Just got back from NAB with Toni last night, and we had a blast.
It’s probably the biggest trade show in the world for companies in the film/video/audio space, but that’s not what makes me excited to attend.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s fun walking the floor, picking things up, talking to the companies etc.
I was particularly interested in some upgraded Hollyland Pyro monitors, a compact cinema camera body from a smaller brand called Kinefinity, a camera slider from iFootage that integrates with DJI gimbals, and a bunch of little Smallrig & Ulanzi accessories I’ll probably impulse buy some day soon…
But the real draw is the creators, pros, hobbyists, and innovators from around the world in attendance.
This year, a bunch of creators I’d met at the conference last year packed into an AirBnB house, and Toni and I were the only Americans. As such, we took it upon ourselves to introduce them to the finer points of American culture:
I also spent some time trying to line up sponsors for the channel, because it’s tough to find that rare win-win-win collaboration where it’s something genuinely useful for you, interesting or exciting to me, and actually helps keep the lights on over here. But I’m excited about some of the collaborations that might be coming later this year.
I also loved the random conversations and interactions from viewers like you who let me know the videos helped them make a film, or that they bonded with their kids over them.
I even met a police officer who said the channel helped him wrap a feature he’s been shooting on weekends for the past year (while raising a family)!
I love to hear that stuff – it makes me so motivated to keep making more for you all.
Between what I saw at NAB, AI developments, and my own experience making films at different budget levels, I keep coming back to the same idea:
I don’t think the future of narrative filmmaking is about making things look better.
I think it’s about making things stick.
Impressive visuals are fast becoming a commodity. They’re easier than ever to create, and only getting easier (especially with AI undercutting real production). So if everyone can make something that looks at least “pretty good,” long-term that won’t be the thing you compete on.
What matters is whether someone remembers your film 10 minutes later. Or tells a friend about it. Or wakes up thinking about it the next day.
And that has way more to do with the characters and the situation, than how expensive your setup was. Fortunately, those things are free.
I’m shooting a short film Monday and Tuesday in my house on my iPhone. Minimal gear, money, and people – just a couple of interesting characters in a strange situation.
This will be my second time doing an iPhone short, so hopefully I top my first one.
As per usual, I’ll document the process and share a breakdown once it’s done.
If it goes well, I want to start doing this kind of thing more regularly. Just making stuff quickly without overthinking it, but always pushing myself to try at least one thing new with each project. Feels like the right direction right now.
So with any luck, next week I’ll have some stills and a breakdown of how the shoot went.
But for now, time to unpack, rest my feet, and get my shot list together!
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?
Want Clear Direction on Your Next Film?Get honest & direct feedback from Kent in a 1-on-1 session tailored to YOU.
Short issue this week so I can focus on making my post-production breakdown video for The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
Hopefully that video will drop Monday – the same day Toni and I will be heading to Las Vegas for the NAB conference!
NAB was so much fun last year – I can’t wait to reunite with creator friends from around the globe, nerding out on the latest audio & video gear, collecting unnecessary swag, and hopefully ending the trip in much better condition than I did last year…
On top of that, I’m getting ready to shoot a no-budget short film that takes place entirely in my living room – can’t wait!
But enough updates on me, let’s jump into something you might get some value out of…
Here’s an old Patreon video breaking down the opening scene of Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to Blade Runner. The combo of Denis as director + Roger Deakins as cinematographer makes this a masterclass in visual storytelling.
I’d love to bring back my old Patreon, but I never cracked what would make it a must-join membership.
If I brought back a paid Patreon, what could I offer that would make it worth it to you?
Hit reply and let me know!
Movie: 32 Sounds
A documentary about sound, and specifically, how humans respond to it in all it’s different forms. Note that you’ll need to listen with headphones, and prepare to be prompted to close your eyes several times throughout the film. It’s artsy and occasionally a little too indulgent, but also very human, calming, and beautiful.
Here’s a quote I loved from sound designer Randy Thom, called out in the film – “Sound is a second class citizen in our own consciousness, but it has a secret weapon: Stealth.”
TV: Love on the Spectrum – Season 4 (Netflix)
The most heartwarming and wholesome show on TV just released season 4. Love On The Spectrum follows single people on the autism spectrum as they search for love. It shines a light on the unique quirks and social challenges they face, and you can’t help but fall in love with them and their families.
With everything happening in the world, the show feels like bleach for my soul. I can’t get enough of it. The Australian version is great too.
Book: The Indifferent Stars Above
I’ve been on a real kick of western novels, and now I’m slightly switching gears – listening to this non-fiction audiobook on Spotify about the frontier tragedy of the Donner Party.
If you’re not familiar, the Donner Party was a group of 87 settlers headed to California in 1846, who got snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains and resorted to cannibalism to survive a treacherous winter.
I’m halfway through the book, and DAMN, the situation brutal. Life was hard on such another level back then, especially for these adventurous early settlers.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want Clear Direction on Your Next Film?Get honest & direct feedback from Kent in a 1-on-1 session tailored to YOU.
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Sorry it’s been a minute since the last normal issue. A lot has happened!
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in life & work.
Toni and I have been re-watching Mad Men. As usual, I’m struck by the quality of the writing -it’s at a level that I aspire to, yet always feel so far away from.
In order to close that gap, I’m trying out a new writing exercise (for me) – typing out scenes from the show.
I just watch, wait for a particularly strong scene, and then go back and type it out in screenplay format, action for action and word for word.
At the end of the exercise, I know how it FEELS to type out such a nuanced, dramatic scene. And I can read it back and get a sense of how much of the scene’s power came from the page vs the performances & execution.
I think it’s a great way to sharpen my eyes & ears for writing, especially with dialogue. I plan on doing the same thing with other genres that are really strong in one aspect (like 30 Rock for jokes).
Next, I may take it a step further and try to first write the scene from memory, then write it out exactly following the scene.
I’m accompanying my final class of Wrapped in 30 Days, and shooting a low-budget short film this month.
I’ve written a script I’m happy with, and fortunately, it takes place in my living room, has a cast of 1 (which I may just play myself), and still has opportunities to challenge myself with practical FX that I’m not quite sure how I’ll pull off yet.
More to come!
After 6 amazing years together, I finally proposed to Toni.
…Fortunately, she said yes!
And I couldn’t be happier 
Honestly, I’d been sitting on the ring for months, but it was hard figuring out a way to pop the Q. I knew I wanted a photo of the moment I asked her, but bending a knee in front of a waterfall wasn’t going to feel “us.”
Then I found out LA has a disproportionate number of old analogue film photo booths (there’s apparently only 200 or so still operating in the world). And wouldn’t you know it, a dive bar near us had 2 of them.
Then just a couple days later, we stepped into one of those booths as a couple… and stepped out as fiancés.
Video: Nor Gather Into Barns (his whole YouTube channel)
Follow along in the life of a modern day drifter.
I’ve been binging through these raw but tastefully curated slice of life videos. They’re addicting, and an antidote to the chipper, presentational style of most YouTube content. It’s lonely, melancholy, but beautiful at the same time. And a reminder of our own free will.
I recommend watching it in order from oldest to newest (I linked to his first video above). He starts in the states, but quickly ends up on an impulsive European adventure.
Let’s make some movies.
–Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?
Film School for the Real WorldThis is a short one. Tonight my most challenging short film yet releases online as a YouTube premiere.
Click here and check the “Notify me” button to tune in live with me and watch it together live at 5:30PM PDT tonight.
It’s been a very long journey, but I’m so excited (& relieved) to check off this last milestone.
If you want to support me and the film, help spread the word & share it with friends.
I’ve had a blast giving feedback on your projects through my new Loom Roast offer (a 30-minute pre-recorded video with my best thoughts & tips for your project).
So I’m extending the 25% off coupon code for just a few more days.
If you want my suggestions for your script or edit – now’s the time!
Get 25% off your Loom Roast.
Use code ROAST25OFF at checkout.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldOver the past few years, I’ve discreetly offered 1-on-1 consultations to filmmakers seeking help or advice on their projects – at first it was by request only, and then eventually I made a page for it. Here are a few things I’ve learned from 50+ individual consultations over the years.
Many filmmakers book a consultation after finishing a full draft they are already mentally committed to.
They are not really looking for direction… They are looking for confirmation.
And to be honest, I’m rarely enthusiastic about them shooting what is on the page.
My biggest and most useful notes are almost always about the big picture: structure.
I ask them to work backwards from the emotional destination of the film.
“Where are you trying to land dramatically? Is this structure the strongest way to get there? Or did you choose it early based on instinct and vibes, and never question it again?”
…It’s usually the latter.
The problem is, structural notes feel invasive. while polishing up scenes with minor notes (like dialogue tweaks) feels harmless and affirms they’re on the right path.
But those minor tweaks are usually the least of my concerns for them. I’m more interested in helping them achieve:
But reworking structure can feel like changing the entire movie they have been replaying in their heads on loop for months.
Even when the upsides are obvious, most filmmakers resist major changes at this stage.
Why?
Because they came to me too late.
There is a cognitive bias called the sunk cost fallacy. Once we invest serious time, energy, or money into something, we become irrationally committed to it.
Like a gambler feeding dollars into a slot machine that already took hundreds, we tell ourselves we have come this far and must keep going. Otherwise we would have to admit we chose the wrong path.
So far, unfortunately, I have yet to see this resistance to structural change result in a film with real reach or impact.
But there is another way…
I love when filmmakers reach out for 1-on-1 help while they’re still in the outline phase.
The same goes for edits.
By the time you’re picture locked, there’s not much my feedback can do unless you’re willing to reopen the cut. And our brains do NOT want to re-open the cut when we’ve told ourselves it’s locked.
Better to get feedback while there’s still time (and desire) to make meaningful changes, like in the rough cut stage for example.
I recently launched a new option for 1-on-1 consultations with me: pre-recorded “roasts” of your scripts or edits.
By doing the feedback on my own time, whenever I’m available, I’m able to offer these at a lower price than my live consultations.
And just for the email crew here, I’m offering 25% off for one week.
In return, I simply ask for your honest feedback on how helpful the recording was for you, which I may use as a testimonial to help spread the word about this new offering.
I won’t promote this publicly. If you’ve been waiting for “the right time” to get feedback…
Earlier is better.
Get 25% off your Loom Roast.
Use code ROAST25OFF at checkout.
App: Jump Desktop
If you work from a desktop but occasionally need mobility, this is a game changer. I sold my old MacBook Pro a few months ago and switched to a Mac Studio + iPad setup, and with this app I can remotely access – and even EDIT off – my Mac Studio from my iPad anywhere with a decent internet connection.
It’s surprisingly smooth, easy to set up, and best of all – free.
Quote
Sometimes a dream almost whispers… it never shouts. Very hard to hear. So you have to, every day of your lives, be ready to hear what whispers in your ear. — Steven Spielberg
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldAfter a long road, we finally hit a long awaited milestone: Wednesday night, we premiered our short film in a crowded movie theater in Los Angeles.
I’m too wiped out to type a full report of the night, but expect a YouTube video covering it soon.
For now I’ll just say it went off without a hitch and was an absolute blast.
I’m so grateful to the 111 people who came out to the screening – from in the neighborhood, to hours away, to all the way from Texas! I wish I had more time to chat with everyone individually but I’m glad I got to meet most of the audience.
Plus we had a batch of amazing films & filmmakers accompanying The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody, which meant a great show and panel discussion afterwards.
Despite having found huge audiences online, most of these short films had never screened in a theater before, so I think it was a delight for the audience and filmmakers alike.
Soon I’ll also be making a video about the process of putting together an event like this – what did and didn’t work, how much everything cost, what I’d do different next time, etc.
And of course, Oliver Brody will be releasing very soon as well! You’ll be the first to know when I figure out the date – should be some time in March.
Lastly, I just want to say that it’s easy for me to lose sight from behind my computer screen here of whether any of this matters. But meeting you in person and hearing your stories of how it has helped you, has me walking away from the night with a renewed faith in what I’m doing, and a desire to make the best content I can for other filmmakers. Thank you for that.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?As you know I’ve been prepping for a premiere screening of my new film this Wednesday at a theater I rented out in Los Angeles. (Tickets here if you haven’t gotten them!)
It’s been an interesting experiment: Finding the right venue, finding other films to screen with us, promoting it… It’s taught me a lot about what it’s like to be a film festival.
The financial side is still a big question mark too. I set the tickets at $10 to keep it affordable, while still allowing for the possibility of breaking even – if we sell enough tickets.
The venue rental was $2150, and I spent about $200 on some posters and postcards for the event just for fun…
So right now it’s not looking like I’ll break even based on ticket sales. But I don’t mind spending some money to essentially give our team a wrap party, and satisfy my own desire to see it on the big screen.
The other expense was creating the DCP for the film. If you don’t know what that is, then you probably haven’t submitted to some of the bigger film festivals who require it.
It’s a “digital cinema package.”
Basically, it’s a specific file format that digital movie theater projectors are programmed to be able to play flawlessly. When a Hollywood studio sends the new Batman movie to your local AMC, it’s as a DCP.
This used to mean they shipped a physical hard drive to every theater, which would get plugged into their computer system, and the DCP would be transferred onto their system. Their DCPs were encrypted, so the studio would have to provide a key that would allow the film to be projected for a certain window of time by that theater.
Many film festivals ask for a DCP so that there are no quality control issues. DCPs are already in the correct color space to play consistently on theater projectors, they have sound levels brought to the correct range, etc.
To ensure this – most festivals recommend you go to a company like SimpleDCP to have your film converted into a DCP, because they check everything to make sure it’s all according to spec as they create it.
They can also deliver the DCP to your festival of choice digitally. Otherwise, you get given a USB stick or physical hard drive you’ll lug over to the festival.
The downside? It costs money – and at a time in the filmmaking process when you’ve already spent more than you wanted to!
They charge by the runtime of your film. Our film is 12.5 minutes long, and to get a DCP created and put on 2 thumb drives (just to have an extra copy) cost us $330.
They do let you do a quality check in their projection room though, which is nice.
Many festivals let you submit a simple file like a MP4 or ProRes of your film over something like Google Drive.
While certainly a lot cheaper than submitting a DCP, it’s a little risky if you’ve put a lot of effort into the polish of your film (color, surround mix, etc). You’re basically at the mercy of how they’re setting up the projector, their gamma settings, their volume levels on the speakers, etc.
In other words, you have no idea how it’s going to look and sound in their theater.
Conversely, if they accept DCP as a format, you know you’re going to get a consistent viewing experience if you give them one.
The issue I ran into with this screening is that this is essentially the same as a short film block at a film festival. But unlike a film festival – I’m responsible for these DCPs.
Since I’m screening multiple short films, I need to make a DCP for EACH film I’m screening.
That would be too expensive. So I decided to take a crack at creating DCPs for these other films myself.
This is considered a bit risky… but after a little research, and with the technical knowledge I already have about post stuff, I think it’s fine.
There’s a free program called DCP-O-Matic that makes the DCP creation process mostly painless. Since these shorts are all in stereo and not surround sound, it makes it a little more simple.
The only thing I’m worried about is getting them onto properly formatted thumb drives, and making sure the theater can play them all in order – so I’m reaching out to the venue to see if they’ll let me do a tech preview ahead of time.
(SimpleDCP refused to let me test the DCPs I’d created in their projection room unfortunately)
This is all a big experiment to see if it might be possible to self-distribute a low-budget feature film in a profitable way.
Learning about putting on my own screening in LA with this short film should give me a much better idea of what might be possible if I try to make a feature and want to avoid the film festival and traditional distribution routes.
That’s also why I’ve been creating making-of videos since the beginning of working on this short. Does getting the audience involved from the very beginning make it easier to build an audience who cares about the film?
We’ll find out…
Once again – get your tickets here if you haven’t!
It’s playing this Wednesday the 25th at 8pm at the Lumiere Cinema in Los Angeles, and we’ll have other films, live Q&A with the filmmakers, and audience prizes.
Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it:
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Happy new year!
I hope 2026 brings you new projects and growth as a filmmaker. And hopefully even money from your skills too. As they say in China on new years: “I hope you get rich.”
This time last year, I wrote an issue about a different approach I was going to try for setting goals in 2025…
TLDR: Instead of setting routines or creating new habits, I just reinforced to myself in the beginning of my daily journal entries what type of person I was, because that type of person would naturally do the things I wanted to do.
Today, I’m going to tell you how that actually worked out, and what I’m doing to steer the ship in 2026.
So did it work?
Not at all.
As is usual with New Year’s resolutions/plans – the first few weeks went great. I was journaling every day without fail, and topping each entry with the mantras about the parts of myself I wanted to reinforce (”I love screenwriting” blah blah).
But soon it started to feel silly. Especially when my actions weren’t aligning with what I was typing. When things get busy, writing is usually the first thing to drop on my daily to-do list. Yet there I still was, writing about how much I LOVE writing everyday.
I started feeling like I was trying to brainwash myself, and I lost faith in the process.
Then, my journaling habit started faltering, and I was no longer doing it every day.
At that point, everything fell off the rails, and none of my goals came to fruition with consistency.
Damn. And I really thought it would work. What a whiff!
Lesson learned though.
Here’s what I’m aiming to accomplish this year, and the simple way I’m going to try to do it.
First and foremost – I still need to make writing a daily practice. It’s by far the biggest lever I can pull to get where I want to go. And the more I practice and improve my own writing, the more I can share with you the useful things I’ve learned.
…Unfortunately, it’s hard to do!
But like going to the gym, the more into the routine of writing you get, the more you enjoy it. So if I can build even a little bit of consistency there, I’ll be fine.
Speaking of going to the gym, that’s my other goal. 2025 was easily the most sedentary year of my life. Yikes, I can’t be pickling my own body at 36 years old – the wheels are going to fall off any day.
