somebody who's trying to maintain creative control and someone who's trying to maintain logistical control. And those are two very different brain processes. So don't have someone try to do all of that. If you're producing and directing, I would very much recommend have an additional producer on set, like a line producer or a production manager who can really help with the logistical stuff while you're directing. Cause when you're directing, you need to focus on the creative. If you are the director, it's really helpful to have someone else that you can trust helping on the logistic those people need to be on the same page as you from early in the process. But the onset part of making a film is honestly probably the shortest part. People tend to think of filmmaking is all about being onset and getting those shots. And it's not. That's like maybe 10% of the process. If you've done all of your planning, you should be able to walk on set and just go down the list of here's the shots we need to get. Here are the locations. Here's the actress, here's what we need to do, and we're just going to go get those things. And that doesn't mean you can't leave room for spontaneity or for improvisation or whatever else. But you also don't want to be on set, making it up as you go because that's wasting everybody's time. Try to treat everybody with respect, do the planning, make sure that you're holding your crew accountable, that they're planning whatever they need to plan, as well. Run you know, professionally. If you as a producer, are not the director, let the director direct. Don't spend a ton of time offering your creative input unless you really need to course correct. If the film is getting way off track and you need to step in, that's different. But just in general, people need to be able to do their specific jobs. You don't need everybody on crew shouting out their ideas at the same time. Because it's not their place. There's a hierarchy, and it's not because the director's better than everybody else. It's because that's the director's job is to direct the film. Everybody on the crew should focus on their specific job. Not on trying to direct the actors. The art director shouldn't be trying to set up lights. They should be focusing on the art direction, the sets, the set dressing, all that stuff. Everybody stays in their lane. The time for creative input is usually during prep unless the director is specifically asking someone, What do you think we should do right here? And that's usually going to be directed at the person that they want advice from, not the whole when you're finished shooting, when it comes time to wrap production, make sure that you clean everything up and that you leave the location looking fantastic because you don't want the owner of that location to say, Well, I'm never letting anybody film here again. Don't ruin it for the next people that want to shoot there. Don't ruin it for yourself if you want to shoot there again. Don't build a bad reputation for yourself, whether it's with location owners or your cast or your crew or whoever. If something goes wrong, take responsibility for that. So shoot your film and then clean up, return all the gear that you need to return if you've borrowed it. Make sure to thank everybody. 11. Post Production: Once you have your film shot, it's time to do post production. Cost production is all the stuff that happens after the movie is recorded, editing the picture, editing the sound, doing the sound design. So where you're mixing on the levels and putting in sound effects, the music, getting a score written or adding in royalty free tracks or whatever, visual effects. Credits. You want to make sure to put your title on screen and put credits at the end of the film and make sure everybody's name is spelled correctly. Please, please, please spell the names correctly. Much like with production and before that pre production, during post, the producer should really let the people do their jobs. Let the editor edit, let the sound designer design the sound, let the composer compose, and so on. If you're making a little small Indie film, you might end up also ending your own picture. You might end up doing your own sound design. You might end up doing your own visual effects. If you know how to compose music, maybe you end up doing that, too. Here's the thing I would caution you on. If you're doing all those things on your own film, and you're also the producer or director, make sure that you're getting feedback from somebody else. The problem with having the producer or director editing the picture is that they don't have as much objectivity as a separate editor would. You're more likely to see what you intended to film, and you understand it because you know what was shot as opposed to going, Here's what the audience is going to get from this. Doesn't necessarily mean you can't edit your own stuff. There are filmmakers that edit their own work. Cohen Brothers edit a lot of their own films. Robert Rodriguez edits a lot of his own films. Shaun Baker edits a lot of his own films. But if you're going to do that, make sure you're getting other eyes on it before you lock it and listen to the feedback. If someone says, I don't understand this, and then you explain it to them and they go, Oh, okay, I get it. Well, yeah, they get it because you explained it to them, not because it