Telling a story, developing a story, organising production, selling the finished product, finding the audience; all those elements are part of every filmmaking process. Unfortunately, nowadays it seems that quite many filmmakers have forgotten that having the newest or most expensive equipment is not the beginning, the middle, or the end of the filmmaking process. Every production stage needs focus, understanding, knowledge and time to be developed, brainstormed and re-worked if necessary.
A lot of people think that the fancier the equipment one has, the better the product will be. Maybe visually the project you work on can be on the higher end, but there are lots of questions you, a filmmaker, need to answer before you start setting up your shots:
- – What is your story about?
- – How are the characters developed in your story?
- – Is the story coherent?
- – What is your budget?
- – How are you going to market your film to your audience?
- – Who is your target audience?
If the story is not strong and developed enough, no amount of fancy equipment and out of this world cinematography is going to save it.
Developing the story and investing enough time in development and pre-production cannot be underestimated. All this time spent before going into production will pay off during the production as well as marketing and promotion of your film.
Filmmaking comprises of different skills, requires a variety of arts, time, money, and willingness to compromise if that may take you where you want to be. Don’t be fooled thinking that owning the newest camera will allow you to skip the hard part of investing time in development or coming up with a marketing and promotional campaign.
There are lots of “How To…” videos on YouTube teaching how to use cameras, how to set the lights, how to edit, etc. But as a filmmaker, you cannot forget that this knowledge doesn’t stand alone; it needs to be incorporated into the development, pre-production, post-production, and release of the finished project. So don’t be afraid to invest time in learning how to develop projects, how to produce films on budget and on time, or how to market and promote your projects.