So at this point I don’t care what kinds of workouts I do, the plan I stick will be better than the optimal one I never do.
Same with writing.
I’m keeping it dead simple this time around.
No hacking my own brain into loving these things.
I’m just going to focus on consistency over quality.
This is basically the Atomic Habits approach, or the “No Zero Days” method I talked about in this video. By doing the smallest amount of each of my goals every single day – you’re keeping momentum moving in the right direction.
If you do a single push up in a day, that’s not a great workout.
However, you still made time for it, you made the effort, and you got just a little bit stronger. Do that every day, and that’s 365 pushups you wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Likewise with writing.
If you only make time to open your Notes app and type out one sentence – “short film about the worst surprise birthday party imaginable” – that counts.
Open that note up again the next day and add another line to it (”House seems empty bc everyone he knows is hiding in it, but he’s going on a racist tirade as he enters, they hear him inviting his mistress over, learn he’s stealing from work, etc etc”).
Worst case scenario – you slowly write a new film, one sentence at a time.
But usually, once you make the effort to start – you wind up continuing and doing much more.
So you just need to force yourself to do the absolute bare minimum every day. That makes it unintimidating to get started, and getting started is the hardest part.
Right now you can take $100 off my all-in-one online film school, WRAPPED in 30 Days.
Level-up your filmmaking with better methods, guidance, resources, tools, community, and accountability.
Get lifetime access, and follow along to make a crowd-pleasing film in a month, at any budget.
Wishing you the very best in 2026.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Happy holidays,
I’m finishing up this last newsletter of 2025 from my parent’s house in Virginia, trying to work as little as possible, but I wanted to finish up what I talked about in last week’s issue…
It was about the snowball effect and how valuable generating momentum is when making a film.
However, my upcoming short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody, has been… does the math …20-months in the making. 
For the longest time, our biggest struggle was a serious LACK of momentum. But now that’s it’s almost done, momentum is in full force.
Want to start 2026 with big momentum and a new, crowd-pleasing film in the can? Join WRAPPED in 30 Days – now $100 off and get the knowledge, experience, community, and money-saving resources to elevate your filmmaking.
Why did it take so long to get this project moving?
Well, partly because $15k of sponsor money fell through early on. Momentum down.
Then we gained a producer/DP/colorist in Casey Bohrnell. 3-in-1! Momentum up.
But then we had script and location problems that we greatly underestimated the difficulty of, which kept the film stuck in the starting blocks for what seemed like an eternity. Momentum way, way down.
Finally, we solved all those problems and were able to shoot something special.
And then, with our post-production team, momentum finally felt like it was on our side.
Between Casey and I, we knew the edit and color would be free. But we’d need more than our skillsets to get this film where we wanted it. And having already gone over budget, spending thousands more on post was going to be extra painful for yours truly.
Fortunately, we were able to get some top notch artists to help bring the film to completion for free (or very close to it) – and I think that was mainly due to the merits of the film itself.
Here’s how it shook out.
First I did some cold outreach to a cellist & composer named Julia Kent whose music I’d been listening to the entire time we were writing and prepping the film (it was even used as temp tracks in the rough cut).
I figured it was a long-shot… but introduced myself as a fellow Kent who was inspired by her music while making this film, and sent her a link to the rough cut.
Fortunately, she loved it and signed on to create the score despite our lack of budget – a huge relief. The snowball was rolling.
And as I suspected, she killed it and the score rocks.
I figured I’d do the sound design myself and had made a lot of headway, but eventually realized I was going to do the film a disservice by not handing the sound off to a true specialist.
I took a flyer on reaching out to a super talented sound designer and mixer I’d met once named Colton Jackson, and he responded the same as Julia, and will even be making us a 5.1 mix!
His first pass came back a couple days ago and added so many great sound design touches I would never have thought of, while elevating all the sounds I had been working on.
I can’t wait to hear the complete mix in beautiful 5.1 surround at our upcoming premiere (if you’re in LA, click here to join the wait list for tickets!)
I’d planned to not need any VFX for this film, but at the end of the day there were about a dozen shots where a VFX whiz could really solve a problem or elevate what we’d shot.
We figured, “We’ve come this far… why stop here?”
So I put out a call on this newsletter, and fortunately, a reader named Finley McNeilage with VFX credits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Rings of Power volunteered to take a look at the film, liked what he saw, and has been saving our asses shot-by-shot during his off hours.
I’ll be making a full breakdown of the post-production for this film soon (releasing it after the film itself), but I can tell you that every update from Julia, Colton, and Finley has been like opening an early Christmas gift. You click into an email, and suddenly your movie is stronger – what a feeling! Highly recommend.
These wins in recruiting have spurred Casey and I to work even harder on bringing the rest of the film to the finish line – and even though we’re only about 90% done with the color, it’s already more polished and beautiful than I ever thought it would be.
He’s now considering creating a 35mm optical scan of the film – which seems like an insane thing to do… but if he’s buying and we got time, I’m here for it.
So in the end, even though it felt like we were building NO momentum in those early months where we felt completely stuck on this project – we actually were building a lot of steam, it was just delayed.
In those early stages we were solving really difficult challenges that other people wouldn’t or couldn’t, and finally breaking through those barriers allowed us to create a film that seems to stand out, and attracted more talented collaborators to join it… even though our pockets were empty.
We still have to finish sound, a bit of color, the key art, and a couple of final VFX shots.
There’s also three last-minute fixes I want to make based on screening it to my family the past few days – hopefully they don’t set us back.
Then we take it to SimpleDCP to get a DCP made and preview the film in their small QC theater.
At the same time I’m tracking down the best theater to host a public premiere of the film, and filling out the rest of the show (since this short is only 12.5 minutes!)
The premiere will likely be in early February in Los Angeles, if you want to be notified when tickets are available, join this waitlist I’m setting up. It will be an awesome night with films, giveaways, and all kinds of fun.
Join the Oliver Brody premiere waitlist!
The film itself will release on the YouTube channel a week or so after the premiere.
Each year I do an issue about goal-setting and try out some new ways to stick to those plans – keep an eye out for that next week (as I figure out what my goals actually are for next year).
Book: Lonesome DoveI’d heard of this epic western novel before – apparently it was a major influence on Taylor Sheridan (writer of Sicario, Yellowstone, many more).
It took its time to get going, and I almost stopped reading for all the idle chatter on the front porch that kicks it off – but once the story really starts, you’re well invested in all the characters and I’ve been loving it.
Still a long way to go, but I’ve been switching back and forth from the Spotify audiobook (included with any Spotify plan) and the Kindle version to get through the 843 page book faster.
They turned it into a well-received mini-series in the 1989 starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, looking forward to watching that afterwards.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – For the end of the year I’ve knocked $100 off my online film school, WRAPPED. If you’re interested in kicking off 2026 with a new film, community, and wealth of resources for all your future filmmaking needs, now’s the perfect time. Join today.
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?There have been a lot of exciting updates on my upcoming short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. In fact, it’s almost done!
I’ll share some of the specifics next week, but the recent flurry of progress on the film has reminded me of the importance of building up projects through people.
Strong teams quickly compound to even stronger teams – ultimately creating a film an order of magnitude more professional than you’d hoped for.
Here’s what I mean.
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: FilmConvert Nitrate
Crave that dreamy celluloid look? FilmConvert Nitrate upgrades your footage with cinematic film stocks & grain. It’s powerful yet dead simple to use – that’s why it’s my go-to for color grading my films.
Each person you bring onto a film compounds to help you gain the next person. When you don’t have anyone yet, you have to use your own unfair advantages to get the ball rolling.
While studying James Cameron (have you seen my new video?) – I learned that it wasn’t until after his first big success with Terminator that HE was the big asset others wanted to glom onto.
But for Terminator it was mainly the script and Cameron’s excellent concept art that started the ball rolling. He leveraged his unfair advantages of being an excellent visual artist to help sell his fantastical vision for the film.
That got him Gale Ann Hurd – a colleague at Roger Corman studios where he was churning out low budget VFX work – to jump on as producer and help sell it. The snowball starts rolling.
THAT was enough to find $6M in financing from a production company… which is laughable for a high-concept sci-fi action film.
But that money was enough to afford to hire Arnold – acquired at the perfect moment in his career when he was known but not yet a superstar. Arnold was pretty sure it was going to be garbage, but took the chance (and the check). And that underdog of a film was off to the races.
A similar thing happened to me on my first “big” short film, Will “The Machine”.
It started with only a script and our previous body of work. Nothing too sexy on its own.
But my lead actor/co-writer and I used that to woo a seasoned DP I’d recently worked with, who was fresh off shooting his first TV show, and hungry for all things narrative, even if there was basically no pay. Once he signed on, the project had some legitimacy and momentum.
I then presented the project to my main editing clients at the time, and the 2 owners joined as executive producers – lending their production insurance and producing wisdom to the film.
Next we tried to cast the other lead – and lucked out with a friend of a friend, Denzel Whitaker. He’d been in films like The Great Debators and Bad Lieutenant, and was about to play a role in a little film called Black Panther. After some wooing, he came on board.
That’s when the snowball really picked up speed. We shot a teaser scene for our Kickstarter, handily raised some much needed funds, and started scouting our Virginia locations.
From this point on, it was easy to start recruiting the Virginia crew at friendly rates when we gave them the rundown of our team – despite having no connection to these people.
Once we had a few key local crew members, we leveraged them to recruit even more through warm referrals/recommendations.
We shot a great film, and that pushed the snowball further, getting an excellent composer at a bargain rate, and the colorist of The Walking Dead… who did it for free.
The snowball was at peak speed and size. I couldn’t have imagined getting these kinds of people attached to the film when we first started the process, but momentum and the perception of quality/prestige are powerful forces.
The film had a solid festival run, picked up some awards, and hit a million views in the first month it went online. Wild!
When I was making little films in middle school and high school, sometimes we needed more people than just our direct little circle of freaks who always helped out.
I remember creating a house party scene in our last high school short film. We’d never had that many people in front of the camera for one of our films – how were we going to fill out a whole house?
Turns out, it’s the same principle.
You get a few people, then leverage them to get a few more people. You leverage your way up the high school popularity ladder, and once you get one or two popular kids at the fake party, it becomes way easier to get everyone else.
At a certain point, you reach critical mass and the tables turn completely – once it feels like everyone is at the fake party, everyone else wonders why the hell they AREN’T.
This is basically my understanding of how Hollywood works. Nobody wants you until everyone wants you.
By the way, want some help building a team for your next film? I’ve discounted my Crewing Up Playbook.
Book: The Futurist: James Cameron book
This biography was the backbone of my recent deep-dive video on James Cameron’s career. It’s such an easy and exciting read – short chapters full of candid anecdotes and inspiring stories behind the making of some of my favorite films. Highly recommend if you’re in need of inspiration.
Quote
I like difficult. I’m attracted by difficult. Difficult is a fucking magnet for me. I go straight to difficult. And I think it probably goes back to this idea that there are lots of smart, really gifted, really talented filmmakers out there that just can’t do the difficult stuff. So that gives me a tactical edge to do something nobody else has ever seen, because the really gifted people don’t fucking want to do it. — James Cameron
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Here’s something a lot of filmmakers don’t want to admit:
Filmmaking is a mode.
It’s not a constant state. It’s not something you can hold onto forever. It’s not always available on demand.
And the truth is: You’re not always going to be in that creative mode.
You’re not always going to be making films.
You’re not always going to feel inspired, productive, or expressive.
In fact, life is definitely not optimized for being a prolific filmmaker.
Things have a way of popping up to stop us from making more films. Things like: money problems, family issues, burnout, stress…
…and more often than any of us want to admit:
A complete and utter loss of self-belief.
In those seasons, we fall out of filmmaking mode.
And when you’re out, it can feel like you’ve lost something important. Like you can’t get back to that version of yourself who once made films easily – with gusto, and great taste!
But here’s what I want to tell you (and myself):
That feeling is bullshit.
You don’t need to be making films 24/7 to be a filmmaker.
Look at your favorite directors – many go years between projects. It’s normal.
But at a certain point, “normal” becomes “stuck,” and you finally hit that moment where you say:
Enough.
It’s time to get back into the mode.
It’s time to make something again.
It’s time to ship a story to the world.
But it’s making the switch that’s the hardest part.
Before I made The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody I hadn’t made a “big” film in years. Stepping back into “real” filmmaker mode, where I had major skin in the game, was scary and at times overwhelming.
The only thing that helped me push through that was remembering the times when it wasn’t difficult. When I was making a short film every month for eight straight months back in 2015, and I was red-lining life in filmmaking mode.
My momentum was at an all-time high, and those little no-budget films ended up changing the whole trajectory of my life.
But they also gave me something even more valuable:
The knowledge that whenever I want to make a film… I can.
At the drop of a hat, I can come up with a story.
I can pull people together.
I can shoot it.
I can cut it.
I can finish it and share it with the world.
And so can you! But in my experience, that internal belief that gets you off your ass and creating usually doesn’t come from inspiration… it comes from reps.
And reps come from embracing a system that demands you GO even when you don’t feel “ready.”
And that’s exactly why I created WRAPPED in 30 Days.
I wanted to give filmmakers the ability to turn on filmmaking mode whenever they need to — even after long stretches of feeling stuck, uninspired, or overwhelmed.
Because when you have the:
…to make films quickly, cheaply, and consistently – your excuses dry up.
You become brave enough to get back in the saddle of filmmaking mode, and ride the bull as long as you can.
Black Friday Sale If you’re ready to flip back into filmmaking mode, I’m running a short sale on WRAPPED.
Get lifetime access for $200 off – but this weekend only.
Here’s what students are saying about it:
If you want a little extra support, I’m also offering something I’ve never done:
One-on-one coaching with me as you make your film is 50% off.
(Usually $500 → now $250.)
So if you’re feeling the itch to tell your stories, this is me giving you a push.
Make a film now, or whenever you free up – you’ll have lifetime access to it all. So whenever life knocks you out of the mode again…
WRAPPED will be waiting.
Here’s the link: wrapped.school
I’m doing some research for a video about James Cameron and loved this exchange between him and Arnold Schwarzenegger from the making of Terminator:
Arnold: “I’ll be back” doesn’t sound natural for me. I should say “I will be back.” Cameron: “I don’t tell you how to act. Don’t tell me how to write. Just say the line.”
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – Don’t wait long on WRAPPED, the sale ends November 30th.
Get your head out of the gutter, I’m talking short films.
A couple weeks ago I posted this video about a filmmaking challenge I undertook: telling a story in only 3 shots. Then I challenged viewers to try making their own short films in only 3 shots.
I didn’t expect so many submissions!
The great thing is, not only are these films quick to make, they’re also quick to watch – most are under a minute long.
So check out some of my favorite 3-shot micro films created by viewers and members of my online film school Wrapped in 30 Days.
This all started last month when I ran a contest in the Wrapped community:
Make a film running :30 seconds or less, consisting of only 3 shots, that tells a story with some kind of impact.
Production value didn’t matter, I’d judge the films only by their storytelling.
The winner would get a MusicBed small business subscription (worth $1200!), and I sent out smaller prizes for 2nd and 3rd place.
We had a bunch of submissions and a lot of fun all round, but here were the winning films:
3rd Place (a tie!):
Glenn Lawrence, “One Push”
Howie McCormick, “Adrift”
2nd Place:
Keysi from Ghettoplex, “Poison Promotion”
1st Place:
Andy Decramer, “Erinya.Main”
Each of these films have their own strengths, but I was impressed that Andy managed to create a sci-fi world, 2 desperate characters, and high stakes in only 3 quick shots – it got my mind engaged and filling in the gaps of the story. I loved it!
My video proposing this challenge went up 9 days ago as I type this, but already there are 10 films submitted! Some were even posted that first day 
I love to see it.
Here are some favorites:
I love the economy of storytelling in the first shot of this one, very clever.
Death was a common theme of many of these 3-shot films.
Here’s another one that had the best production value of any submitted, love the transitions between shots particularly.
This one limited itself to tight shots that suggest the fuller world, but we actually see barely any of it. Despite that it sets up 2 (actually 3) characters and even includes a twist 
Want to see the rest?
I made this playlist on YouTube with all the submissions – I’ll add more as they come in.
Want to take on this challenge? Do it!
It’s a great exercise to challenge your economy of storytelling.
And tag me in the description of your YouTube upload! I’ll add yours to the playlist and will probably revisit this challenge in the future for another video.
Maybe it’ll even become an annual challenge… 
Movie: EddingtonLate to the party here, but man, I loved this. It might make you feel pretty gross by the end of it, but I feel like that’s the price of admission for an Ari Aster movie. This is now my 2nd favorite of his films (after Hereditary).
Movie: BugoniaWant MORE conspiracies? I don’t know how Lanthimos makes such good films so quickly one after another, but I’ve been thinking about this one for days after seeing it.
Mostly I’ve been thinking how great Jesse Plemons is. He and Emma Stone carried this film so (seemingly) effortlessly.
Book: Hard Drive (Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire)This biography about Bill Gates and the rise of Microsoft was written back in ‘92 and has lots of candid takes on the younger, pre-billionaire, whiz-kid version of Bill. As something of a computer nerd myself, it was fun learning about the development of these machines and how brilliant, petulant, and obnoxious Gates was in this era.
My favorite parts of the book are the stories about being “hard core”. Bill was hyper-competitive, and with everything he did he tended to do it to the max. When it came to computers, he had endless energy and enthusiasm. He would regularly fall asleep at his computer working into the early morning hours programming, only to wake up and immediately resume typing. He’d get meals served to him at the computer, and was usually in dire need of a shower.
