A budget contributes to many factors when making a movie. You can spend money on lighting, sound, equipment, locations, wardrobe, actors, promotions, and more. Even micro-budget films can be pretty expensive if you’re using professional equipment and a crew. Micro-budget films can reach a cost of nearly $400,000. However, you can still make your own movie for a lot less. [1] X Research source Decide on a set amount you can spend. Then create a list on what’s most important to your movie. Maybe you have a camera and don’t need to purchase or rent one. You and your friends might decide that you will star in your movie, and don’t need to pay actors. You or your friends might know how to light a shot, and have some equipment already. This eliminates the need to purchase or rent more. It’s not hard to make a movie with little to no budget. However, investing some money in the right areas can greatly increase the quality of your movie. [2] X Research source Sound and lighting are two aspects to making a movie that can really affect the quality. Proper lighting can counteract a cheaper camera. Sound is one of the most important qualities in a film. If your actors can’t be heard, or there’s too much background noise, the entire movie suffers. Consider investing in lav mics and sound equipment. Lavalier mics are wireless microphones that you clip to your actors to catch a crisper sound. If you decide that you need to earn some money to make a movie, consider launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds.
Create a summary of your plot in two sentences. In your first sentence address the protagonist and the conflict. Your second sentence should cover what happens. For example, your first sentence could be something like: “Danny has been in love with Lisa since freshman year, with senior prom fast approaching, he has one last chance to show Lisa how he feels. ” This sentence explains who the main character is, what that character wants, and why it’s important. Your second sentence could be: “When he learns that almost every other guy in class plans on asking Lisa to prom, Danny enters a race of epic proportions to be the guy Lisa says yes to. ” This sentence is like a logline and explains in more depth what will happen during the film. Next, flesh out the rest of the details. Fill in who the secondary characters are. Where the film is set, and other details. Divide your plot into three parts or acts. You should have a beginning, middle, and end. With our example film, the beginning could be the spring of senior year. Our character Danny decides he must finally muster the courage to ask Lisa to prom. The middle covers Danny enacting the plan and trying to beat out Lisa’s other suitors. The end is when Danny finally wins and takes Lisa to prom.
Start with the setup. The first ten percent of your script deals with drawing the viewer into the world of your movie. Establish the characters, the main location, and everyday life. In our example film, this could show our character Danny at school in the hallway or in class. Maybe Danny walks down the hallway talking to Lisa before Lisa gets swept away by some friends. Then Danny’s best friend comes up and the two talk about Danny’s love for Lisa. Moments later in class, the school announcements tell everyone about the upcoming prom. Then we see something that shows the audience how everyone plans to ask Lisa to Prom. Transition to the new situation. The next fifteen percent of your script deals with how your character reacts to this change in the world. In our example film, Danny decides to get a group of friends together to come up with a plan to ask Lisa to prom. The change of plans comes next, about twenty-five percent in. Something must happen that causes your character to adapt and change, adopting a new course of action. Since this is a movie, and should be fun, feel free to play with a bit of fantasy here. In our example film, Lisa could decide that whomever comes up with the most creative prom proposal will become the winning date. This causes Danny to have to come up with a new, grander proposal than before. Progress your script along with events going seemingly well until you reach the halfway point. Then you’ve reached the point of no return. Your character will have to make a choice that resembles a transformation. For example, Danny might confront another boy who is more popular that plans to ask Lisa to prom. Perhaps the other boy humiliates Danny, warning Danny to back off, or steals Danny’s plan. Now Danny must decide if he will retaliate against this new enemy, or focus more on Lisa. Either way, Danny now faces being the laughing stock of the school, and potentially getting beat up by the other boy and his friends. The next 25 percent of your movie should involve this new goal getting harder and harder to achieve. Perhaps Danny starts doing poorly in school. Coming up with this grand gesture of love has made Danny’s grades suffer. If Danny can’t do better in school, he won’t even be allowed to go to prom. Continue to escalate the struggles your character faces until the last ten percent of your script. In our example film, Danny could flunk another test that not only means he may not be able to go to prom, but Danny might not even be able to graduate. Perhaps Danny’s friends drop out and stop helping. This could lead to Danny questioning whether all the efforts were even worth it. When all hope seems lost, you reach the climax. This is the biggest part of your movie where everything comes together. Danny has focused on getting better grades and in doing so has learned something from a class that inspires Danny to come up with the ultimate proposal. Not only does Danny convince his friends to help him again, but he makes a grand gesture that simultaneously exposes the other boy as a bully, and gets Lisa to go to prom with him. Finally, you come to the aftermath. This is where you explain what happens after the big event. Danny takes Lisa to prom. The two graduate and spend a wonderful summer together. Depending on the length of your movie. Each section may be several minutes, or one quick scene. If you are making a short film, it’s ok to cut some of the middle parts out.
