Hi everyone.

I'm starting my own service as a business in January and I'm doing a lot of research.

Would anyone be kind enough to either give me an overview of this whole current market, or at least point me toward sources/reading material where I could better understand?

I'd like to know how all levels work, who the clients are, what they're paying for, what the competition is about (eg price on some levels, your personality/connections on different levels, solely quality of work on some levels?), what's the best level to get started, etc etc.

Everything... from doing $50/IG reel videos for influencers/musicians, to doing $200/music videos, to doing $1,000 corporate shoots, to doing $5,000 weddings/brand shoots, to doing $20,000 deals (for what, to whom, who are the clients here and what are they paying for?), to probably all the way at the top cinematographers/directors getting work through big agencies to do national/international commercials and getting paid like $5k per day for it. (obviously James Cameron is actually at the top, but let's leave him out of this as a whole bunch of luck and timing comes into play). Anyways, how does this all work?

Thank you in advance for any help.

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I recently directed my first music video with a small crew, and it was a massive learning experience. Thought I’d share a few things I picked up along the way, especially for anyone else tackling their first shoot with a team. Would love to hear what you learned from your first time working with a crew too!

1. Don’t overstuff the schedule.
I planned too many shots for a single 12-hour day. In hindsight, this really should have been a two-day shoot to get everything done right. Lesson learned!

2. Always budget for proper crafty.
We made sure everyone was fed through Uber Eats, but since the day ran 14 hours, a few people were understandably frustrated that we didn’t feed them twice. In my defense, I wasn’t just directing—I was also producing, with zero producing experience! I’ll definitely budget for an extra meal next time.

3. Sharpen your vision and communicate details clearly.
As the director, I learned the importance of clarifying even the “minor” details. For example, I wanted blood squirting from a TV, but how high? How thick a stream? Fortunately, our special effects coordinator 3D-printed nozzles to test spray patterns, which was amazing. Filmmaking is all in those details!

4. Always review your shots on set.
It’s torture realizing in the edit that I missed something. I’ll be much more diligent about this next time.

5. Don’t let stress make you cut corners.
When stress hit, I sped things up and let some things slide that I knew, deep down, weren’t quite right. I paid for it in the edit. It’s important to stay nice but assertive about what needs to be done, and not settle for “good enough.”

6. For music videos—get a full performance take!
Even if your vision only needs certain sections performed, capturing the entire song is worth it. Having extra footage to work with in the edit can save you.

7. Embrace flexibility and mindfulness on set.
No matter how prepared you are, things will go wrong. Keeping a calm, positive attitude really helped the crew stay focused. It was an awesome experience, and I’m excited for what future projects will teach me.

What were some of the key things you learned the first time working with a small crew? Would love to hear your insights!

Is anyone doing directing actors workshops here in the UK? I had one taster as part of my film course but thanks to my group, they ruined it for me and I learnt nothing as a result. We were directing actors and Gov, my lecturer, brought along two actors (whom we’d seen on some short films) though the group I was in (we were seperated into different groups) was full of too many cooks in the kitchen, including a student named AJ, that meaning that there were too many people taking charge of what they wanted. I couldn’t get a single word in and when I presented my ideas, I was dismissed by AJ and the rest of the group. I was seriously looking forward to this part of the module and thanks to my group, it was frustrating. When the group went on to present their ideas to the actors, the group didn’t even notice me sitting down and didn’t even invite me to join them. They just continued like I didn’t exist. Also in my attempt to get my ideas across to the actors, they found me uncomfortable to be around, making me look like the bad guy. I felt like I had to be as controlling and OCD as Stanley Kubrick to get a single word in, which ironically they told us not to do.

I just feel like I’ve not learned this part properly and am utterly desperate to get a proper chance in order to be a good director. Does anyone know any directing actor workshops I could be a part of?

Hi everyone — I’m a writer working with a director who is working to try and get support for my YouTube series. They have connections to funds to get it made and are a very talented director, but have been very condescending through the process in how they talk to me. We haven’t even made the pilot episode and knowing how difficult shooting anything is/stressors — I don’t feel comfortable losing them in the process, especially after they’ve already spent so much time to try and develop it for me. But I also don’t care/life is too short to be stressed and talked down to.

Do I just bite the bullet and deal with it, or risk losing a relationship because I don’t like handling tension and negativity. Again, this director has access to funding and can probably get the money I’m struggling to find.

Hey everyone, I just had a question of if any of you had this issue with Filmhub and how you got through it?

Basically, they say our captions are out of sync, but I'm not sure how this would have happened. I was the one that did the captions and followed their millisecond requirements for captions very closely.

We even watched the film a couple of times on different devices, to make sure they were fine. We would buy their captions, but we have no confidence or understanding if we could verify that they spelled certain things right. Some of the things said in our film is said in a weird way/mispronounced, and I am unsure if they would transcribe those parts correctly.

We are waiting to hear back from them if they have timestamps or something, but wanted to ask you guys if you've dealt with this, and how you solved it?