As he transitioned into his ultimate role of running the business rather than typing code himself, he expected the same hard core ethos of everyone at the company. That means taking luxuries like weekends, vacations, and clocking out at reasonable hours were all harshly judged. Sounds like a super shitty place to work! But I’m sure being at the forefront of the computer revolution was an intoxicating feeling for the bright college grads they’d typically recruit (harder to be hard core when you’re married with kids after all).
Also, I love the title.
App: FilmConvert Nitrate (Black Friday sale)50% off! Shouting this plug-in out because their Black Friday sale is usually their lowest prices of the year, and it’s running NOW. Save 40% on everything they offer, PLUS another 10% with my link here (or just enter code STANDARD at checkout).
I’ve used FilmConvert to color my last handful of shorts and it’s been a lifesaver. Give your footage filmic character instantly with their film stock emulations, customizable real-time film grain, and color correction tools that are fine tuned to your specific camera’s sensor. The Hazy and Halation add-ons are also clutch.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldToday I’m going to be breaking down some of the biggest unexpected costs from my most expensive production yet, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
Along the way I’ll be answering questions like:
How much did this film cost?
Why spend big bucks on a short film?
What’s the status of it now?
Read on to find out…
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: FilmConvert Nitrate
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Looking back at the budget for this film, there are areas where we saved a lot of money, and areas where it wound up being crazy expensive.
The biggest expenses were travel and labor. Transporting even a handful of people from Los Angeles to a little mountain town in Washington is not cheap.
Pro-tip: Don’t cheap out on “basic economy” seats that give you no recourse if there’s a need to shift the schedule or change out one of the crew members.
That said, the flights were much more expensive than I’d budgeted because I just waited too long to buy the tickets, and the fare went sky-high.
Total cost of 5 round trip flights + rides to/from the airport: $2,816.58.
Add in $400 to our DP/producer who drove his van full of gear up to meet us: $3,216.58 on travel. Our other producer Chris flew himself out, saving us some budget.
Fortunately, we cut a deal with our hosts on lodging for our 4 days up there, and that place doubled as our main shooting location.
Lodging costs: $2,514.00.
Now once we GOT the team to Washington, we could save some money. We only brought friends out there because we couldn’t have people who were in it for a paycheck. Conditions were somewhat rough, and money was tight. So almost everyone was volunteering their time in exchange for food, lodging, and travel.
Where labor really added up was the 2 cave set days in LA. Unlike our skeleton Washington crew, we hired on about 15 crew members! And shooting on a sweaty soundstage is a lot less exciting than a wilderness shoot in a beautiful part of the country, so we paid (low) rates to everyone.
Total cost of labor for those 2 days: $8,125.00 
This was more than I expected – mainly because I didn’t expect such a big crew on those days, but we would have struggled to make our days without them. And when combined with the basically free labor costs for the Washington shoot, it kind of evened out.
And for the biggest nut punch – lenses!
This is the same thing that happened on my last big short, the DP convinces me that since we’re mostly shooting exteriors with minimal/no lighting, we should use vintage lenses that add character to the image. Cue us renting a $100k set of lenses lol.
I had hoped that I could leverage my channel for some bigger discounts here, but no dice. Also, we had to rent these lenses TWICE, and the WA rental was a long one that included some test shoot days.
Total costs for Washington and LA lens rentals: $4,879.00 
Never again will I be seduced like that! But I gotta say… the images are stunning. (Cooke Speed Panchros btw)
So already we’re at $18,734!
Crazy considering there’s still SO many things I haven’t added in like food, grip rentals, art, makeup, wardrobe, the cave set, etc.
Not to mention the crazy amount of free labor and gear we’re capitalizing on. My producers and I were prepping this project for months. Toni did multiple jobs for free. Anyone who did get paid, didn’t get paid much. If we were paying ourselves and everyone what they’re actually worth – this is easily a $250k short film.
This is the second time I’ve done a “big” short film, and I look at these projects as calculated investments in my own future.
My first one, Will “The Machine”, ended up costing about $25k all in, and it was kind of a last hoorah to see if we could do a big festival run and maybe pitch the feature version of the film.
My co-writer/producer and I split it evenly, but we were still about $10k short, so we took out a loan to make it happen. (I don’t recommend doing that, but it worked out okay for us).
The film went viral on Omeleto’s YouTube channel, and they cut us in for part of the ad revenue, so we did recoup a few thousand dollars.
But you can’t really make a profit off short films directly.
The real return was in intangibles – greater credibility and respect from filmmaking peers, broadening my network, improving my confidence and skill leading more professional sets, and just scratching the itch of making a film I REALLY wanted to make.
I figured it would be the only time I’d ever do a short film that expensive. But my situation now is a little unique, and I can justify doing it again, simply because it gives me a LOT share with you.
So yes, I spent an ass-load of money making this new film, but I also collected fodder and broll for years worth of YouTube videos.
If I didn’t have this indirect way to recoup the budget over time, I wouldn’t have spent nearly as much money on the film.
But I assure you – this film was a lot easier to make after making Will “The Machine”, and I know my next feature will be MUCH easier to make because of both of these films.
It’s actually hard to say what the real budget of this film is… There’s just a lot of ways you could chop it up.
How much of the budget was for the actual film?
How much was for the YouTube videos about the MAKING of the film?
How many purchases will be reused on future projects?
How much do we count what was given for free or for a shout-out on the channel?
What about the costs the other producers ate themselves before I could even see a receipt?
I kept good records, but when you consider all of the above, the total budget is very malleable and could be subject to Hollywood accounting.
I will say that I’ve given you the biggest nut punches from the budget, and we found some great deals & freebies on many other big expenses in this film.
However… we’re not done spending yet 
Post production has been a little slow because frankly, I had to focus on making money for a while! But the film is basically picture-locked, and I’m feeling great about it.
I’m talking to an awesome composer now, more details coming once that gets confirmed – but we always planned some post-production expenses for the score and final sound mix.
Unfortunately we may also need a little VFX which we didn’t budget for, but hopefully we find a deal there.
Color will be done in-house by our DP, so at least that’s free. I’ll try to handle all the sound design unless I can be convinced that someone we can afford can do a better job.
Oh and we have to shoot a pick up shot, d’oh. Fortunately it’s just an insert of a prop we still have.
My goal is to finish and do a public screening of the film in LA before the end of the year, fingers crossed!
Worst case, I’ll screen it after the holidays, then release it on the channel a little later.
This film will make $0, and it’s been worth it to me.
But odds are, I will never spend this much on a short film again
Favorites this week:
Website: MusicbedBetween filmmaking, YouTube, and working as an editor for many years, I’ve bounced around between all the popular music platforms to source tracks for my edits.
But after a recent talk with the great DP/YouTuber Jacques Crafford, he convinced me to give Musicbed a shot because “no other platform even comes close to the quality of their music selection.”
I was skeptical, but I was so tired of hearing the same tracks I used over and over in other people’s videos, so I started a Musicbed trial…
DAMN, Jacques was right!
You can tell they carefully curate the music they offer, because there is so much great stuff on there – but just as importantly – so little BAD music. I found all the best temp tracks for Oliver Brody there, and was even considering scrapping the composer budget to just use their songs.
Between the music quality and their easy UI and search tools (including an AI song matcher where you can paste in Spotify links to find similar tracks), it’s just the cream of the crop.
If you want to try for yourself, I joined the Musicbed Friend of the Brand program and made a playlist of some of my favorite tracks in different genres in the link below – keep an ear out for them in my upcoming YouTube videos and shorts!
Switch to Musicbed and start your free 14-day trial today.
Quote“I don’t give a f*** what anybody thinks. When you’re a race horse, the reason they put blinders on these things is because if you look at the horse on the left or the right, you’re going to miss a step. That’s why the horses have blinders on. And that’s what people should have. When you’re running after something, you should not look left or right — what does this person think, what does that person think? No. Go.” — Jimmy Iovine
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?This week I want to talk a little bit about one of the most important — yet most tedious and boring — parts of making a film: planning your schedule for your shoot.
Your schedule is probably the single most important document on any shoot day.
It aligns the team, sets expectations, and it’s the only thing that lets you know if you’re actually going to finish your film or not.
So here’s how to make a good one without killing yourself in the process.
A good schedule for a shoot day is a balancing act. There are a lot of priorities that need to be weighed against each other.
For example:
And then there’s shot type. Typically, you want to start with your wide master shots, then move into close-ups, then inserts. That way you have a master reference for continuity and blocking. If something’s wrong with the lighting or staging, you’ll catch it before boxing yourself into continuity problems by starting on close-ups.
Anytime your whole team moves to a new location mid-day (called a company move), it eats up a huge chunk of time.
The goal: minimize company moves.
If possible, shoot everything you need at a location until you can wrap out that location for the whole film. It’s cleaner, faster, and way easier on morale (and the budget).
For indie film shoots, 10-hour days are luxurious and not uncommon, but 12-hour days are standard. Any longer is a tough sell, but if that’s what it takes to finish the film, sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Keep in mind:
Many films end up shooting 16-18hr days on occasion, but this should be a LAST resort. Besides being bad for morale, it can be quite dangerous and lead to accidents on set or while commuting home.
Make sure you pick your battles wisely here.
You must break for a meal at least every 6 hours.
That’s a big reason why a 12hr day is standard – it means only 1 meal break (lunch).
By the way, for a 12-hour day, I believe a 45-minute lunch is ideal. One hour feels too long, and people may start milling around and losing focus. But only thirty minutes feels too rushed.
People need enough time to eat and also decompress a bit: check texts, make calls, and just be human for a minute, before diving back in — especially on multi-day shoots.
Your first shot of the day will always take the longest. If it’s the first day at a new location, I usually plan for at least 90 minutes of setup before I expect to roll the camera (unless it’s a run & gun shoot with no lighting).
Likewise, at the end of the day, you also need to budget time for wrap:
Depending on how much teardown is needed, wrap could take 15 minutes… or hours.
Make sure to schedule a “taillights” time — when you actually expect to see everyone’s cars leaving the lot — after wrap.
It can be tough to manage all this, so I created a “smart” spreadsheet I used to plan out my most recent short film when we had limited time shooting out of state and our scheduling had to be perfect.
The beauty of this template is being able to move around shots whenever you want and seeing all the times update automatically, meaning you can audition as many different shooting orders as you want to find what makes the most sense.
I’ve also added in “smart” shot listing, so you can make the entire pre-pro process easier on yourself by breaking it down into steps.
Best of all – these shots will automatically populate in the schedule tab as soon as you type in the shot number!
I’m so excited to finally be able to offer this all-in-one shot list and schedule workflow that saves you tons of time & energy you can use to stay creative instead.
Wrapped members have been loving it, so now I’m making it available to the email crew here for $27 this week only.
Interested? Click here to see it in action and get yours.
Quote“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” – Roger Ebert
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?I’ve been hooked lately on a podcast called Founders, which dives into the lives of history’s most successful entrepreneurs. Listening to it, reminded me that filmmakers are entrepreneurs in disguise.
Every time we make a film, we’re essentially starting a new business – often, quite literally. For example, with a proper feature film you have to create a new LLC for it.
But even short films, although they aren’t commercial projects usually, still require rallying resources, bringing on and managing people, raising funds, and convincing an “audience” to buy in.
That’s why TV is almost luxurious in comparison: once the machine is built, you can keep it running for years. With film, you’re starting from zero again and again.
So what lessons can we steal from business titans? Two stood out to me recently: differentiation and discipline of vision.
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The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that making a “good” film isn’t enough anymore.
The competition is brutal. The technology and techniques of filmmaking are so accessible now, that more movies than ever are made everyday… Moreover, you’re not just up against other movies.
You’re battling incredible TV on countless streamers, millions of creators on YouTube, and a never-ending stream of vertical clips engineered by algorithms to hold your attention for as long as possible.
So how do you stand out and find your footing? Differentiation.
James Dyson built his company around that principle. While other vacuums blended together, his did not. In fact, Dyson believed in being “different for the sake of it.” In a bland world of sheep mimicking each other, his markedly different approaches to form and function caught attention and led people to value his products more than the others.
Critically, he backed the eye-catching designs and innovations with actual quality. Without that, any short-term interest would quickly disappear and be considered nothing but a novelty.
And the cherry on top for his ultimate success? A story.
James Dyson attached a card to all of his vacuums that told his personal story of founding & running the company, differentiating him from his faceless corporate competition. The card also told why he was obsessed with improving the technology and beauty of this household item. And that combination of differentiation, quality, and a powerful story eventually made Dyson a multi-billion dollar company.
Filmmakers need the same mindset. A well-crafted but familiar short film is now all-too forgettable. In many ways, all stories have been told before, so while the story is absolutely fundamental to any success – I think today you need a little something extra to set your work apart. What differentiates your work? The merging of genres? The visuals? The edit? The performances?
I’m starting to believe it really is worth focusing on how to be “different for the sake of it” with my next film to earn attention in our crowded media landscape.
James Dyson still owns 100% of his company, which is remarkable considering it’s now worth billions.
Early on, he’d mortgaged his home and nearly lost everything just to keep the company alive. It was incredibly risky, but once success eventually arrived, everyone told him to cash out and sell the company for millions… but Dyson refused.
He was being hounded by other larger companies who wanted him to manufacture Dyson motors for their own products, an easy way to generate guaranteed revenue for the company. Again, he refused.
Why? Money wasn’t his core motivator, and retro-fitting his motors for other companies sounded like a distraction. His drive was the pursuit of innovation and excellence, working side by side with the best engineers and designers he could find. So once he built that company and life, the idea of style, leaving it behind for easy money didn’t make sense.
That kind of focus – putting on blinders, committing to one vision, and sticking with it – is rare in any field. Temptation comes to businesses and filmmakers in many forms: more comfortable schedules, resting on past laurels, short-term money that undermines long-term progress. But Dyson always protected his vision for the company, and that’s what ultimately made them a household name.
Filmmakers face the same challenge. A director’s job is to guard the vision of a project against the endless pressures that threaten to compromise it: budget, time, outside voices, etc.
The thing is, with any film, at any level of your career, you just can’t guarantee success. Even finishing a mediocre film is a miracle; a great one borders on impossible. But even if you do… the outcome is fleeting. One day premiering the film at a festival doesn’t compare to a year working on it every day. The process is everything.
That’s why for any success the joy has to come from the work itself. Long days of problem-solving, sweat, frustration, and discovery. As they say in CrossFit: “It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.”
Filmmaking is rarely easy, but even at its most maddening, there’s something addictively fun that keeps me coming back to the well for more.
That’s why I think it’s useful to study people outside our bubble. Dyson’s obsession with differentiation and relentless pursuit of excellence has me rethinking my own work—both films and YouTube videos. If I wouldn’t click on one of my own videos, why make it?
The challenge, and the opportunity, is to create something nobody else could. That’s the true superpower of any filmmaker. Find it, protect it, and the rest will follow.
Director interviews aren’t our only place to learn from masters. Entrepreneurs, athletes, and artists in other mediums also rise through powerful principles we can apply to our own work.
Lately, these ideas have made me question my own films and even my YouTube videos. Frankly, sometimes I end up making videos I’m not really proud of, and I think it’s due to a lack of differentiation and vision. One thing I don’t want to be is just more noise in an ocean of filmmaking content.
That’s pushed me to think about not just ways I can stand out, but also find deeper joy in each project by making it unmistakably mine.
Every filmmaker’s true superpower is creating something no one else could. The hard part is discovering where that uniqueness lives. But once you uncover it and lean into it, that differentiation becomes the most valuable thing you have to offer. It makes the grind worthwhile and the work consistently rewarding.
And then it’s up to you to protect it and stick to it.
QuoteWe’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. — James Dyson
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?I’m writing this newsletter from Incheon Airport in Seoul, Korea – stopping over for a few hours en route to mainland China.
Not a trip I thought I’d be taking anytime soon, but Hollyland was kind enough to invite me and some other creators you may recognize out for a week of fun and learning at their annual WeConnect event, in celebration of the company’s 7th birthday.
Having never been to Asia, I couldn’t resist.
Ok that’s as far as I got writing in the airport, the rest of this I’m writing from Los Angeles, after a whirlwind week that even included making a short film from scratch!
I learned a ton, made some friends, and came home so inspired by the talented creators in attendance.
Our itinerary was packed, and there’s way too much that happened to cover here, but I’ll hit some highlights and takeaways relevant to filmmaking.
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 been easier to find the perfect track for any scene – fast.
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I was frankly a little scared flying in, imagining scenarios where I would get turned back home at customs, or bring in contraband accidentally and cause an international incident 
Fortunately, customs went totally smooth at Shenzhen airport, and I was next greeted by my Hollyland rep Flora holding this which put a big smile on my face:
Another YouTuber I knew, Antonio Wimmer, had also just landed from Spain, making it an even warmer greeting. A few years ago, he reached out and helped me get one of my first sponsors when my channel first blew up – what a mensch.
We ate the first of many HUGE Chinese family-style meals, checked into our rooms, and hit Huaqiangbei, their big electronics market, where we saw tons of knockoff products (including Hollyland lol), and I got my first taste of the futuristic, cyberpunk vibe of China’s big urban centers.
Finally I met all the other 29 creators and Hollyland staff in attendance at their HQ. There were some familiar faces from my NAB trip, and plenty of new ones from all around the world.
The diversity of not only cultures, but also areas of expertise, made it a really exciting group. Among us were travel filmmakers, narrative filmmakers, commercial filmmakers, educators, tech influencers, and everything in between.
One of our collective favorites was an 18 year old creator named Galang from Indonesia, a self-taught, unassuming prodigy who started with less than probably all of us and has already built a career for himself from scratch with a camera 
We took a tour of the Hollyland factory while playing ice breaker games to get to know each other. The point of the event is connecting with other creators, and Hollyland did a great job facilitating that. Among the other Americans in attendance were Chris from YCImaging, and Landon from Fulltime Filmmaker.