Do you need someone to operate the camera, or will you do it yourself? If you’ve invested in sound equipment, it’s best to have a person whose sole job is to operate the audio equipment. If you are just making a movie with your friends, then you can easily divide up the different roles amongst yourselves. It’s important to make sure that you have everyone on board before you actually shoot your movie, so it can go as smoothly as possible.
For smaller budget films, or ones you’re just making with your friends, look for locations you know you can use for free first. This could be your friend’s house or yours, your school, or even a park. If you need to shoot somewhere like at a restaurant or store, this could be trickier to accomplish. You’ll have to get permission from the owner. Additionally, places like this will want you to pay them to film.
Even if you’re making a film for a school project, consider holding auditions at school. Ask your teacher or the head of the theatre department to let you hold auditions. When having actors audition, record the auditions so you can view the tapes letter to make a decision. This will also help you see how well the actor plays on camera. Provide sides for the actors ahead of time. Sides are a few pages of your script that you give your actors to read for the audition. Look for parts of your script that don’t give a lot about the movie away. You want to see the choices the actors make when the subject is vague. The best sides are ones that depict a relationship between two people.
Even if you’re making a fun movie and are not on a timeline, a schedule is imperative to keep everything on track. If you are working with a deadline, it’s even more important, as everything from the mood of your cast and crew to your potential budget will be affected. A big budget film that is working properly can shoot at most six pages of a script per 12-hour day. Chances are you don’t have that luxury, so you have to scale down. Try to shoot two or three pages a day. If your film is shorter and uses only one or two locations, you can do more. Plan to shoot all of the locations together. In our example film, your locations may include Danny’s house, and the school. Shoot all of the stuff at school at one time, then the house. Even with a short film, plan to spend a couple of hours shooting each day. You want to have ample time to set up, rehearse, and get a few takes in for each shot.
Having a proper camera is great, and if you have the budget for one, consider renting before buying. Ask people you know if anyone has a camera you can use. If you’re shooting for a school project, see if the school has any equipment. If all else fails and you have newer phone, your phone’s camera may be enough. Get a tripod for your camera. You need something to stabilize your camera so that your shots don’t look shaky and blurry. There are even extensions for phones to make the lenses better and tripods to hook your phone into. Try to get some kind of audio equipment. A low budget film will be better if the sound is crisp and clear. Consider getting lav mics for your actors, or at least a boom mic to record sound. Use lighting equipment. Like sound, lighting plays an important role. No matter how nice your camera is, if the lighting looks bad, so will your movie. If you don’t have the budget for lamps and other lighting equipment, get a white umbrella that you can use to reflect light and soften hard fluorescent lights. Camera’s don’t view light like our eyes do. Cameras see more contrast, lighting a scene properly can make a shot look more natural to the eye.
Your schedule will help you to focus on getting the right shots and filming the right scenes when you’re supposed to. A schedule will also help you make sure that you film all of your scenes. You don’t want to start editing your movie and realize you don’t have a scene.
