Film Directing and Film Making Tips for the Independent Filmmaker

This article was written by Eric Stanze.
“It’s an old rule of thumb for indie film screenplay writing:  Include in your screenplay what you already have access to.  This saves you money and streamlines your shoot.  Robert Rodriguez cites this decree as a major contributing factor in his pulling off the micro-budget El Mariachi.
I think S.F. [...]

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This article was written by Jennifer M. Wood.
“After introducing now-iconic indies like Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket) and Kevin Smith (Clerks) to mainstream success in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Sundance Film Festival became the world’s greatest showcase of low-budget moviemaking. In more recent [...]

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This article was written by Manohla Dargis.
“Last November inside a conference room at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, a film consultant named Peter Broderick was doing his best to foment a revolution. Mr. Broderick, who helps filmmakers find their way into the marketplace, was spreading the word on an Internet-era approach to [...]

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This article was written for Cause CT.
“Charities have resources and constituencies. But they are typically terrible at storytelling, the very element they need to grow their constituencies and resources. All around are “starving artists” with the inexpensive digital tools and talent to tell their stories. Film schools, let alone professionals, are producing film projects that could [...]

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This article was written by Ted Hope.
“Earlier this year, while looking at Atlantic Magazine’s list of Brave Thinkers across various industries, I started to wonder who are of this ilk in our sector of so-called Independent Film.
What is it to be “brave”? To me, bravery requires risk, going against the status quo, being willing to [...]

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This article was written by Ben Hicks.
Filmmakers can no longer JUST think about the film. We have to think about our fans more than ever before and we really have take this seriously because…OUR FANS ARE THE NEW STUDIOS!
“I want to assure everyone that this is not a joke. I understand ‘revolutionize’ is an enormous [...]

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This article was written by Marc Halperin.
The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, some  films are being bought and others are not. Understanding the reasons for these decisions is critical for independent filmmakers.  Film Independent recently produced a round table that focused on indie distribution. It’s an offshoot from their Filmmaker Forum, which was [...]

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This article was written by Luci Temple.
“Crowd sourcing is an innovative business model being applied to several indie filmmaker projects.

Perhaps the most publicised and obviously successful case is that of The Age of Stupid. This documentary project on global warming has raised over $1.2 million via crowd funding, and also used crowd sourcing to distribute [...]

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This article was written by Monisha Rajesh.
“When Finnish filmmaker Timo Vuorensola came up with the idea for his movie Star Wreck, a parody of Star Trek, he knew that looking for conventional distribution would be futile. An amateur, science-fiction comedy with a miniscule budget — and in Finnish, to boot — would hardly be attractive [...]

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This email came from a subscriber to my monthly filmmaking ezine, “The Director’s Chair“.
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Hi Everyone!
This is just a quick update on my latest project.
(I apologize if you get more than one of these!  Also, if you do not want me to email you, in general, kindly let me know.  It is not my intention to [...]

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