We then broke into teams for our first challenge: live-stream shopping. In China, this is a MASSIVE business. Basically streamers run their own little Home Shopping Networks live on different platforms including Tiktok, and people tune in to watch and order through them, giving the streamer a cut of each sale. As an industry this has been growing very fast every year in China, and it won’t be long until this is big business in the US too I’m sure.
With projects like this, where you’re grouped with other filmmakers who you’ve never worked with before, and you have to determine your own roles, it can be really messy.
A lot of creators I spoke to felt the same way. Typically, there’s only going to be one director, so it’s hard to contribute without stepping on people’s toes when there’s no hierarchy.
For this project, there were way too many cooks in the kitchen, so I was happy to step back and observe. For me (and many creatives) I have to either be fully in control, or fully in the passenger seat – if I’m jockeying for input or my role is unclear then I go a little crazy.
For that reason, I was worried about our big project of the week – a short film we’d be making in our next city – Chongqing.
We flew to Chongqing, and had some fun exploring this even more futuristic city (featuring a never-ending cityscape of skyscrapers, electric cars everywhere, bright colored lights, animations on buildings, robots, the craziest drone show I’ve ever seen, etc.)
Then it was time to break into groups again to make a film in this new city.
They split us into assigned groups of 3 creators, plus a Hollyland chaperone. I was glad my group was two people I already clicked with – Daniel from Peru, and Jeff from France. Here’s us practicing our Asian squats.
And our Hollyland rep Skylar was an absolute champ, helping us make everything happen and encouraging us to go big – even though she was just as sleep-deprived as us the whole week.
For this project, they gave us prompts for the video concept, gear options to choose from, and potential perks we could win (a private car for transportation, extra prop/wardrobe budget).
We won none, and decided to choose our prompt at random. We landed on “Cyber Chongqing” as the prompt – essentially, show off the futuristic vibe of the city.
Collaboration among three strangers is never painless.
Two of us liked an early idea, but I could see the third wasn’t into it.
So when he pitched something different to the 2 of us, we let go of our first concept, even though we really liked it, because we knew we’d need buy-in from all 3 of us to make anything worthwhile.
Good call: his idea ended up being stronger and got us all excited.
His idea was to split the project into three mini-films so each of us could direct in our own style. Then we’d figure out a way to link them together creatively.
This gave everyone ownership while still working collaboratively as one piece—a neat loophole to bypass clashing egos and styles. Now we could even lean into our clashing styles and it would make the film stronger!
We only had one night to write, pick up our gear & test it. Our camera menu was stuck in Chinese lol, but other than that, we were good to go.
We got a few precious hours of sleep—par for the trip, then a 5 a.m. call time for a sunrise opening shot from a tower in a park. We each acted in each other’s sections, and I was the actor of this opening section of the film, directed by Jeff.
Then Daniel directed Jeff as a frustrated loner looking for connection in the city.
The part I was directing was scheduled last, and we were running late. It was an indoor shoot at a place we weren’t really supposed to film in that day, and when we finally got there, we got kicked out of the location
We tried to come up with a new concept for my section as quick as possible, but by this time I also started feeling sick and mentally fried.
Eventually I stopped trying to plan it all out in my head, and just grabbed the camera and speed-ran my whole segment with Daniel acting.
Some shots worked; others I wished I could have planned more, but we had only that day to shoot.
That said, it was a pleasure filming in Chongqing. Everything looked cool, either futuristic or old and textured. There was character and density in any frame you composed. And the people of China are so comfortable with filming in public that we basically got to do whatever we wanted, and even had some locals appear in the film.
Editing was also a sprint, we had to do it in-between our scheduled activities the next day, and by this time I had developed a nasty fever. So as I was turning into a sweating zombie, we worked right up to the deadline (literally, right before we were leaving to do the screening of the films).
We thought we had probably over-delivered on this project… then we saw the other films.
The competition was stacked—full of fresh styles and incredibly well-done work considering how insanely short the timeline was (and in a brand-new city, with brand-new teammates). The younger creators’ work was particularly inspiring and fresh to me.
In the coming weeks I’ll probably create a making-of video on YouTube and post the film itself there, even though I’m not all that proud of my section, and definitely wanted more time!
But as George Lucas says, ”It’s not a matter of how well you can make a movie, it’s how well you can make it under the circumstances.”
Huge thanks to Hollyland for hosting this crazy event and bringing creators together.
For now, I’m glad to be home, catching up on sleep, and back to work on the Oliver Brody short -editing, finishing the last BTS video, and hopefully applying a few lessons and tricks I picked up in China.
Quote:My ideas about writing changed as soon as I started directing. As a writer, I wanted my scripts to be perfect and fully formed. As a director, I know there are always factors beyond my control. Many things in any film cannot be planned concretely in advance. The best you can do is visualize what you want, and then respond to what’s there once you go on set. Nowadays I start from a fairly loose script and tend to write the dialogue on the day of shooting.
– Wong Kar-Wai
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – At the Seoul airport, a fan of the channel and his son recognized me. He runs a similarly named production company in Nepal and invited me to collaborate. Next trip??
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Here’s the truth about filmmaking: no matter how much you think you’ve got it under control, the details pile up until you’re drowning.
Props, costumes, locations, schedules, casting notes, shot lists, references… it’s enough to make your head spin.
For The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody, I needed something that could corral all of that chaos in one place. That’s where Milanote came in.
Milanote is like a giant digital corkboard where you can dump every idea or reference or detail, organize it visually, and keep the whole team on the same page automatically.
I used it constantly during pre-production, and honestly, it became one of the most important “crew members” on the film.
Here are some of the ways it saved my sanity:
We shot Oliver Brody across two very different environments: the wilderness of Washington State and a soundstage in Los Angeles.
That meant tons of scouting, reference photos, and notes to keep track of.
With Milanote, I was able to drop our scouting photos straight onto a board, annotate them with pros/cons, and compare different options side by side.
Since we were looking at so many similar-looking areas for forests and stream locations, it was really crucial to be organized like this and know where each scouting picture and video came from.
So instead of digging through random iPhone albums or email chains, I could see the whole location at a glance easily.
As director, I wanted to know the tone and atmosphere from the start.
For this project, I pulled together references from Google Images and FrameSet.app (which is a handy tool for searching film and music video stills).
I could quickly copy and paste any image directly into Milanote, arrange them, and then rearrange them as my ideas evolved.
It became a visual North Star for me and the crew.
Anytime someone asked, “What vibe are we going for?” I just shared the board.
We had to make 1890s gold-rush props and sets feel authentic on a short film budget.
Milanote gave us a space to gather aesthetic inspiration, prop lists, and rental options all in one place.
This way, when our production designer came on board, I could hand off all my prep in a single link.
I even used Milanote to help with the script itself, visually mapping out the architecture of the story.
I built a beat sheet that laid out every dramatic turn, so I could see the film’s structure at a glance. This was a helpful step in realizing we needed to greatly simplify our story!
Having a bird’s eye view of your story is super handy. I used to do it with index cards on my wall, but this made it even quicker to make and easier to share with my co-writer who lives across the country.
I love that with Milanote you’re not trapped in spreadsheets or buried in text documents. You can see the movie taking shape way before you shoot it.
And since it’s collaborative, you can loop in your DP, production designer, or AD without endless back-and-forth emails. In fact, any time someone made a change in a board, we’d get notified via email. And I was able to tell who had seen the updates, which is also really handy.
If you’re gearing up for a short film (or even just wrestling your next script idea into shape), I encourage you to give it a shot… especially since it’s free to try.
They were generous enough to sponsor Oliver Brody and support this newsletter, but I’d be recommending them either way. It’s one of those tools that makes the process feel less overwhelming, and lets you focus on what really matters: creating the vision, and telling the story.
Let’s make some movies.
Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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 been easier to find the perfect track for any scene – fast.
Use code fridayfilmnotes & get your 1st year of Pro for $59!
We’ve all seen it – especially in TV where the production is moving fast and relying more on dialogue – flapping lips when there’s no dialogue, or the wrong dialogue.
Why does this happen?
Because the editor needed to speed up or slow down the pace of the dialogue, change a line entirely, or introduce a dramatic beat… but they didn’t have a take that worked with that timing.
So they simply replace the audio of the speaking actor, and picked an angle where it’s least noticeable – usually, over the actor’s shoulder.
This always distracts and annoys me, especially because it’s so easily avoidable on set.
Simply shoot these angles with less of the foreground actor’s jaw visible.
The further behind the culprit, the more you can get away with re-writing or re-timing performances in the edit.
But once you can see their jaw moving (or not moving), you’re much more locked in to what they did on set.
Or just shoot your closeups clean, without the other actor in the foreground.
Did you know that feature films almost always have a contingency built into the budget?
It’s almost impossible to exactly predict how much a film will cost to make, and – surprise surprise – when the dust settles it usually ends up erring on the side of being more expensive rather than cheaper.
So it’s good policy to calculate your budget conservatively (meaning, estimate the most expensive each item could be, not the cheapest), and then add in an additional 10% or so to the final budget as your contingency.
I know it hurts adding that big extra line into your budget for what seems like nothing, but it saves you from the greater pain of running over budget during the shoot.
Less stress, more realistic.
I recommend doing the same thing with your shooting schedule. Be conservative, and still add a contingency time slot each day of 45-60 minutes.
If you successfully get through everything on time – congrats! You can grab a bonus shot.
If you’re running behind that day – good thing you had that contingency time scheduled.
As an editor, whenever a scene starts feeling tedious, I always ask myself if we truly NEED everything in it, or if it’s just connecting the dots.
A movie isn’t about showing how someone gets from point A to point B, it’s about exploring the hearts and minds of characters, and creating emotional moments for the audience.
But it’s very easy to assume we need to show something like a character putting on a jacket, simply because he’s wearing it in the following scene…
Well, I’m here to tell you, we definitely don’t need to show that! The audience can fill in the gaps: I guess he put a jacket on when he left.
Never waste their time with mundane shit like that unless it’s serving another, greater purpose.
It’s often surprising how much you can cut out of a film and the story still works. And every time you do this, you’re gaining energy in the form of tighter pacing, and staying one step ahead of the audience, forcing them to keep up and stay engaged.
The key questions when making this decision are:
Another big question in the edit: Where should I put the music?
I think a lot of factors go into this decision, but even once you decide what scenes do and do not need music cues, you’re still not out of the woods…
How do you actually edit the scenes with music?
Do you cut to the music? Do you make the music work with the edit?
My personal rule of thumb is to edit the scene until I like it without any music.
That means the story is moving along and the visuals are holding their weight, and the addition of music should only elevate it even further.
There are some exceptions to this where the music is playing such a central role that it actually dictates the pace of the visuals, but I think my rule is the safe bet.
I recently learned a little about Walt Disney’s rise with his first feature film – Snow White.
One of the big draws to him with picking that story was the 7 dwarves, because he knew his animators would be able to imbue each one with a very strong personality, simply through their style of movement and appearance – and make them memorable.
I think a common issue with novice short films is the writers & directors not giving their characters enough personality, and they would do well to err on the side of caricaturing them instead.
What we usually see with shorts is a very “normal” protagonist, who is something like the writer/director themself.
But what’s more fun to watch as an audience, is a character who is like one of the seven dwarves – grumpy, or dopey, or happy, etc.
So I say pick a dominant personality type, and then try to throw in one contradiction or surprise to make them feel three-dimensional. That’s all you need for a lead in a short.
We don’t get a lot of time with your characters, so lean in and make a bold impression. It’ll be more fun for the audience to see how this bold personality faces the challenges in your short story.
Quote:People call me a perfectionist, but I’m not. I’m a rightist. I do something until it’s right, and then I move on to the next thing. -James Cameron
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldMy 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.
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We built the story around what we already had. About 70% of the movie takes place in my co-writer’s parents’ kitchen… not because it was a perfect location, but because it was free and they would let us take it over for three weeks.
The style of the film was dry and minimalist, lots of wide shots that play out in long takes… mainly because it meant less camera setups. The two leads were my best friends in real life, which made the dialogue easier to write and direct. We just leaned into their natural chemistry together.
By working backwards from what we already had access to, we gained time, control, and creative freedom on a shoestring budget.
Now compare that to my most recent short film, which was probably the first time I didn’t reverse engineer anything. Even though we had a bigger budget, more experienced crew, better resources, and a shorter runtime… it was harder to make.
So if you’re working without a ton of money, connections, or favors to call in (in other words, if you’re an indie filmmaker) reverse-engineering might be the one thing that keeps you making films for the long run. That’s why it’s fundamental to how I designed WRAPPED in 30 Days (btw, 50% off sale ends this weekend!).
So let’s break down how to use this secret weapon, step by step.
This is the most obvious place to reverse-engineer, and where you’ll get the biggest wins.
If your story centers around people, places, and things you already have, your film gets cheaper, faster, and easier to make.
But don’t just look at resources, think about your strengths too.
If you’re great at writing dialogue but don’t have much money or gear, don’t waste time trying to stage a sci-fi prison break with drone shots and VFX. Set your story in a room you already have access to and focus on building great characters. Keep the pacing tight. Let your dialogue be the action.
By working backwards to write something that plays to your strengths and avoids anything you can’t pull off at a high level, you’ll end up with a much stronger final product.
If you’re anything like me, producing gets overwhelming fast. Even on simple projects, the sheer number of to-dos can pile up until you completely freeze up.
And these days, I’m usually producing solo, which makes things even harder… So I’ve learned to work backwards to keep this under control.
I start with a big, ugly to-do list at the very beginning of every project. Any time something pops into my head – “order batteries,” “email location guy,” “figure out what the hell ‘production insurance’ actually covers” – it goes on the list.
Then I give it a priority or a deadline, and boom, it’s off my brain. That alone helps me sleep better. By the way, that’s why it’s the first tab in my Producing Binder Template I send to everyone on this list.
In WRAPPED, we apply the same logic to the entire producing process. You start with scheduling your shoot date, and then work backwards to figure out when all the other milestones need to happen to make that shoot date a reality. Casting, location scouting, shot listing — everything gets scheduled from the start.
Suddenly you’re not reacting to chaos, you’re just following a plan.
This is where reverse-engineering really shines.
Beginner filmmakers often overthink directing or give it a mystical, intimidating aura in their minds. But here’s the thing: if you start by deciding what you want the audience to feel at the end of your film, directing starts getting a lot more common-sense.
I broke it down in this free lesson from WRAPPED that I gave away on YouTube:
If you don’t have time to watch it, the gist of it is that you first ask yourself:
What do you want the audience to think & feel at the end of the story?
What about at the end of each scene?
Each dramatic beat?
Once you know that, all the creative choices become easier – because you know the ultimate purpose for each moment in your film.
If you know the why, the what and how will follow.
And if you can articulate the emotional goal of a scene, your collaborators can help you figure out the best way to achieve it – removing the burden of having all the answers from your shoulders.
You as the director need to have the vision, yes. But the vision does not mean knowing every single answer to every question and decision that pops up. It means knowing how to empower your team to help you reach that end result you’ve determined.
And trust me, actors and cinematographers love this kind of direction because it empowers them and turns them into creative collaborators, not robots. Telling them to do the next take “bigger” isn’t as helpful as explaining the ultimate goal and purpose of the scene.
When I set out to build something that would actually help people grow as filmmakers, I used the exact same approach I’ve been talking about in this email…
I reverse-engineered it.
I asked myself: What’s the end-goal here? What ultimately moves the needle to progress in filmmaking?
And the answer was pretty clear. It’s not reading more books or watching more YouTube videos. It’s making more films.
Consistently.
Getting momentum.
Developing the skills to make the films actually work, and a repeatable process you can come back to again and again.
So I worked backwards from that idea – If making more films is the key to growth, what would help someone actually do that?
That’s where WRAPPED in 30 Days came from.
It’s designed as an actionable system & guide you can follow to get a short film finished, without getting overwhelmed, wasting time, or burning out. A system you can come back to again & again, improving and leveling up each time.
Oh, and everything inside it is reverse-engineered too.
From the weekly structure, to the included templates that save you tedious hours of writing emails, scheduling your shoot days, or figuring out your crafty list.
It’s all built to free up mental space, so you can put your energy into fun and creative parts of filmmaking.
Plus you get to join a private filmmaking community where you can get feedback, ask questions, and share your work with other people who’ve been there and get it.
So if you’re tired of spinning your wheels and ready to actually start building momentum, this is the best way I can help.
And it’s for the first time ever, it is 50% off until Sunday, so now’s the time to hop in.
Enroll today WRAPPED in 30 Days
(50% off sale ending this weekend)
Not the thing for you?
I still recommend giving reverse-engineering a shot.
Write down your filmmaking goal, and then work backwards from it, writing sub-goals and deadlines for each sub-goal. Step by step. The more distant your ultimate goal, the more sub-goals you’ll likely need.
If you want to share your plan, reply to this email. I can’t respond to everyone, but I do read every message.
And getting something written down is always the first step.
Game: Batman: Arkham Asylum (on Switch)I’m way late to the party here, but I just binged my way through this, and it was only $10 on the Switch store. I got addicted to the fighting mechanics, they did an amazing job designing how it works so that it’s easy to pick up but really hard to master. And the better you get, the more you feel like you’re actually Batman, which is every guy’s end-goal (how do I reverse-engineer that??). Might move on to Arkham City now since it’s also on sale…
Quote:“The pain of discipline today is always less than the pain of regret tomorrow.”
Let’s make some movies.
–Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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, and hopefully spare you some filmmaking pain!