Dry erase boards work better than paper because you want to be able to mark which take you are doing. For each shot, write down at least the scene number, what take your on, and if even what page you’re shooting. This information allows you to easily know what the content is when editing. You also want to clap so you can sync your video and sound up. By clapping you know where to begin cutting your footage when you’re editing. You’ll be able to hear the clap on both your video file, and your separate audio file.
You might find that when you changed the lighting in one shot, or told the actors to do something different, you got a really good result. Some directors only do one take, though it’s rare, and you don’t have to get three or four takes for every shot. But be prepared to so you have options.
Being able to improvise will also make the experience for everyone much more enjoyable. No one wants a director or someone who can’t listen to people and make changes.
It’s easiest to create a folder that you can title whatever your movie is titled on your desktop. Then, create a folder for video, and one for audio. If you used your phone to shoot your movie, you can plug your phone into your computer and transfer the files directly. Or if you have a phone with an SD card, remove it from your phone and place it in your computer to transfer the files.
If you are on a Mac, you can use iMovie to edit your movie. If you are on a Windows, you can use Windows Movie Maker. If you have audio files, you have to line those files up with the corresponding shots. This could take some time to get used to doing. It’s best to have all of your video files in place and set before adding sound. Once you have each one paired with the shot, make sure to clip the files together so that if you move one, the other goes with it.
Insert your scenes in chronological order of the events in the movie first. Once you have each scene in place, watch your movie. You may find that one scene you thought worked better later in the film now makes more sense towards the beginning. Cut out empty space in your scenes. As you progress along, you may find that certain shots or lines of dialogue don’t provide much value. Cut those extra, unneeded parts out to keep the flow your movie engaging.
You don’t have to let everyone watch your movie before it’s completely finished, but a trusted second pair eyes can be a big help. You can also hire an editor, or hand the footage off to one of your friends who is skilled in editing. Another person may be able to work more with color correction and sound mixing to refine your movie more.
There are a lot of exporting options and file types. Some codecs are of a higher quality than other, and they may also differ from application to application. Think about what device your video will play on, and where. If you want to put your movie online to Vimeo or YouTube, a good codec (the format your video is encoded in) is H. 264. This is a high definition file format that will look great online, and come out as an mp4. [4] X Research source If you are exporting your film to burn to DVD, you want to export as H. 264 Blu-ray. This will allow you to easily burn your movie to a DVD. If you plan to submit your movie to festivals you may need to export your movie as a DCP file. However, you typically need another program such as OpenDCP to export your film. This file is really only for professional movie projectors found in theaters. If you plan to watch your movie on your computer or with an HDMI cable, you can choose QuickTime, or AVI outputs. Export a small sample of your movie before exporting the whole thing to see how it looks and sounds. This will allow you to make any changes on a smaller file before spending hours exporting your whole movie before realizing you have to do it over again.
Go to Twitter and create a profile or hashtag that you can tweet out with updates. Create a trailer so people have something to see before you release the whole movie. If you’re not just making a fun film for you and your friends to enjoy, treat your movie like it’s a Hollywood movie. Hype it up and raise awareness.
Look at the posters from some of your favorite movies for comparison. These posters can inspire you and give you a template to go off of. Avoid making your poster too many colors. A few colors like in the title and on the image can draw the eye to the right place. Too many colors can distract. Consider using artwork instead of a photo. Sometimes an illustration can be more intriguing than a photo. Get an expert to help you. If you need a poster for something like a festival, then consider hiring someone like a graphic artist to design your poster.
If you’re at home, get out some snacks and pretend you’re in a large movie theatre by turning down the lights. Try and experience your movie the way you would if it were a Hollywood blockbuster. After your screening you can ask the people that watched it for thoughts and opinions on the film. Then, if you want to, you can make edits before the final version.
Uploading your movie and promoting it is a great way to build your portfolio and resume if you are trying to get in the business of filmmaking. If you make a movie you are really proud of and to share or submit to festivals, having it online is an extremely easy way to do so. If you don’t want to share your video with everyone, keep it private and only hand out the link to people you’re ok with watching it. It may be fun to look back on and watch years later.
