Site Owners Forums - Webmaster Forums - How Do You Learn How To Make a Movie?

Just make one. It�s as simple as that. Making them well is a different story. Robert Rodriguez once said, "You need to make twenty bad movies before you actually make your first good one." I disagree on that one. He still makes some bad ones! But, he also has paved the way for making some great ones. He is and will always be one of my favorites.

I�ll tell you how I learned to make a movie, a pretty decent one. About five years ago I had a well-known director come into one of my acting classes. He gave a really inspiring speech about paving our own way as actors. �Write your own stuff and make your own movie,� he said. �Don�t wait around for someone to tell you �Yes.� Do it yourself. Technology is behind you. It is so much more inexpensive these days to do it that anyone can.� It was much more detailed and inspiring than I make it sound but that was all I needed to hear.

I got a group of friends together and my father (writer) on board to write the script and magic happened. In time I had a movie that was ready to shoot, so I thought. Except I never made a movie before. So, I found myself a director and we interviewed all the pieces I thought we needed like a director of photography, a sound person, an editor, etc. I did my research and I studied what I wanted to do. Mostly by watching what others had done and reading about how they did it.

I decided to only shoot the first thirteen pages of my script. A teaser is what we called it. We did it to use it to raise money for the whole movie hoping to use what we shot already. This movie has yet to be made it full but I have plans to finish it.

It was a heck of an experience. It came together and we conquered it. Through a bit of a grueling process we had a little twenty-minute film that wasn�t half bad. We screened that bad boy in front of a huge group if guests and everyone enjoyed, or at least they faked it.

I did a lot of stuff wrong on that one. I made a lot of mistakes. I learned a ton though and I will tell you the truth, the next film I made was a feature-length titled, �Alphonso Bow�. It has gone on to do some wonderful things and doesn�t have any of the mistakes I made on the first one. Take that Mr. Rodriguez! I have done a few more since then and they keep getting better.

The great thing about today�s game is anyone can make a movie and do it inexpensively. That�s not the hard part. The hard part is having an eye for talent, a knack for filmmaking, and the creative juices to keep an audience on board. To that, I wish you luck. Keep making movies�or start.

Nut Bucket Films