To this day I’m humbled by this. Complex storylines have their place in features or epics that can afford the luxury of runtime.
But I’ll die on the hill that short films are not the place for narrative complexity. You can have complex themes, emotions, ideas, etc embedded in the film, but the story itself must be simple.
That’s why in my courses I teach this basic premise for writing short films:
A character wants something, but there’s an obstacle.
Seems overly limiting/simplistic on the surface, but think of a short film you loved that didn’t adhere to this formula.
Figure out who the character is, what they want, and what’s in the way. Do this right, and there’s only so many ways you can screw up a script.
Want another tip? Make that want and that obstacle clear & concrete.
Losing track of these basics is always the first culprit of screenwriting pain.
Directors should always be the most prepared person on set. Anytime I’ve struggled as a director, it’s because I didn’t answer key questions before I walked onto set.
However, that doesn’t mean you need to know everything and have all the answers. I’ll explain what I mean…
In Wrapped in 30 Days I share the template I use to break down every scene in a film so I’m never caught unprepared. (Oh and I just added a new automated spreadsheet that makes it easier than ever to create a shot list and figure out your shooting schedule)
But no matter what tools you’re using, the important thing is you have already answered to yourself what the purpose of every scene in the film is, the purpose of every moment in the film.
If you don’t know why something is happening in your film, you will not be able to properly direct the film.
Because every question that you get asked on set – and there will be many questions – is always going to boil down to a question of purpose. In other words – WHY is this important?
If you know that, then it’s easy to answer the how questions:
You actually don’t need to always know those answers. As long as you know the why, your team can help answer the how for you. But if you don’t know the why, how are they going to help bring your vision to life?
If you do the preparation, directing is the most fun job on earth.
Without preparation? Pain!
If you think your film’s edit is done, but you haven’t watched it with somebody – like, in the same room – you are mistaken. The audience is the final editor.
That person sitting next to you will tell you if your film is done before they even open their mouth. You will sense it. You will feel it in the middle of a scene that’s running too long.
Even if that person is completely stone-faced, the act of watching your edit in the same room as another person lets you watch your film with completely fresh eyes, often more critical eyes, and you will walk away from that screening with a slew of major changes that you want to make in the edit.
I learned this the hard way when I screened my first feature film to hundreds of friends and family in my hometown. We rented a movie theater and had our big premiere, and then halfway into the movie, I knew I’d made a huge mistake…
People were bored out of their minds.
Later, when I re-edited the film, cutting out over 20 minutes of runtime, the reactions were very different. Today it’s gotten over 7 million views online, all organically.
A very painful lesson, but a very important one.
There are other “soft skills” like this I teach alongside the hard, technical skills in the editing course of Wrapped – like intention, pacing, confidence, and storytelling through sound.
These are just as, if not more, important than the lessons on hard skills like mixing audio, types of cuts, etc.
If you want to pursue filmmaking as a career, it may turn out that your favorite parts of filmmaking are not your most marketable skills.
For me, I wanted to write & direct, and that’s all I cared about. One day, some producers I had directed & edited a webseries for, noticed I had exceptional editing skills and were surprised I wasn’t doing it professionally (I was waiting tables at a crappy steakhouse to pay the bills).
I took that to heart, and a few months later, I was editing corporate videos for Netflix and making way more money than I was at the steakhouse. Not to mention expanding my network rapidly.
Last month, I took on a freelance editing gig that I can do in my sleep and made more money doing that than I would in 2 months of grinding on my YouTube channel. Was it fun? Nope! It was an incredibly tedious type of edit. But it gave me the freedom to pursue my passions.
My Going Pro mini-course in Wrapped teaches you how to start and develop a freelance career in film, negotiate rates, and network to find gigs – sharing real conversations I’ve had with clients to get to this position.
If I’d had this guidance earlier, I could’ve expanded my network while making wayyy more money back then – allowing me to write and direct more ambitious projects.
My second feature film took two years to finish—and by the end of it, I was completely burned out. I’d scoped something way too ambitious for the time, money, and support I had, hoping the final product would make it all worth it. It didn’t. The film didn’t turn out well, I pulled it offline, and I was left feeling like I’d wasted years of my life.
But in hindsight, the real mistake wasn’t making a “bad” film. That happens to everyone, even the best filmmakers. The mistake was signing up for a process I couldn’t realistically enjoy or manage, and thinking the end result would justify all the stress.
That experience is a big reason why WRAPPED starts where it does—by helping you scope a short film that’s right-sized for your resources.
The goal isn’t to play it totally safe, but to set up a challenge you can actually win. One that builds your skills, your confidence, and your momentum without making you miserable in the process.
If you’re constantly killing yourself to make projects that are over-scoped and underfunded, you’ll burn out, lose confidence, and eventually stop making films altogether. WRAPPED is designed to prevent that from happening—so that by the end of 30 days, you not only have a film you’re proud of, but you’re excited to start the next one.
And the next one will be a little bigger. A little better. A little closer to the kind of work you ultimately want to create.
For example: I just spent nearly a year making my latest short, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. It was worth it, but it was also intense—and I wouldn’t have survived it if I hadn’t made so many smaller films first.
So I’m looking forward to running through WRAPPED again soon and making something simple, fast, and fun. Those projects matter too. In fact, they’re the reason I’ve been able to keep going.
Want to see these lessons (and 100 more) brought to life?
Better yet, want me to guide you to actually put them into action and make a crowd-pleasing short film in a month, whenever you want?
Then I invite you to join me and 250+ satisfied filmmakers in WRAPPED in 30 Days.
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If you haven’t seen it yet, this is part 1 of a documentary-style series of videos showing the making of my most ambitious short yet – The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
This video covers the first 2 days of our Washington shoot.
Part 2 coming next week
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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.
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 few friends.
Total cost → about $200 (mostly spent on lunch).
It didn’t have impressive production value, fancy camera moves, a scary monster, or action set pieces.
But it had interesting characters and a fun premise.
And slowly, it built momentum, found an audience, and today it has over 200,000 views.
The most expensive of the monthly shorts I made? It cost about $2k, and almost 10 years later it still hasn’t broken 8k views
I think it’s two things:
To help with number 1, I’ve made a lot of YouTube content (and a hell of a mini-course if I do say so).
But what about number 2? This is something every filmmaker has to learn eventually.
And the sooner you do, the sooner your films stop feeling like overwhelming stress-fests that also kind of suck
When I made my first feature film, Bad is Bad, I was 20 years old.
I had made a lot of short films, but I’d only ever worked with friends, so I didn’t know what a “real” crew was supposed to look like, or how they operated.
But I knew we couldn’t pull off a 98-page feature with just our usual DIY crew.
So I decided to go for it.
Bring on pros. Level up.
The problem?
We had $6,000 total. And we’d just spent $1,500 of it on our camera (the legendary Canon 5D Mark II).
That left $4,500 to shoot a full-length film.
No money for proper rates. No connections in Richmond, Virginia’s film scene (did it even exist?).
And worst of all, no real idea how this worked.
Besides a few DIY short films as calling cards, we were starting from scratch.
We posted flyers at the local film school, seeking crew members.
Weeks went by… Crickets.
We kept trying other ways to get a crew.
Eventually, through Craigslist of all places, we found a DP who was crazy enough to join our project for just a $20 per diem and back-end points.
He drove in from across the state, and crashed at my parents’ house for three weeks.
And he shot the hell out of that movie.
That one connection leveled up the entire production.
The rest of the crew? I found a couple of friends who volunteered to be our sound mixer and 1st AC, and trained them up myself over an afternoon.
Was the film a technical marvel? Absolutely not.
But we kept the shoot simple. We planned meticulously. We wrote to our resources.
And you know what?
Oh and the film?
That film changed my life.
And I could’ve never made it without that DP… and the courage to actually try to crew up.
The truth is: the longer you wait to bring on help, the longer your work will plateau.
You’ll stay overwhelmed.
You’ll make fewer films.
You’ll hit a ceiling creatively and practically.
Meanwhile, your peers will move ahead because they know how to bring on help and delegate.
That’s why I made something I wish I’d had back then.
This is the ultimate crash course in how to build a real film crew without a big budget.
I’ve included:
More important than that, you’ll get the confidence to start, even when you don’t know where to start.
You’ll soon be working with pros and collaborating like a real director.
You’ll stop feeling stuck.
And you’ll start making better films with less stress.
Beta Launch for the First 50 FilmmakersRight now, The Crewing Up Playbook is just $27 during this beta test run.
That’s 70% off the final price, but there’s only 50 spots available and they’ve been going fast.
Don’t let fear or a lack of budget hold you back from better filmmaking.
Book: Grant by Ron Chernow
This biography of Ulysses S. Grant is the one I should have read first, before trying to slog through his incredibly dry and not-very-transparent memoirs.
For example, Grant didn’t mention his career-spanning issues with alcohol once during his memoirs, but Chernow gives a very balanced view of his struggles, besides revealing a ton of personality and depth across the rest of his life.
I’ve been flying through the 48-hour-long audiobook, still a long way to go.
One fun anecdote: Grant was forced to resign from his military career early on due to issues with alcohol. When he got a second chance to rejoin at the outbreak of the Civil War, he strategically kept his abstinent buddy John Aaron Rawlins at his side throughout the war to keep him sober.
It mostly worked, but when Grant would occasionally fall off the wagon, he’d get a serious berating from Rawlins. At first, his staff was amazed that the all-mighty Grant would accept a scolding from a military inferior, but Grant would take his lumps appreciatively. Turns out Rawlins himself had serious struggles with alcohol before embracing abstinence, so it seems like they figured out sponsors before AA was even a thing.
Video: Total Pixel Space
This is the first AI film I’ve loved, partially because it’s an appropriate use of AI, and partly because it’s a truly interesting concept.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldIn 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
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Filmmaking is (usually) terribly expensive.
There’s a lot of ways to finance an independent film, but unfortunately, they all require a lot of work and effort over a long period of time.
So ultimately, the best way to finance a film is to make a cheaper film.
But let’s first break the best fundraising options down, starting with expensive indie films and working our way down to financing a backyard short!
When you’re making a feature, you’re essentially starting a business, and you can seek out potential investors to pitch your project as such.
That means you not only need to be able to pitch a compelling story, you need to pitch a likely path to profitability.
In other words, you need an amazing script & pitch deck, plus a whole business plan.
This takes some real time and effort – and most of us aren’t business-savvy enough to be able to realistically forecast how much money our indie is going to make. You’ll probably need to consult with multiple experts to put a sound business plan together (experienced producers, sales reps, distributors, entertainment attorneys, etc.)
But after all that legwork, at least we have more ways to reach investors now.
There’s the Kickstarter of investing, WeFunder, which Jim Cummings used to finance his most recent feature, The Beta Test.
I invested the minimum amount of $100 and, a couple years later, got back $134 – not bad!
I can definitely see this becoming common for even bigger films. What film fan wouldn’t want to invest in a passion project from Scorsese etc?
In fact, Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth have done something similar recently, crowdfunding equity in their film studios to the tune of millions of dollars. If their film projects end up being successful, all those investors will make a return on their investments for years to come.
There’s also grants. These are tough to come by in the US, especially if you’re not a part of a special group/identity. However, many European countries have amazing govt grants for indie film.
Another way is through pre-sales of distribution rights, but this is advanced territory and usually you’ll need a sales agent and name talent attached to your film to pull this off.
To me, without name talent involved, this feels like the sweet spot for having a real shot at making your money back. Plus its lower price tag opens up new possibilities for funding.
Hell, if you’re lucky, one rich uncle could cover the whole check! This is what I recommend 
Kickstarter becomes a more reasonable approach at this level (probably not for the full budget, but to supplement it at least).
And as someone who’s run 2 successful Kickstarter campaigns many years ago (totaling about $20k), I can tell you – it is WORK. You’re starting a full-time marketing job when you go this route. But it can really pay off if you have enough goodwill behind your team and your project.
By the way, part of the budget is usually self-funded at this level too. After all, if you don’t have skin in the game, why would anyone else want to risk their money?
Grants, in-kind services, and working out deferred pay agreements with your team will also help out the budget big time.
At this budget level, I’d gather a few hungry collaborators, make them my co-producers, and split the budget between us. If everyone has jobs and some savings, this is going to be the quickest route to start shooting (after all, time is money too).
When we made our first feature film for $6,000, the budget came from my 2 friends and I saving from our part-time jobs in college, and a getting lucky in a few short film competitions that included prize money (or prizes we sold for money!)
And then years later, my co-writer Chris and I paid what we could for our short film Will “The Machine”, then ran a Kickstarter to raise some more, then took out a $10k loan to cover the rest.
Was it annoying to pay that loan off over the next 3 years? Sure. But the payments were do-able for both of us, and that loan allowed us to start making the film when we needed to, and focus on filmmaking instead of fundraising.
Just beware – friendships can go awry, especially when mixed with business. Get everything agreed to on paper ahead of time to avoid landing in difficult situations (could even happen many years down the road).
Ahh yes, time to forget about actually making money, we’re talking about short films now baby!
Don’t get me wrong, even though short films don’t make money directly, I still think they are a good investment. How else can you:
Etc?
Because even though they’re cheaper, they’re usually still a long way from free.
Well it’s often the same methods as with the sub-$50k features. But we have a few more tricks up our sleeves…
We can use all our favors, and shamelessly ask for discounts & free labor everywhere we go.
After all, this is a passion project – ain’t no shorts making anyone rich out here! Are you telling me you don’t want to be a patron of the arts? Have you culture?!
PLUS it’s usually only a weekend of shooting , so borrowing gear and finding volunteers to crew on it becomes easier.
On the other hand, my recent short, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody, ended up being quite expensive and taking 6 days to shoot (spread out over 3 weeks!). These tactics would only take me so far…
My main fundraising for it was brand sponsorships. Most notably – Milanote and Hollyland. In exchange for a list of deliverables (like behind-the-scenes videos), they provided some money and gear for the production.
But what I eventually realized, is that these brand sponsorships ARE my job. I’m a full-time Youtuber already, so I’m essentially just paying for the film with money from my normal job… The idea seemed a lot sexier on paper ahead of time
If you’re able to get local businesses or businesses that are somehow related to the premise/message of your film – this may be a viable route for you even without a social media following.
Another option – become a non-profit entity! Then if anyone donates money/resources to your film it can be a tax write-off for them.
That’s what my friend Daniel did for his big short film, A Brush of Violence, when he needed a mansion location. The location rental fee was considered a charitable donation by the owner and helped him save on taxes – win-win.
Actually, I probably should have done this for my film…
At the end of the day, I still put at least $10k of my savings into the film, and my fellow producers put a few thousand in too.
But we were all happy to do it – I think this project will open a lot of doors for us professionally. That said, even if it doesn’t, it was worth it for the amazing experiences and memories alone.
Well, there is no 1 clear solution here.
One way or another, you gotta work to earn the money that pays for your passion projects.
So the best solution is to either become rich or start making cheaper films!
That’s what we’ll talk about next week (from a producing standpoint)…
But for now, if you want to learn to write head-turning, no-budget short films you could film right now with the money you already have – check out my Instant Short Film Blueprint. I’m super proud of everything I packed into this 2-hour course and how effectively the lessons are laid out.
Here’s what a recent buyer said about it:
Enroll today and you can finish a great script tonight! Instant Short Film Blueprint
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldFirst 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 talk about with filmmaking.
Let’s get into it!
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 been easier to find the perfect track for any scene – fast.
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I’d envisioned the soundstage shoot as “easier” than Washington, and in some ways, I was right.
First off – we had infrastructure!
DoorDash! Nearby supplies! Electricity! Wi-Fi!
All the luxuries of big-city shooting.
Besides that, we had almost twice the crew working here vs Washington, so physically, it was much less difficult for all of us.
Joining us on set this time were our production designer, Michael, who meticulously created and dressed the cave set. Meanwhile our additional grip and lighting teams would fly in and rig complex overhead lighting schemes before we even finished saying what we needed done.
It was truly impressive. I’d forgotten how nice it is to ask myself a question out loud, and have someone immediately start solving that problem.
This is the difference between bringing on experienced crew, and doing things solo or with beginners – assuming you’ve done your prep, things just start happening automatically because they are able to anticipate needs across the shoot.
At the end of the shoot I asked our gaffer if he preferred the Washington shoot or the soundstage shoot more. He said “That’s like asking if I prefer basketball more than baseball – I love them both!”
In WA we were shooting in nature everyday, and working with what we had – mainly the sun. That style of shooting was all about adaptation.
In the soundstage, any visible light was purposely placed by us. That means we have total control, and it becomes all about precision.
Both offer their own unique challenges.
Our cave shoot was split by aesthetics: Day 1 for the lived-in look, and Day 2 for the untouched for 100 years look.
This meant a massive art reset, complete with aging, weathering, dusting, and cobweb application. We also planned a complete shift in shooting style for Day 2 – from formalistic dolly shots with vintage lenses, to suddenly shooting handheld with modern glass.
My goal was to crush Day 1, staying on a somewhat aggressive schedule, to give us breathing room for the substantial Day 2 art and style changes.
Our secret weapon? Day Zero.
This was the whole week before the shoot, dedicated to meticulous prep with my DP, Casey. We broke down every shot, determined the optimal order, and recreated exact angles in my backyard using the Artemis app on an iPhone.
This allowed us to mock up precise shots, giving us a blueprint for the actual shoot so there was no guessing about which lens to use or what angle to shoot from.
We also got lucky: the set owner let us in early on a Friday for a crucial tech scout. While the DP and lighting board operator nosed around and talked lighting, Toni and I loaded in a whole U-Haul van full of set dressing, props, and greenery.
Getting that massive load-in done on Friday was clutch, saving us immense time and stress on Monday morning.
