Sometimes filmmaking tips are a little too ambiguous and big-picture to easily apply to your work. So this week, here’s 5 straight-forward tactics from my bag of tricks that you can add to your toolkit today. This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio Finding the right music for your edit used to take hours… Now it takes seconds. I’ve been loving Audiio’s extensive library of high-quality music & SFX, and with their LinkMatch & Hans AI tools, it’s never…
My feature film, Bad is Bad, made for just $6,000, is still the most successful thing I’ve ever made in terms of profitability and reach. It made back 10x its budget and has been viewed at least 10 million times across different platforms. To this day, I’m convinced the main reason for its success is simple: we reverse-engineered the whole thing. This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: FilmConvert Nitrate Crave that dreamy celluloid look? FilmConvert Nitrate…
If you haven’t heard – I opened the doors to Wrapped in 30 Days again, and have marked it down to 50% off for a couple of weeks. This is the lowest price I’ve ever offered it publicly, and I hope this makes it more accessible to more aspiring filmmakers, and helps them avoid the many painful learning experiences I’ve had in my filmmaking life. But if you still can’t join, I figured I’d use this week’s newsletter to share some of the most difficult lessons I learned,…
So often it feels like films either have a big budget… or they suck. But that’s just not true. You can make great films with no money and still find an audience. I’ve done it myself multiple times. Let me give you two quick examples. $200 Film > $2,000 Film? Back in 2015, when I was making monthly short films for my YouTube channel, the one that found the biggest audience cost me the least. It was called The Neighbor. We shot it in my apartment, in one day, with just a…
In the long process of producing my recent short film, I learned a LOT I want to share with you all. So, this month’s issues of Friday Film Notes will be covering the different challenges of producing films today. Let’s start with the obvious elephant in the room – financing – because if we had infinite money, none of the other producing issues would even matter! This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio Finding the right music for your edit used to take…
First off, apologies for the radio silence last week – you’ll see why later in this issue. Last Tuesday night, over a year after my writing partner and I first had a meeting about turning Oliver Brody into a short (and 11 years after the character first was put on paper)… …we successfully wrapped The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody 🥲 Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on the 2nd phase of shooting to share what went right, what went wrong, and some of the things people never…
Last week was one of the most unforgettable times of my life – we flew (& drove) our tiny but mighty team out to rural Washington and shot for 4 days, capturing some amazing moments. Incredibly, nothing went tits-up out there. The movie gods seemed to be smiling down on the project – we didn’t even get a drop of Seattle rain the whole time. But that doesn’t mean it was easy… Here’s a quick break down of the shoot day-by-day – full BTS videos will come soon(ish!). This…
I’m in the final stages of prepping my big short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. We start shooting Monday up in Washington state. So in lieu of a typed-out newsletter, I shot this video update that gives you a glimpse into what the week before a big out-of-state shoot feels like for a director/producer. Much more to come. Can’t wait to get out there. If you want to support me and this film, check out the Instant Short Film Blueprint, which is my 2 hour long…
Two weeks out. That’s when we start rolling on The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. It’s hard to believe, especially with how many things are still left to do. But even with the usual pre-production chaos, I’m feeling confident. ✅ The script works. ✅ My lead actor is dialed in. ✅ My DP and the rest of the crew are rock solid. I know this is going to be a good film. But here’s what’s been keeping me up at night: I don’t want “good.” The gap nobody talks about I think…
It’s been a busy week prepping my new film so far, but I’ve made a lot of progress. So for this issue, I’m going to give you a little pre-production slice-of-life. Think of it like a ride-along for a typical few days of prepping a film. Strap in. This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Milanote Milanote has totally transformed how I prep my film projects. Its intuitive, visual interface makes it easy to brainstorm scenes, track timelines, and collaborate with…