makes sense in the edit. You have to figure out how to make the film speak for itself. This is true on the script level, as well. If you have to explain something to make it make sense, then it doesn't make sense. Cause you're not going to go to every screening and say, Here's how this works. Here's why we did that. Here's what this means. During post production, work with an editor if you can. And if you are working with an editor, let the editor edit and then do feedback, much like we talked about with the screenwriters. When it comes to music, be careful. Especially with short films that are made by inexperienced filmmakers, there are a few pitfalls that I come across all the time. Sometimes there's not enough music. There are long stretches without music that really should have it for emotional heightening. There are other movies that are wall to wall music that don't need to be. You don't need music necessarily for every second of your film. The other thing that I often notice, and this is really true when you start getting into, like, royalty free stuff, which is another reason why I like to work with original composer. Even with composers, I see this a lot in indie films where you'll just have, like, a mood track. And it's just kind of background music, and it doesn't really do anything emotionally. Work with your composer to get the music to sound good, to make sure that it's actually serving a function emotionally because we want the audience to feel things when they watch our film. It's a difficult balance. We're talking about producing a film, and as a producer, you need to be aware of these things. But of course, the composer has to know how to compose a score, and that is in and of itself a challenging thing. Alright, so here's one last tip I'll give on post production when it comes to editing pacing. I see this a lot with beginner filmmakers where everything moves way too slow or way too fast. Slow is more often the case. Often, it starts with production. The actors are just delivering their lines too slowly. Or there's huge gaps between the lines the actors are trying to think of the next thing to say. So there's a lot of air in the conversation. A lot of that can be fixed in editing by simply tightening up those spaces and bringing the dialogue closer together. But sometimes, you know, in the action it drags, sometimes there are scenes that turns out you just don't need them. They slow the film down or there are shots you don't need. Don't be precious about any of it. The edit really is about crafting the film that the audience is ultimately going to see. If you shot it properly and wrote it properly, the editing should come together quickly. But oftentimes, I would say almost anytime you edit a film, you're going to find things that don't quite work how you thought they were going to work. And you either need to fix them, or if you can just cut them, you cut them. So don't be precious about stuff and be very aware of your pacing. 12. Marketing & Distribution: Okay, you finished your film. You developed the story. You did all the planning and pre production. You went on set, and you shot the film. You did all the post production, the editing, the visual effects, the sound, the music, all of that. Well, now what do you do? With beginner filmmakers, that's often the place where they stop. Well, we made the film. Alright, let's move on to the next one. But if you want to be a filmmaker, if you want to do it professionally or even if you just want to be part of the community of filmmakers, at some point, you need to start putting your work in front of people. And that brings us to the final phase of the process, which is marketing and distribution. Distribution is really about the exhibition of your film, putting it in front of an audience. A lot of times Indie filmmakers really put a lot of thought into the distribution of their films in the early phases. And I would actually say, you should be thinking about distribution all the way back when you're developing your story. Before you even start planning on pre production, you're thinking about, What are we going to do with this film? Am I going to try to do a local theatrical release? Are we going to put it in film festivals? Are we going to go straight to streaming? Are we going to actually get it in front of a distributor, a company that will distribute them? Festivals are a really cool route to go when you're starting out. You can go and meet other filmmakers. You can go see their films. They can see your films. It's very communal. It's also about seeing how an audience reacts to your film in real time, hearing if they're laughing at the right places or gasping in the right places or whatever that is. Getting that immediate feedback, a lot of times at regional film festivals, they have question and answer time where the audience can ask the filmmakers questions. I like to ask the audience questions of those things. That can be really helpful in Festivals are a great place for networking. They're a great place to get feedback. Sometimes film festivals are film markets, meaning that distribution companies might get to come and shop for films. There might be several distributors that see the films, and this is a lot of times the really high end festivals like South by Southwest or Sundance or those kind of places where major distributors are looking for, what