We rolled into Day 1 feeling prepared. The initial setup on a soundstage is a different beast than when filming on location. You’re always working from scratch in terms of lighting.
I’d scheduled about four hours for load-in and set-up before our first shot – a simple, very tight closeup on Oliver.
But our crew was so efficient, we were actually an hour ahead of schedule when we finally started rolling.
I announced it proudly, and my DP reprimanded me: “Don’t tell us that!”
He was right to keep us grounded.
Our 2nd shot of the day, a seemingly simple locked-off shot of the cave, immediately turned into a significant time sink.
Why? Because it was the first time the detailed set and full lighting scheme were visible.
While our initial close-up was quick, this wide shot revealed the true scope of work, ultimately costing us that hour we had won, and putting us squarely back on schedule.
We captured some really excellent footage, and day 1 wrapped mostly without incident, though we ended about an hour short of my ambitious schedule.
The biggest miss? Dedicated time for key art photos.
Knowing the importance of strong key art (especially for YouTube thumbnails), I’d set aside 30 minutes to capture some poster-worthy images, but we simply ran out of time.
We got our last shot and then immediately packed out, so I scheduled our unit stills photographer to come in first thing on Day 2.
Still, a successful Day 1 overall.
I started Day 2 feeling very optimistic – home stretch now!
We’d scheduled a luxurious (after my sleep-deprived Washington shoot) 12-hour turnaround.
So I woke up refreshed, rented another U-haul van for the big end of day load-out, and got to set early, noting a few people already waiting outside.
Then my phone rang – our site rep was having car trouble and was running 45 minutes late.
This wouldn’t be a big deal… except he’s the only one with a key to let us into the set. 
Immediate deflation. On top of the extra time I needed for the key art today – we lost 45 minutes!
While waiting to be let in, some of us grabbed food from a nearby pupuseria. (Turns out I was starving, so maybe this was a blessing)
Casey and I used that downtime to strategize how to make up the lost 45 minutes. We found an opportunity late in the day to pick up the pace.
Finally we got into the set – first priority: those key art photos.
I treated this like any other shot, demanding a full lighting setup. Even better, it doubled as prep for a similar shot in the film. But it took a full hour (double what I’d allocated) 
While the camera department prepped for the handheld shots, Michael furiously aged the set with cobwebs and dust. We were finally moving.
I camera operated for the found-footage style shots. But since my character is wearing a jacket, and there’s no air conditioning on the set, I was drenched in sweat by the end of it.
Worth it!
When the crew gets bigger, as the director you can feel a little detached from the physical making of a film.
Getting to swing around that Alexa 35 on the EasyRig was the most fun part of the cave shoot for me.
The post-lunch shots were the scary climax shots, but thanks to our earlier planning, they went smoothly, and we clawed back that lost morning time.
The grand finale? A shot involving a blood pump rig.
These always make me nervous; you never know how the blood will flow – and resetting & cleaning up the blood is always a time-consuming pain.
Our first take was decent – usable for sure.
We had just enough time for 2 more takes, so we went for it.
The second take barely produced any blood. No good.
For the final attempt, I told our special effects artist to give it everything. We adjusted the tubing to flow closer to camera, and… it was perfect – lots of blood, timed just right.
That’s the one for the movie, I’m sure of it.
We wrapped the shoot with champagne and a celebratory crew photo.
Then, the real work began: furiously cleaning and packing.
Camera and grip were quick, but the art department’s cleanup was a marathon. Sweeping up a dirt floor, cleaning and boxing up countless dusty, dirtied props for returns took hours. Toni and I finally got home at 11 PM.
And the grind didn’t stop there. The next day was a “returns tour” of the San Fernando Valley with the U-Haul – five or six stops of dropping off rentals.
Even then, our house was still a disaster zone when we finished.
That’s why I wasn’t able to write this up last week lol, wrapping the shoot didn’t mean work was over by any means.
Also for the last 2 months I haven’t been able to do much in the way of YouTube videos, so I’ve been slowly burning money. I knew I’d need to get back to work immediately after shooting to bring in some dough and keep the lights on.
Amazingly, an old editing client hit me up with a month-long gig while I was on set – which I could start the day after wrap!
Despite the fact that now I’m juggling this editing gig, multiple YouTube videos, and hopefully editing the film itself – it’s a huge relief having some extra income coming soon.
The movie gods provide.
If I had known how challenging putting this film together would actually be – I definitely would not have gone through with it
But now that it’s finally sunk in that this ambitious shoot is over, the overwhelming emotion is gratitude.
Gratitude for every single person who donated their time, energy, skills, and belief to this project. It truly feels like they saw something in the film and in our team, and it’s a humbling reminder of how far I’ve come to be able to work with such great people.
There’s so much more to come, including tons of behind-the-scenes content from both parts of the shoot. I might even make a mini-documentary for the channel!
Huge thanks to Kim Preston, our unit stills photographer, for some of the fantastic photos in this issue.
And lastly, thank you for reading this newsletter and watching the YouTube videos. None of this would have been possible without your support.
I hope everything I learned on this film and continue sharing will be helpful to you in your own projects.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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 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 been easier to find the perfect track for any scene – fast.
Use code fridayfilmnotes & get your 1st year of Pro for $59!
Day 1 – Travel & Shoot
After creating yet another new version of the schedule, packing & prepping our house for the cat-sitter, Toni and I caught a whopping 2 hours of sleep, then met with our gaffer and lead actor at Burbank airport for our 7am flight to Seattle.
This was my first time meeting our gaffer, and he was perfectly picked for the job – he’s been working on unscripted survival TV shows for years.
When we landed, it was straight to the car rental facility to grab a minivan – then we drove 90 minutes to our main filming location out in Index, WA.
Casey (DP/producer) and our AC were already there, having put in an extra few days of prep and testing on site. Chris (co-writer/producer) and his wife were also there early, and had already started stocking us up with crafty.
We took a couple hours to get unpacked and set up. Then I ran through a quick production meeting over lunch before we headed over to the river to start shooting.
Knowing we’d be exhausted, I only scheduled 2 shots for the day – both simple but unique setups. We could get them out of the way while easing into working together.
All went well, so we packed up and sat down for dinner.
After that, Casey and I walked through the plan for the following day. So far we were exactly on schedule.
Call time was 3:15am, so people started moseying into our production office/staging area around 2:30am for breakfast.
We decided a couple days before the shoot to abandon the idea of an overnight schedule, and instead just wake up early to take advantage of blue hour and golden hour at sunrise (5:15am). If we needed night shots, we’d wake up extra early.
Our first blue hour challenge was to capture 2 dolly shots around the remains of a campfire. It took a combined effort from everyone to get both of them set dressed, lit, and framed up in the very brief window of time where the light would look right.
We barely got it done in time, but we did, and the team was starting to flow together.
After that, we were off to the river again, shooting for the rest of the day.
This was fairly uneventful because we stayed exactly on schedule (we love that).
At 3:45pm, we wrapped for the day and a few of us stuck around to prep for the next morning, and what we thought would be the most physical challenge of the shoot…
Call time was 3am – and started with a company move to a nearby hiking trail.
Everybody was carrying gear on their back – ranging from 25-60+ lbs!
We picked up a blue hour shot out there, then a golden hour shot a little further up the trail. After that, it was a 2 mile hike up the mountain to our cave entrance location.
We had scheduled 90 minutes for the hike, but our team was crushing it – and we made it up in only an hour. We broke for lunch (pre-packed sandwiches), and planned out a bonus shot we now had ample time for – and I’m so glad we got it.
Then it was over to the nearby location we came up here for. Again, we stayed on schedule and everything went smoothly, and all the shots up there exceeded my expectations.
Then it was time for the hike back down the mountain – and by the time we got back to the trailhead at 1:30pm my shoulders were killing me from carrying all that gear.
I thought the biggest physical challenge of the shoot was done… but it turned out I was wrong.
After dinner, Casey and I planned out the details of the opening scare of the film at the river the next day, then Toni and I spent an hour creating footprints in mud for a blue hour shot the next morning. We were spent.
Call time was 2am! Which meant we were all awake around 1am. Today was going to be a long day.
The reason we started so early was to pop off all our remaining night/blue hour shots. The footprint shots were particularly annoying to get – turns out it’s really hard to make footprints show clearly on camera. This day was aggressively scheduled, and for the first time, we started falling behind schedule.
When we relocated to the river to shoot our opening scare, the water was still icy cold. That sucks for us, because half of us were about to be standing in that water, for quite a while.
This is where morale started really breaking – we were struggling to get the precise timing and blocking of the scare shot to work, and to shoot it, we needed 4 of us standing out in that cold, slippery river.
We fell an hour behind schedule until we finally got one take of the scare that worked. I saw it on the little monitor over Casey’s shoulder and called it – moving on.
I figured if it “got me” there, it would work great on a big screen with sound design.
We got the hell out of the river and broke for lunch as we started feeling our toes again.
The rest of the day was picking up a series of shots we planned to shoot right next to our production office/staging area. It was a welcome relief from the physical and mental challenges of the past day and a half.
Amazingly, we made up all our lost time here, and even finished the day slightly ahead of schedule – with no compromises to the shots we caught at the end of the day, which ended up being some of my favorites.
But our day was far from over…
Cue 2 hours of packing up, cleaning up the ranch we had rented for lodging & shooting, and then driving 2 hours through traffic back to the Seattle airport.
After a couple of airport drinks, by the time I got on the plane, I was completely out of it.
Toni and I finally went to sleep in our own bed, almost 24 hours after call time 
The dominant feeling was – I can’t believe we got away with all that!
There were a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, but all the extra effort we put into prep really paid off. The rest was a very healthy portion of luck.
If we had had ONE less person, we couldn’t have done what we did. And if I could turn back time, I definitely would have hired a couple of extra PA’s or runners out there.
But regardless, we got it done, stayed safe, captured some of the best footage of my career, and made memories to last a lifetime. What more can you ask for?
We just have 2 more days of shooting here in LA – coming up in a couple of days actually! These will be our cave interiors, shot on a soundstage.
Compared to the Washington leg of the shoot, I think these 2 final days will feel almost decadently cushy. We’ll have more hands on set, in a controlled environment, in a city where you have conveniences like… getting food delivered for example. Breezy!
Huge thanks to everyone who came out for the Washington shoot, I’ll be giving them their proper flowers in the BTS videos. Shout out to our great unit stills photographer Alley Rutzel for the pics in this issue!
Much more to come. Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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 course on writing no-budget short films. It’s been really popular and continues getting rave reviews.
It’ll show you how easy and fun it can be to write no-budget, easily shootable, crowd-pleasing films whenever you want (while helping me pay the bills this month ).
And thanks for following along y’all. We’re documenting everything we do up there, so much more to come very soon.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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.”
I think there’s this invisible, but massive, gap in filmmaking that lives between good (or we could say, competent) and great.
The difference between bad and good can be pretty basic.
Get it in focus. Record clean audio. Don’t bore the audience.
But the difference between good and great? That’s where things get trickier.
It’s cohesion. It’s texture. It’s when every choice feels intentional, and nothing pulls you out of the world. It’s the kind of short that doesn’t just play well at festivals, it sticks with people.
But the scary thing is, you can so easily lose that greatness one lazy decision at a time.
You know how this goes.
You shoot in the middle of the day instead of golden hour, because you’re tired.
You cheap out on a costume that’s almost right.
You rush through a scene to beat the clock.
You say, “Yeah, that’s good enough.”
Each decision makes sense in the moment. But add them up, and suddenly you’ve chipped away at the very thing you were aiming for.
And with this particular project, where nothing comes easy, and every single element has to be built, borrowed, bought, or hacked together – that temptation to settle is always lurking.
But if I’ve spent many months and many thousands of dollars trying to make something special, then “good enough” really isn’t.
This film is ambitious in ways that aren’t very practical.
We didn’t have locations, we had to find them.
We don’t have costumes, we’re renting them.
We don’t have props, we’re building and scouring for everything.
There’s no easy solution to anything.
Every problem is a puzzle, and every puzzle has ten sub-puzzles.
And when you’re this deep in the weeds, it becomes really tempting to say, “Screw it. That’s fine.”
But I know what “fine” looks like on screen, and it’s not what I want for this film.
When you’re working alone – good enough is usually all you can even hope for… But fortunately, I’m not the only one investing in this.
They’re all giving a lot, and I’m extremely grateful for it, because it truly takes a village to even have a chance at making something great.
So I want to make this film something they’ll be proud to have been a part of. Something they can look at without caveats or disclaimers. Something great.
I might fail, but the intention and discipline to not cut corners is there.
Thanks for reading. If you’re working on something right now, I hope this gives you the urge to push past “good enough.”
Because great is within reach, but only if you chase it.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?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.
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 my team in real time. It keeps all my creative ideas and planning in one place—I love it.
Production meeting – 1 hour
Phone call with my DP/producer Casey about the status of all the tasks on our plate – crew, dates, priorities, insurance, etc.
We also scheduled a day this weekend to do a test shoot for some of the SFX shots we still haven’t tested plus our entire final scene. I can’t wait.
Research – 1 hour
For our ending scene, it’s all POV/found footage style, and part of it is in night vision. We could use the Alexa 35 we’ll be shooting on for this, but I have a feeling it’ll feel “realer” with a real camcorder with night vision.
Plus we may want to mount the camcorder to our actual cinema camera, and film the camcorder’s flip-out LCD screen like this:
So I looked into camcorders with night vision mode, and learned a lot about which models ghost hunters prefer using. Some are quite old and low-res, but I figured a 4k model would be the safe bet.
Found a couple of great deals for them on Facebook Marketplace and reached out with a lowball offer.
Normal work – Rest of day
This includes regular admin and planning for the YouTube channel, plus some of the deliverables I owe the sponsors of the film (gotta get that budget collected soon!)
Call with production designer – 45 minutes (+1 hr research)
After some emailing back and forth, we finally got on the phone and I was very relieved to have locked him in as our PD.
We talked through some of the options we have for sourcing the many specific props and set dressings we’ll need for this project, and he set my worries at ease. It looks like there’s a couple of rental houses out here that will have most of our art list, with very little modifications needed!
After our call, I spent another hour or so looking at the websites of the houses he recommended and pulling images.
Next, we’ll make a trip in person to these prop houses and make our actual selections (I’ll try to record this, would make for a fun video).
Call with insurance broker – 1 hour
This monkey has been on my back for way too long!
I had hoped to piggyback on another production company’s policy and save some money here (that’s what we did for our last big short film) – but I got crickets from the producer I reached out to, so figured we were on our own and would have to shell out.
Fortunately, this phone call cleared up a lot of the confusion I’d had about what insurance we needed and how much it was actually going to cost.
Is it going to be expensive? Yep.
But there’s no way around it for the vendors we’re working with (not to mention the liability I might be exposed to if something went wrong on set). And the cost isn’t as bad as I feared it might be… Onwards!
Bought camcorder from FB Marketplace- 30 minutes
I got a bite on my lowball offer for a great night vision camera, and ran out to buy it in cash. After the film is done, I should be able to resell this on eBay for a $100-$200 profit 
Call with other producer – 30 minutes
I caught our other producer up with the latest, and chatted some other details we still had to work out.
Meeting with lead – 2.5 hours
Met up with Oliver Brody himself, Thatcher Robinson, who I’ve worked with a few times before.
We met at what turned out to be an incredible bagel shop halfway between us, but I forgot that Thatcher was losing weight for the role – he’s already down 11 lbs! Me choosing a bagel place was a cruel move for an actor on a diet, whoops
We broke down the script scene by scene, talking through the character’s motivations, and generally getting on the same page.
I also got confirmation that he’s available to join us on our 2nd test shoot this weekend, score.
Researched wardrobe options – 1.5 hours
Found some costume rental shops near us that should have what we’re looking for.
Fortunately, we’re only have one actor to dress in this film, which simplifies things quite a bit, but still – it’s a period piece and needs to look great.
There’s one rental shop in town that looks like it specializes in period wardrobe, so I’ll have to make a visit there with Thatcher soon.
Today!
Well I wrote this newsletter, updating you fine folks about how we’re doing.
Other than that I’m getting some work that pays the bills done, and then taking off early today – it’s been a mad rush this week.
Looking forward to knocking a few more movie to-do’s off my list tomorrow, then prepping for the test shoot this weekend.
Stay tuned for more next week.
Movie: Warfare
As an Alex Garland fan, I was excited to watch this, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s very different from his other films, in fact he co-directed it with an Iraq veteran who was there.
But the unrelenting focus on realism was very effective – it didn’t feel Hollywood, it felt like I was right there with these soldiers the whole time, and the tension never let up.
Excellent performances too, felt very authentic. Highly recommend watching in theaters for the great sound design.
QuoteSelf-plagiarism is style” -Alfred Hitchcock
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Toni and I stepped out of the bustling market, and into a little camera shop I’d visited the last time I was in Australia a couple years ago.
She needed some film for her 35mm camera, and I wanted to look at all the old cameras inside.
We went to check out, when the young guy behind the counter paused and said: “Oh, I love your YouTube channel.”
Me: “Whoa, no way!”
Him: “Yeah, wait… what are you doing here?”
Great question.
It was a weird moment because I hadn’t thought about YouTube, or filmmaking, or work at all that day… or even for a few days. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time that was true.
Hell, the last time I was in Australia, I’d been sneaking in hours and hours of editing a YouTube video between visits with family.
But this trip was the least I’ve worked (or thought about work) in years – and I needed it.
Even though we were there for a funeral, in the midst of it I got to reconnect with family and take a moment to step out of the life I’ve been sprinting through for the past two years to refocus on what really matters.
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Bird’s Eye Views
I love the perspective shift traveling can provide. The flight back is always when things really click for me, and this time I just thought about how my usual routine has become such a treadmill.
