Film Production is Directing The Money

Whether you are, or want to become, a film director, or already work in some capacity in film production of any kind, this article will help you make it!

Why aren't there more AD’s becoming Film Directors, graduating Film Students becoming filmmakers, Film Crew becoming Line Producers? Why aren't more crew reaching the level of Department Head? Why aren't more film school students finding work? I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but take a quiet moment to really look. Let's see.... It's not competence - most crew disappear pretty quickly if they're slow witted and incompetent. Film students who graduate have shown they're pretty smart. It's not a lack of drive - again, for the same reasons. Wouldn't you agree that the biggest hurdle is getting the opportunity? Well, that's true and not true. The biggest hurdle is MAKING the opportunity.

How do you increase the odds of landing a contract as a Film Director, a Line Producer, a Department Head (if you're not one already), or even a UPM on a small independent production? Lots of film school graduates are ready to burst with ideas to get their scripts into production; how do they get to produce their scripts?

First you need to get the confidence of the person in front of you. That single person in front of you needs to believe that you can control your sphere of work so effectively that you can get on with creating a film from words on a page.
you need to be able to convince others that you understand the underlying, common denominator of all filmmaking. Some people feel that a creative mind is all that's needed. Nobody denies that you need to have a creative bent in film productions. But let's lay it on the table -

The driving force behind film production is MONEY.

By the time we, as working filmmakers, start working on a film production, our creative bent is totally bent by the amount of MONEY available to us. We want to get the best product we can out of every buck. Like it or not, your performance in film production is measured, to some degree, by how well you control the money. It's like 'Directing', only you're 'Directing the Money'.

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