Hello all,

I'm reaching out for help with an issue regarding my StudioBinder subscription. I recently subscribed to a paid plan for a single project, and now that I no longer need it, I’m trying to downgrade to their free option. Unfortunately, the Downgrade button doesn’t seem to work, and the links to their support pages are also broken:

• https://www.studiobinder.com/contact/
• https://support.studiobinder.com/en/collections/67665-contacts
• https://support.studiobinder.com/en/articles/387210-how-do-i-contact-customer-care

I've tested this across different devices (both my phone and another computer) with no success. I’m concerned that there might be a bug on the site, or worse, that they’re restricting cancellation options. Has anyone else faced this issue, and if so, how did you resolve it? I’d really prefer not to resort to canceling my credit card.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and I’m sure it would help others in a similar situation. Thank you in advance!

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I've been wanting to get into film making for a long time but become overwhelmed with thinking way too much. I have experience with filming events, weddings, and random montage for instagram, but never really tried to create a 'story'.

A friend and I have been planning, discussing, talking ideas since April of this year to start working on some ideas. But it never seemed to get past that stage. Then one day, I sketched three scenes onto a piece of paper and sent it to my friend. I knew I wanted someone walking in a deserted area, towards the camera, and something futuristic would appear. We discussed what could be the motive and decided not to overthink it and this is what we came up with.

It is really short, I am sure full of flaws (I am open to any constructive criticism), but it has def sparked something in us to get going and create!

If you are guilty of doing the same, it really is what they say - "Just need to start."

The Journey Begins

I'm in the process of submitting my film to a bunch of different festivals. I'm using FilmFreeway, but I find it very difficult to figure out which festivals are legit and actually good.

So the reason I'm writing this is to get some recommendations. If you have experience from a film festival you thought was good, I'd love to hear it.

My film is a feature documentary, and it's available online, so the festival in question would need to accept films that have already premieres.

Hello everyone. I’m planning on showing the movie “Sleepaway Camp” this week but I was told by an advisor that I’ll need to purchase the film license. He sent me Swank, and they didn’t have the film license to be purchased. I then started looking for the distribution company for the film and their number still hasn’t come up. Please, if there’s a website that has film rights that are purchasable, please let me know. I had a whole presentation ready for this movie as well, so to have to switch would be a nuisance.

Where is the line drawn between filmmaking and being an animator/making animated films?

Like clearly there's a script and actors involved in both, a story is told, there are roles and themes. Is it really just the medium that largely separates the two? Could a long-time live action film maker switch to making an animated film and vis versa? Are there benefits to having experience in one to work on the other?

My camera shots 120fps at 2K (shutter speed 1/250). I'm wondering, if I shot at 1/400 or higher, and slowed more the shot with tools like Topaz Video enhance, or the built-in frame blending in AE, will this make a more realistic slow-motion? has anyone tried this before? What I intend to slow down would be a shot of falling leaves

Hi there! One of my dreams one day is to make a feature length animation movie. The film industy in my country is very underdeveloped, and even more so the animation film.

I don't know much about making movies. And I'm going to college to learn something else. But in the mean time, I want to develop my skills and my imagination. What books or courses or exercises do you all recommend?

Yes I know the title sounds weird, but basically my medical school offers us medical students a year for us to do whatever we want. Since my passion is film, I figured I should take this opportunity to do a year of film. I would preferably go to the UK, but I am also open to schools in the US. The only requirement for the course I choose is that it needs to give 48 ECTS credits.

So far I've looked into the University of Arts of London (UAL), which seems to offer a one-year exchange program with little prerequisites (I don't have a profile to show). I was wondering what other film schools may also fit this criteria that I can look into. Thanks in advance!

Hey filmmakers

I've been brainstorming on how to best get my short seen by as many pairs of eyes as possible after its film festival run.

I poured a lot into it and it will most likely be my calling card for the foreseeable future, so giving it some sort of life online on the off chance it catches the eyes of collaborators/producers would be awesome.

I dont have a notable online presence so the best avenues I've gathered so far are:

• Omeleto
• Short of the week
• Video staff picks

Yes I'll be reaching out and sending emails to potential future collaborators but if you have any experience on getting the most out of your internet releases I'd love to hear about it.

A small group of us work in a studio, equipped with lights, URSA BlackMagic cameras, a large green-screen studio, along with other essentials. We want to improve our skills without the limitations we usually have for the projects we’re required to make.

We decided we want to try some simple filming exercises that wouldn’t take more than an afternoon up to a weekend to complete. Any suggestions?

Welp the story goes like this. I need to improve my portfolio and I tried by collaborating with other people´s stories but that didn´t work out because they never sent me any of the material or the finished shorts (This happened like 6 times when I helped students as a Gaffer or DoP). So I want to start making things that I can control myself but I really suck at writing like I´ve tried but never came up with something that´s good enough.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you guys if there is any web or repository where I can find free to use short screenplays. I don´t want to make the new citizen kane or anything, just improve my portfolio as I practice my skills to try and get a scholarship.

So… that was it for Vimeo in the EU. Anyone has any alternatives for watching high quality videos? Vimeo was my main source for inspiration by finding commercials, branded content, shorts, following DOP’s and directors, etc.

As a Cinema student, i have to make a short film to graduate... i have a concept that i want to discuss in my film, which is Dystopian reality theme.

But i'm so afraid that it will come out as something cheesy and cringe (due to the low budget) What things should i focus on (visually) ? -Beyond idea and script of course-