And I’ve been cranking the speed higher and higher chasing after an imaginary time called “someday.”
Someday I’ll slow down.
Someday I’ll write for fun again.
Someday I’ll start that feature.
But “someday” is a moving target. It’s an excuse to skip today.
And I’ve been skipping a lot of todays.
Health. Relationships. Creativity. I’ve been trading them for work tasks that always seem urgent—until you’re 8,000 miles away and realize the uncomfortable truth that:
Most of your work doesn’t really matter.
Probably only a few things actually move the needle. The rest just feels important in the moment.
Most emails don’t need responses (at least quick ones).
Most details you obsess over will go unnoticed.
But hearing a film student on the other side of the world say your YouTube videos have helped him more than a lot of his classes – okay, that actually matters. Make more videos.
By the way, the few really important things you need to do, are also usually the things you avoid the most (that’s how you know they’re important).
If you always feel too busy, it’s best to face the uncomfortable truth – that’s unlikely to ever change.
There’s a part of you that probably likes being busy.
That’s okay, just use that knowledge to accept that “someday” will never arrive, so if you want to live differently, today is the only time to do it. Because there’s always time to exercise, call a friend, write a scene, or re-watch a favorite movie – TODAY.
There’s never time for these things if you’re always willing to defer it in favor of more work.
So in the coming months I’m excited to cut out some parts of my work, and bring more of my enthusiasm and energy to what’s left, and what can create an actual impact.
One of them being…
At long last, we’re only 30 days away from principal photography for my next short!
On the (very long) flight back from Australia, I finally broke the script down with detailed directing notes. I’ve waited way too long to do this, but in my defense the script kept changing. Now that the script is locked and my thoughts are on paper, I feel much more prepared and confident.
I also used that valuable time in the air to write a list of priorities for the rest of pre-production this month, including:
I’ll be documenting some fun parts of pre-pro with behind-the-scenes videos, but I’ll wait to finish & release those until after principal photography.
Until then, I’ll keep giving you a live peek here as it all comes together.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Over the past few weeks I’ve been traveling almost non-stop for family events, location scouting, and the NAB conference. After these were done, I had planned to buckle down and get this upcoming short film ready to shoot by June 2nd.
I could really feel the clock ticking, we were weeks away and still had a LOT of details left to sort out. With so much of my time, energy, and money invested in this project – the last thing I wanted was a sloppy shoot.
And then we decided to make some script changes (again), erasing some of the work we’d already done. Now it felt like we were moving backwards, while my anxiety was barreling ahead.
I thought, “Okay, it’ll be tight, but I still think I can get all this done in time…”
And then life happened.
I got word that we lost a family member… in Australia.
I wish I could say it immediately put the stress of this project in perspective… But to be honest, after the news sunk in and I realized I’d lose another week traveling to attend the funeral, it was the last straw for me. I was totally overwhelmed and had a little pity-party meltdown.
There’s not enough time. This film is going to be a catastrophe… a very public catastrophe.
I give all the credit to Toni for talking me off the bridge and getting me to do the one thing I needed to do all along…
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 my team in real time. It keeps all my creative ideas and planning in one place—I love it.
The big problem holding up the film was I was shouldering too many producing responsibilities. Even though there are 2 other producers on this project, it was easy for me to tell myself “But I’m directing this thing, I need to step up and lead by example.”
In reality, they needed to be tasked with their own responsibilities and empowered to tackle those tasks proactively. And I needed to let them know I was struggling to move the ball down the field fast enough.
Once we had this conversation (that should have happened weeks earlier), suddenly things started happening. Deadlines got created. A new master spreadsheet turned nebulous to-do’s into concrete tasks. In a matter of a week, the script got revised and LOCKED. Long overdue phone calls were made. More people joined the project.
In other words – the production is relying less and less on ME to move forward.
Which is how it should be – this isn’t MY film, it’s ours. We’ve all invested a lot into it.
In fact, as the director I need to start spending more time thinking creatively about this project and less time in the weeds of the nuts and bolts of making it happen.
So I guess the moral of this issue is – It’s easy for asking for help or admitting you’re overwhelmed to feel like an admission of weakness or incompetence in making your film… but if it ultimately helps the film, who cares? Protecting your ego should never be as important as protecting the film.
And at the end of the day, there’s not much independence in independent filmmaking. It usually takes a village to make something worthwhile.
So now I’m typing this on a plane high over the Pacific, as Toni and I accompany my mom to a funeral on the other side of the world for 10 days. And for the first time in weeks, my anxiety about the film is gone. I’m confident it’ll be ready in time, and I can spend this week being present with the Australian side of my family.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s my recent video about putting our storyboards for this film to the test in a black box theater style test shoot:
Of course with the recent script updates, lots of these shots are obsolete
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?This week Toni and I attended NAB – a huge trade show in Las Vegas for all things media and broadcast.
There were hundreds of booths from familiar and new companies in the video, audio, and software side of what we do.
Also attending were creative professionals, including readers of this newsletter (
), and some fellow YouTubers.
It was my first time going to NAB and I had no idea what to expect, but here some learnings I walked away with…
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#1) The industry continues to innovate
I was a brand ambassador for Hollyland on this trip, so spent some extra time at their booth showing off their new products.
Meanwhile, Toni roamed the floor and sat in on a talk from the editor of Gladiator 2 (jealous).
The most exciting Hollyland product to me was their upcoming Lark Max 2 wireless mic kit. It has most discreet transmitters I’ve seen yet that are capable of 32-bit float internal recording, timecode, and automatic gain control, to name a few…
But the biggest innovation is their wireless audio monitoring earbuds. With them you can listen to the audio coming through the wireless mics in real-time! This would give me a ton of re-assurance in small shoots without a dedicated sound mixer.
The only downside – the transmitters are too small to sport a 3.5mm jack for external lavs. They only have a USB C jack – but if they come out with a secure dongle that lets you attach any lav to the transmitter, sign me up.
This updated Pyxis model offers double the resolution, and 3 stops more dynamic range in the same compact, riggable body – whoa!
This could be a good fit for our upcoming short film – we’ll have to lug our gear a couple miles into the wilderness to shoot, so lighter is better. We also have a couple of specific setups that require flexibility in the rigging, which would this this preferable over the Ursa Cine for example.
I didn’t get to spend as much time at the Adobe booth as I would have liked, but I was very impressed by some of the new AI-powered features they’re putting out.
I usually don’t update to the latest version of Premiere until they work out most of the bugs, so I haven’t tested these out firsthand, but the demos at NAB were impressive.
Their “Media Intelligence” feature means all footage in a project can be searched through instantly using natural language, which could save hundreds of hours of manual logging and digging through footage, especially for big documentaries with tons of broll.
Instead, just type in “closeup of old man”, or “beer bottle”, and the right clips should magically appear in the search panel. Same with searching through auto-generated transcripts of dialogue.
If it actually works, I’ll use this all the time.
And their “Generative Extend” feature could be a lifesaver for those shots and sound effects that end just a little too soon. Just drag them out to the length you need and the AI will seamlessly create more of the video or audio you need.
It seems like a lot of individuals involved in all sides of film & video are looking to either start or commit further to their own YouTube channels.
To be fair, the small sample I’m getting this from is heavily biased – the people who recognized and wanted to chat it up are more likely to be heavy Youtube users themselves.
Some don’t want to pursue it as a career path in and of itself, but more of a side-hustle to support & promote their work.
Either way, it’s cool to see YouTube’s growth in stature among film professionals. What once was a very real stigma in this industry, is now being recognized as a valuable way to grow a career in it. I believe that trend will only continue in the coming years.
To everyone who watches the channel and reads this newsletter that stopped and said hi the past few days – thanks so much for your support!
It’s easy to start thinking all the videos and emails are just going out into a black void, and that any comments they receive are just… comments, disassociated from a real person.
But shaking hands and hearing your stories of how it helped you face-to-face reminds me that all this has real value for real people, and lights a fire under me to keep doing more.
Especially with this newsletter! The Friday Film Notes readers I met at NAB have made me want to commit to returning to a strict weekly cadence. I think I will
What really made NAB special was the amazing people we met out there – especially my fellow creators – I was blown away at how inviting, friendly, fun, and open they were.
Living in LA, the film world can get a little stuffy and guarded. But at NAB I learned so much about how other creators from around the world are making it work, without any gatekeeping or ego.
I even met some Washington locals who offered to help out on our short film shoot up there.
Also, they know how to party. Here’s what my final morning in Vegas looked like.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Last week, me and my DP/producer Casey flew up to Washington for our second (and final) location scout for my next short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
Our earlier Lake Tahoe scout was a bit too rushed and ultimately proved fruitless. But this time we needed to find the place.
Not inspiration. Not possibilities. Solutions. So we could lock the locations, figure out the logistics, and start budgeting.
So the attitude going into this trip was: This is where we’re making the film… whether it cooperates or not.
In the end, it mostly cooperated… but it sure made us work for it.
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio
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The Lodging ProblemWe flew into Seattle, rented a car, and drove to a small, remote town about an hour away. Beautiful place. Horrible infrastructure.
The only motel I could find online that didn’t cost a fortune felt straight out of the backrooms. No lamps. Cold showers. Liminal space vibes. There’s no way we could ask cast and crew to stay there.
But we were eye-ing some AirBnB’s as our primary shooting location and lodging for the team anyway, so we set out for those the next morning.
Unfortunately, when we scouted them out – both options turned out disappointing.
For various reasons they just didn’t live up to the hype of the AirBnB photos. Plus both were too small to host our entire team anyway, so we would have been split up, creating logistical annoyances.
Luckily, by asking around town, we found a better hotel nearby. Cozy, clean, everyone could have their own room, and they had an on-site café willing to discuss catering the film. Huge win!
But then, we found something even better.
A private ranch with multiple cabins on-site—cheaper and more flexible. We could rent the whole place and use it as basecamp, while filming some scenes right there on the land. House the whole team in one location. It was exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for.
Only catch: no built-in food plan. So we’re now figuring out how to source prepped meals locally or stock up and cook at the cabins for some meals.
Uber Eats is not an option out there so we have to plan ahead.
And we have EARLY starts during this shoot, but the area doesn’t seem to do breakfast before 8am unless we want to feed everyone McDonald’s every morning.
We’ll most likely work out a deal with a local cafe to cater breakfasts for us.
Shooting in the Wild PNWMornings up there were pure magic, with fog drifting over the mountains and pines, coating everything in atmosphere. We’d wake up before dawn and get scouting—chasing blue hour and golden hour.
A lot of our exteriors need to be shot in blue or golden hour, since we won’t be doing much lighting up there.
But as we started discussing scheduling, we discovered another big problem…
Up there in summer, the sun rises around 5:15am and doesn’t set until 9pm. Since we can’t work our team 18 hours a day, that means we’ll only get one blue/golden window per day—unless we did split days, which would wreck the crew’s sleep and violate turnaround rules (you’re supposed to get 12hrs from wrap until the next day’s call time).
We compromised by scheduling a single “emergency” split day at the end. Fingers crossed we don’t need it.
Nature’s Production ValueThe biggest win of the trip was finding the hardest location of this whole film – the cave entrance.
All the struggle felt worth it as we rounded the hill to the most storybook mine/cave entrance you could imagine, complete with a waterfall spilling over mossy fallen logs.
However, it’s a two-mile hike with steep elevation gain and some slippery terrain. Getting gear up there will be a challenge, but worth it. Fortunately there’s a few more shots we’ll be picking up on that trail.
Elsewhere, we found wild riverbanks, massive moss-covered boulders, and tree limbs that look like they were designed by Dr. Seuss.
No Signal, No ProblemCell service was rough out there – we had coverage maybe 25% of the time. No good for coordinating a team of people.
We’ll be using wireless headsets for close-range comms out there, and likely investing in some long-range walkie-talkies and maybe even using Starlink to have a reliable hotspot.
Also: we’ll need bear spray. And bells.
Did I mention they have bears?
Next StepsWe took our time—two and a half days this time instead of a frantic 24-hour trip—and I’m so glad we did. We asked locals for tips, hiked through constant rain, and finally saw the story start to materialize in these real locations.
Now that we’ve locked down these spots, we’ve been able to start building a real budget and schedule.
As of today, we’ve got eight weeks until we roll camera, which feels fast considering how many pieces of the puzzle still need to come together.
But back in L.A. now, the momentum is picking up. Armed with shoot dates and a rough budget, I’m making calls, sending emails, and making progress.
I’ll try to continue documenting this process for YouTube… but fair warning: the next few weeks might be quiet while I get my head down and focus on making this thing real.
Likely all the making-of videos will be quite delayed from when they actually happened.
That’s all for now, but thanks for coming along for the ride.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – I’ll be at NAB in Las Vegas next week! Come say hi at the Hollyland booth Mon & Tues
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldToday my DP Casey and I flew up to Seattle for a second round of location scouting for my upcoming short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody—the one I’ve been documenting on the channel.
You might remember our first scout up in Lake Tahoe.
Beautiful place. Great vibes. Totally unusable.
For a number of reasons we had to go back to the drawing board on our hunt for the perfect location.
Since then, we’ve done a full test shoot of our shot list, black box theater style (YouTube video coming soon) and learned a ton about what we’re creating, the flow of the shots, and what specific locations we actually need for this thing.
So now we’re headed to a remote stretch of river near Seattle, and—real talk—this is the last stop.
One of these locations will be where we shoot. Because we simply don’t have the budget or time to pivot again.
And honestly, at every step so far, this has not been a practical film to make.
But that’s kind of the point.
Most of my recent projects have been designed around what I already have—locations, friends, props, time. That’s what I teach in Wrapped in 30 Days: how to make great, sustainable short films based on your real-world resources.
This film? It’s based only on things I don’t have. Locations. People. Props. Time. Etc.
And yet, I do have the confidence to take a swing at something this big, because of all the smaller projects I made first.
All the films that cost me almost nothing. The ones that taught me how to move fast, adapt, and tell a good story without waiting for permission.
This one’s different.
It’s 5x the cost of my last five short films combined. And at the end of the day it will make me $0.
So why do it?
Because I’ve been carrying this character around for years, and this story is about something personal: the idea of sacrificing everything—your health, your relationships, your life—for some ill-defined version of success.
Because it’s a chance to push my visual storytelling, test out horror techniques and a genre twist, and build toward my next feature.
Because I get to shoot in a jaw-dropping location, make memories that will last a lifetime with great collaborators, and finally cross something off my bucket list – hike through the Pacific Northwest – and for a tax-deductible reason.
Because if done well, the film can open doors to other opportunities that DO make money.
And when it’s done maybe I’ll submit it to some of the major festivals… I’ve always wanted one of those rare laurels…
But maybe not.
The truth is, I’m not sure that traditional route is even worth it anymore. These days, more and more, the truly independent filmmakers are online, building audiences, connecting directly with other filmmakers and fans.
That’s where I’m at, and I’m truly grateful to be here.
And none of this—none of it—would be happening without the low-budget, stepping-stone films I made along the way. That’s why I created Wrapped in 30 Days—to help other filmmakers build that same momentum, fast.
If you want to make your own crowd-pleasing short film—cheaper, better, and faster—alongside a community of passionate filmmakers all striving toward the same goal at the same time, now’s the time.
Doors close at the end of the month for the April session of Wrapped in 30 Days.
After that, the next round won’t happen until late this year after I’ve wrapped The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
Interested? Save your spot and get lifetime access before the doors close.
Click here to join Wrapped in 30 Days 
More updates on this film and the scout coming soon, stay tuned.
Let’s make some movies,
Kent
I came across a great series of narrative writing lectures with Brandon Sanderson, the best-selling fantasy and sci-fi author.
Besides being an excellent writer/storyteller, a few things make Brandon unique – he’s very entrepreneurial (creating the most-funded Kickstarter of all time for his novels), and he’s an excellent teacher. He lectures at BYU and is kind enough to put them up on his YouTube channel for all of us to enjoy for free.
I’ve been soaking them up like a sponge.
He teaches in a way that none of my writing professors taught, but in the way that I WANTED them to teach, and the way that I now teach in my own courses… he gives us TOOLS to use.
He avoids abstraction and ambiguous advice and instead offers a big toolbox of practical ideas and methods to tell better stories on the page.
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 my team in real time. It keeps all my creative ideas and planning in one place—I love it.
The truth is that no 2 writers will approach work the same way – that’s why there’s so much contradictory writing advice out there in the world.
Steven King doesn’t outline his books, he discovers the plot IN the writing. That’s what gets him excited enough to churn out hundreds of books. Sanderson calls these writers “gardeners.” They cultivate the story every day, watching it grow as they write.
Others, like me (and most screenwriters), front-load their writing efforts by creating an outline first, so they know the structure of the story. He calls these writers “architects.”
Most writers live somewhere in between – because if you’re too extreme on either end you run into problems.
Too far in the gardening side and your plot may meander too far and go nowhere satisfying.
Too far in the architect side, and your characters lose their teeth and become mere puppets for your contrived plot to play out.
But by being exposed to the many different techniques and ideas writers implement to create a narrative – you can pick and choose the ones that work for YOU.
Speaking of which, let’s talk real quick about one of Sanderson’s simple frameworks that clicked with me…
This is the basic plot framework Sanderson operates off of, simply put:
Every story starts with promises made to the reader (or viewer).
The audience then gets to enjoy the feeling of progress made in the fulfillment of that promise.
And at the end, there is a rewarding payoff of the promise AND the progress.
Let’s break it down a little more granularly.
Stories make a few promises, and it’s up to the writer to fulfill these promises.
First there’s a promise of tone.
What kind of story is this? How will I feel? Is this going to be funny? Scary? Tragic? What’s the style of the writing?