are the hot new films going to be that I want to buy? But even at smaller regional film festivals, you can sometimes find smaller distributors that say, Oh, this film won first place. I want to offer them a distribution deal. Maybe it's for streaming distribution. They'll get your film on, you know, Amazon or TB and that can be a great way to get started. The reality is that doesn't happen a lot with short films. That tends to be more of a thing with feature films. Short films, there's not a huge market for that right now. People don't really make money on short films. So festivals are really more about showcasing your work and networking and trying to move to the next step of whatever's happening in your career if you're doing this if not, then it's just a cool environment to go and celebrate Indy's filmmaking, which nothing wrong with that. That's awesome, too. If you're going to go to the film festival route, I highly recommend a website called Film Freeway. It's a helpful website that you can use. Essentially aggregates a whole bunch of film festivals. I mean, almost every notable film festival was on this site. It used to be way back in the old days, we would have to actually get an application and fill it in by hand or eventually type it in or whatever. And then you have to mail it to each film festival with your film on film reels or on tape or on a disc or whatever, and a check for the end and you have to do that for every festival you want to enter. So then a website called Wout a Box comes along. Now FilmFreeway is the one that pretty much everyone uses. And these sites make it where you really only have to fill in all that information for the application once. Create a page for your film, and then you can submit to various specimals. You can look at what are the deadlines for entry, what are the prizes, what are the entry fees, 'cause they do cost money, and you should plan for that in your budget. I would also recommend finding local festivals that are close to where you live so that you can actually go and attend. Aside from film festivals, there's, of course, the streaming route. You can put your film on you know, YouTube or vmeo or whatever or go through a distribution aggregator like film hub that'll help you get your movies on various platforms and channels. Whatever it is that you're going to do, you want to think about where is your film going to end up? And then, of course, how are you going to market it? And again, on small films, you probably don't have much of a marketing budget, and that makes difficult. So you have to get creative with your a lot of people use social media. That's a good, cheap or even in a lot of cases, free way to market your films. But you're gonna want to make sure you have stuff to market, like key art, a movie poster. A lot of times people like to just photoshop a bunch of floating heads onto their posters that look really bad, like bad photoshop. Try to get creative with the image, make it something that's appealing that looks good. And if you yourself aren't proficient with Photoshop or Illustrator or any of those kind of things, try to find someone who can help you with that or even better, think about it when you're on set and try to take a cool picture of, like, your main actor or some cool prop or something like that. And then all you have to do is put, you know, your title and whatever else on your poster or some text, and then you're good to go. You're gonna want to have a trailer. For an Indie short film, you probably don't need more than like 45 seconds or a minute at the most. If you make a ten minute film and you've got, like a 2.5 minute trailer, that's a quarter of your film. We don't need that. Keep it short. If you're making a feature film when you want to do a two minute trailer, that's different. Although nowadays, for indie films and streaming, trailers have gotten a lot shorter. They're down to, like, a minute and a half in a lot of cases. But you want to have enough of an interesting trailer that hooks the audience and makes people go, Ah, I need to see that movie. And hopefully, your artwork does, too. Those are all things that you want to consider when it gets to the marketing and distribution phase. That's a really important phase that so many filmmakers just don't think about. If you're going to all the trouble of putting in all the work, get your movie in front of people, find ways to show it, get your film in front of an audience. 13. Conclusion: Okay, that's the process. That is producing a short film. You develop your story, you go through the pre production and planning process. You actually get on set and produce the film and make it and shoot the shots you need. You do all the post production, editing and sound and music and color correction and visual effects. You do your marketing and distribution, whatever that's gonna look like for your particular film. And now it's time to start working on the next. Alright, I hope you have found this course informative and enjoyable. Obviously, this is just some real foundational stuff. So once you do this a few times, there's a lot more advanced stuff that we can get into. But that should be enough to at least get you started. Alright, don't make excuses. Go make your films. I'm Joshua Corte. Thanks for joining me for this course. I'm really excited to see what wild creative films you come up with.