Then there’s a promise of plot.
Who is going to do what? Why does it matter? What’s in the way?
Even if we don’t yet know HOW anything is going to happen, and even if we don’t explicitly say or show what the plot is going to be, we should still be promising a basic plot early on.
For example, in Star Wars, we have a princess in space getting captured by a dark lord. Then we meet the lowly Luke Skywalker, looking up to the stars from his farm, dreaming of a bigger life up there.
Then new plot promises are made as the story progresses – Luke and co will destroy the Death Star. Luke will kill Darth Vader. They will save the galaxy from the empire. Etc.
There may just be promises of information as well – if your story takes place in a mysterious world, you’re making a promise that the way things work will make sense by the end.
Lastly, there’s the promises of the characters.
Where is this character starting out and what are they sorely missing? We’re promising that they’ll try to “fix” that part of themselves by the end of this story. Han Solo has all the trappings of a hero, but he’s a selfish jerk. There’s an implicit promise from early on that he’ll do something selfless for the greater good/his friends.
Sanderson argues that the feeling of progress is what keeps the reader turning the page.
And if there’s no meaningful progress in the promises that they are most invested in, then they lose interest and put the book down.
I agree.
Since we always have multiple promises going on, it’s important to read the temperature of your audience and try to know which promise needs to progress the most at any given point in your story. Usually, there’s one big one that is the real bread and butter for your story.
For example, in the show LOST, we all just wanted progress in information. What the hell is happening on that island? Sure, we wanted them to make progress in getting OFF the island (plot), or surviving the “others”, and all the character plots going on simultaneously… but the show got in trouble when they ignored that primary driver of interest for the audience – progress in the mystery of the island.
(This is the same way I feel about Severance by the way. What the hell is Lumon and the work that they’re all doing? When I don’t feel progress on this promise I start to get annoyed at the show, even though every episode is great.)
We want to see Luke learn to master the force with Yoda.
We want to see the Wolf of Wallstreet get more reckless and more debaucherous.
Etc.
Payoff really is a better word than “ending” or “resolution.”
Because its what we ultimately all want by the end of a story. We want to be rewarded with something that makes us feel everything we just experienced was worth it.
Sanderson says you do this by fulfilling your promises – AND THEN SOME.
So Luke doesn’t just adventure into the stars, he becomes a hero of the entire galaxy.
But very important – for the payoff to truly be a payoff, all of the progress leading up to it must have been essential to achieve this result.
That means that even if you have setbacks in the middle of your story, where suddenly it feels like we’re NOT making progress, whatever seemed like a failure in that setback should come back and be crucial for the ultimate payoff.
That way, the audience doesn’t feel like they wasted their time following along in those setbacks, and the payoff becomes more rewarding.
So for example if the characters’ careful, painstaking planning for their big heist falls apart at the last minute because of some unforeseen obstacles – you can create a rewarding payoff by having them quickly re-arrange all of their plans to try to still get away with the heist.
But the crucial thing is all their careful planning and work (progress) isn’t wasted, it’s still used for the payoff, but in a different way than they thought.
That way we the audience are glad we got invested in all that heist planning earlier, and now we’re on the edge of our seat because we have to use those plans in ways they weren’t intended. That means more danger, more improvising, etc.
If the heist is a success despite those curveballs, what a great payoff.
Check out Sanderson’s full lecture on Promise, Progress, and Payoff here.
Let’s make some movies,
Kent
PS – Don’t forget, doors are now open to enroll in the April session of WRAPPED in 30 Days.
Get step-by-step support to make your own crowd-pleasing short film, at any budget. Class starts April 1st.
Doors closing in:
The Oscars marked a victory for independent filmmakers.
The lowest budget indie film in the running for the major awards (at $6M), Sean Baker’s Anora, swept the show!
On top of that, the indie animated feature, Flow (budgeted at $3.7M), beat out Pixar’s Inside Out 2 ($200M) 
.
By the way, if you haven’t seen Flow, it’s on Max right now and it’s amazing. Am I biased because I have 3 cats? Maybe…
But in this issue, let’s talk about a less-examined selection of films at the Oscars – the live action shorts!
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio
Audiio has been a game changer for finding music for my edits. Between their LinkMatch & Hans AI tools, you can find the perfect track for your scene faster than ever – I love it.
Use code fridayfilmnotes & get your 1st year of Pro for $59!
Every year, AMC theaters screens the Oscar-nominated short films for anyone to go watch (thanks for the heads up Erik!).
There were 5 shorts in the running, all from different countries, all great displays of filmmaking.
But interestingly, 4 out of the 5 films were message-based films – all very political and tragic.
One of the films stuck out from the rest for being decidedly apolitical and funny. That film was I’m Not a Robot, and it’s the one that took home the Oscar.
Does that mean it was the “best” film? Or that apolitical films are what people want? Well, I think there’s a more simple explanation for why it won.
Academy voters love to cast their vote for a short that supports a cause they believe in or want to draw attention to. However, in this case, those votes got split among 4 equally tragic causes.
That means all the voters who preferred something more light-hearted, all cast their votes on the same film – I’m Not a Robot.
That’s not to say it didn’t deserve the win – I absolutely loved it.
But it just goes to show that all awards are incredibly subjective and have just as much to do with the other films in contention, current events, etc as the quality of your film.
So if your goal with a film is to win some trophies, you’d better give up on the idea of ever being able to control or “game” the system to optimize for that.
The same principle applies to film festival selection and awards by the way – which is where the nominations for Oscar short films originate. Sometimes festival programmers get 2 EXCELLENT films about squirrels in the same year. It would be weird to include both of them, so they don’t. Womp womp.
And unfortunately you’ll probably never know THAT’S the dumb reason you didn’t get in – you’ll just get the same generic rejection letter.
So knowing that the chips will always fall wherever they want to… just make the best film you can, the one that gets YOU the most excited – and don’t give any attention to the acclaim you hope it’ll receive.
By the way, if you want to see the Oscar winning short film, you can watch it here:
TV: Enlightened (HBO)Thanks to my parents for recommending this one. If you like Mike White’s work (The White Lotus), you’ll enjoy yet another depiction of a middle-aged character’s slow-motion train-wreck.
Laura Dern perfectly plays the type of woo-woo California woman you see a lot out here – so desperate to believe she’s fixed herself and evolved, while in reality hanging onto her sanity by a single (hemp) thread.
Video: Technology isn’t fun anymoreFrom motion smoothing on TV’s to Venmo forcing us to see who paid their friend for Pizza everytime we open the app – Drew Gooden hilariously breaks down the constant enshittification of everything we buy and use in this modern world.
Quote“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?In a rush today, my DP and I are about to (hopefully) finish the first round of shot listing our upcoming short film!
In the spirit of that, let’s analyze some shots from 3 of the modern masters of the language of cinema: Joel & Ethan Coen, and their trusty DP, Roger Deakins.
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio
Audiio has been a game changer for finding stock music for my edits. Between their LinkMatch & Hans AI tools, you can find the perfect track for your scene faster than ever – I love it.
Use code fridayfilmnotes & get your 1st year of Pro for $59!
This short video was originally made for my Patreon (RIP), and now is part of a set of bonus lessons in WRAPPED in 30 Days where I break down scenes from great films.
I think breaking down a simple dialogue scene like this is more helpful to low-budget filmmakers than a big action set-piece for example.
Enjoy! 
By the way – the next session of WRAPPED starts April 1st, and I’m opening doors to enroll next month!
Join the wait list to get notified first (seats will be limited).
VideoWhy flying stopped being glamorous
Phil Edwards’ channel has been my favorite YouTube discovery of the past year. He does well-crafted, entertaining deep-dives into all kinds of historical & modern topics. This one breaks down why flying sucks now. At this point I’m happy if the plane doesn’t burst into flames mid-air…
Quote“You can’t show everything. If you do, it’s no longer art. Art lies in suggestion.” – Robert Bresson
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Sometimes a book really hits you. I recently read one that’s made me rethink not only how I run my business, but how I approach filmmaking.
It’s called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.
The book breaks down the common notion that we can or should try to do it all. It instead recommends ruthlessly eliminating all but the essential in our lives, so that we can live more simply, more happily, and make meaningful progress in what truly matters.
This illustration from the book really sums it up:
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: FilmConvert Nitrate
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“You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”
The illustration above shows the truth that if we try to make progress in everything we do – we’ll make an inch of progress in every direction.
But if we try to make progress in the one thing that’s truly important, we can make leaps and bounds. And it simplifies our lives a ton.
So why don’t we all do this?
Because of the pain of turning opportunities down, saying no, setting boundaries, ignoring the other nice things we also want to dabble in… the FOMO.
You can’t do less without making trade-offs. Trade-offs with real consequences that most of us would rather avoid.
But look at all the people you admire in any field – how did they reach their greatest achievements? Usually it’s by going monk-mode. Pursuing that ONE thing, and discarding the rest as if they were distractions. Maybe not permanently, but at least until that thing was done.
This whole week I’ve felt incredibly busy… I hate that word and that feeling.
Busy means you’re being shoved around by your own life, helpless to your responsibilities. You don’t want to be doing them, but you have to.
When I’m working long days on a video or film I’m excited about – I don’t feel busy. It doesn’t even feel like work because I want to be there.
But between this newsletter, the YouTube channel, the courses, and the film I’m working on – I’m feeling like I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to do everything.
That said, I don’t want to give up any of them just yet – I like them all, and kind of need them all unless I want to get a normal job again. So I refuse to make those hard trade-offs for now, but I can step back and set some boundaries around how I work on these 4 things.
For example – I don’t need to send a newsletter every single week. I also don’t need to write all the YouTube videos from scratch. These newsletters often work perfectly as scripts for a video.
In fact… look out for 2 new videos next week based on popular issues
The book talks about priorities and how that word has become meaningless because every person has like 5 different work priorities… So in other words, they have no priorities.
A priority is singular, otherwise it’s competing with the other priorities, and you’re back to where you started In other words, if everything is important, nothing is important.
When you have a singular priority, things get done, and all your decision-making becomes quicker and easier.
How does this apply to filmmaking?
In total I’ve typed out first drafts of four feature films solo. Two were mine from scratch. The other two I’d outlined with my writing partner, and I volunteered to go off and write the first draft.
But in all cases, once it got time to actually typing out that first draft, there was only one way to complete it — I had to commit to that as the priority in my work until it was done.
That meant neglecting a lot of things, saying no more, and living very simply.
But the flip-side was, writing became non-negotiable every day. I was going to get those pages in because that was my only real job.
When I do this, it takes me 3-4 weeks to bang out the first draft.
When I DON’T do this… well, those scripts are still unfinished.
Another favorite quote about priorities from the book: “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”
This part of the book also spoke to me: “Make one-time decisions that make a thousand future decisions so we don’t exhaust ourselves asking the same questions again and again.”
There are times in my life when I did this to great benefit. About 8 years ago, thought about transitioning from editing into commercial directing to pay the bills.
I could make spec spots and grow a portfolio… Show them off to some of my editing clients… Maybe they bring me on to direct an ad…
Fortunately, I soon realized how much I’d hate being even a successful commercial director, and that best-case scenario, this was actually going to be a big detour, taking me further from the things I DID like.
So I made one decision that made many later decisions – I will only direct narrative films.
That meant I would never have to think about pursuing documentaries, music videos, or ads. I think this freed me up and kept me focused on pursuing the one thing I actually wanted.
Although starting a YouTube channel has potentially been another detour – we shall see! At least it’s been a fun one.
Quote: “If you were sure you were going to fail, what would you do anyway?” -Seth Godin
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
This issue is a first for me – I’m writing it out on a 50-year-old electric typewriter my girlfriend gave me (thanks Toni!).
Why? Am I that much of a hipster? Well you won’t catch me setting this thing up in Starbucks anytime soon.
But I love the idea of being forced to type forwards only — no going backwards to re-think or re-word a sentence — especially for writing stories.
You’ll never get perfection writing this way, but you will get other benefits that are much more realistic…
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 my team in real time. It keeps all my creative ideas and planning in one place—I love it.
The Challenge
I’ve been fiddling with this machine a lot the past week, and a few days ago I finally put it to the test.
I had to write a new end scene for our upcoming short film (we’ve restructured the script for this thing about 100 times, but finally settled on the definitive shape for it).
I figured this wouldn’t take too long – maybe an hour or two. But since I was essentially starting this new ending from scratch, I figured why not do a first rough pass on the typewriter to see what happens?
This is part of the strategy of intentionally writing “bad first drafts.”
The idea is to churn out some crappy first draft ASAP so you have a starting point from which you can RE-WRITE and eventually find the good version of the story.
Many writers have an annoying internal voice that prevents them from ever getting that first draft out, because every line or word isn’t quite good enough. If you listen to that voice, you’ll never finish the damn thing, so best to bypass it entirely.
Just try to write a bad script. You’ll end up further ahead in the long-run.
Anyway, I used the typewriter because I knew I wouldn’t be able to go backwards and there was 0 risk for distractions.
On top of that, every letter I type on this thing sounds like a gunshot firing off. It makes me FEEL like the things I’m typing are somehow powerful and even dangerous. (They aren’t, but it’s an empowering sensation.)
Fun fact: the “Smith” in Smith-Corona (the brand of this typewriter), refers to L.C. Smith, who got his start manufacturing a popular line of shotguns.
Plus your relationship with each word is different when you’re bringing them to life in such a concrete, loud way.
It’s kind of like a Polaroid keyboard. We don’t give a shit about a pic we take on our iPhone. But a little underexposed 2″ x 2″ Polaroid photo? It feels so more special just for the fact that it is real and tangible.
And I’ve gotten off-topic again. Blame the typewriter. Let me finish my little anecdote.
So I typed up the script’s final scene, just in prose format because who knows how to do screenplay margins and formatting on a typewriter. I just wanted a starting point for the characters, events, and dialogue down on paper.
And I got it down in record time. The words were just flowing, and I had more fun writing those pages than I’ve had in screenwriting for a long time.
When I finished, I assumed I’d do a heavy re-write on my screenwriting software and the end result would bear little resemblance to the typewritten pages.
Well I opened up the screenwriting program on my computer, and everything slowed to a total halt.
Almost immediately I was stuck, trying to figure out how to improve what I’d typed, but coming up blank.
Two hours later I realized that typewritten first draft was the best I had in me for now, so I just transcribed the typed version almost word for word.
I sent it out to my other producers and waited.
Turns out…
They loved it. Amazing!
Using the typewriter the past week has opened my eyes a bit in how I write and how my brain works.
The killers of good writing (for me) are distractions, perfectionism, and a pervasive cynical feeling that anything I type is going directly into a black void, never to be seen again. In other words, the feeling that I’m not actually creating anything, and the words aren’t real.
The typewriter solves all these problems, but it’s still a bit of an impractical way to write on a daily basis. But I’ll probably continue to anyway—mainly for the dumb reason that I’ve just become addicted to the sounds it makes.
The little bell ding at the end of a line, the ballistic impact of each letter on the page, the desk-shaking whizz-bang of each carriage return… I love it. I often find myself typing nonsense on here just for the sensory experience. It’s like a big fidget spinner (that also lets you type stories and newsletters and stuff…)
Want something more practical?
Many of the creative benefits of a typewriter can be gotten from that Cold Turkey Writer app I mentioned in THIS newsletter. I still use that app to lock myself out of distractions and prevent me from going backwards when I’m writing first drafts. I have no connection to them, I just like it a lot.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the results of this experiment.
That’s all for this week. Happy writing.
(PS – this newsletter is a 2nd draft)
Movie: The Brutalist
I actually didn’t like this that much, but I’m trying to catch up on Oscar movies. As someone who has no problem with long movies, I can’t figure out why this need to be 3.5 hours instead of 2? And despite its length, it spent so long on small parts of the story and then flew through major events – almost as if they had to cut it down for time still.
Also I saw it in 70mm and the image was dark and muddy. Maybe my theater was poorly set up. At least Adrien Brody and the score were great.
Book: The Kid Stays in the Picture
This memoir from the iconic Hollywood hot-shot of the 60’s and 70’s, Robert Evans (who produced The Godfather, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and many more classics) was too much fun. Listen to the audiobook version if you can – Evans reads it himself with his distinctive voice and cadence that makes it all the more entertaining. Lots of great candid stories about his dealings with the stars and star-makers of the greatest era of film, although best to take them with a grain of salt…
Video: How they made the Severance Season 2 opening scene (spoilers)
My favorite show lately – just an excellent concept that’s really well executed. They made sure to start the 2nd season with a bang in this insane scene. Very cool to hear how they pulled it off. Ben Stiller gets slept on as a filmmaker. Was Tropic Thunder the last great studio comedy?
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldAs I write this, it’s a sad day for film – David Lynch passed away.
Love or hate his work, he was incredibly influential and showed us how dreamy and mysterious cinema can be.
I’ll never forget my first time seeing Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, etc. They opened my eyes to a totally different kind of storytelling.
On top of that, he was such a unique and endearing person, which is part of what made his many cameos as an actor so fun to watch (The Fabelmans and his part in the show Louie come to mind).
And if you haven’t gone down the David Lynch interview rabbit hole, there’s a lot of gems out there. For example…
He struggled to complete his first feature film, Eraserhead, over the course of years while working with a shoestring budget.
But his dedication to this most-unlikely-to-ever-be-commercially-viable-passion-project ultimately led to a fruitful career in Hollywood.
RIP to a truly one-of-a-kind artist and person.
Want to ride-along on our first scouting trip to Northern California, and see how we found & organized the many location options for our next film?
Then check out the new Youtube video – this one was a lot of fun to make:
QuoteIn my mind it’s so much fun to have something that has clues and is mysterious – something that is understood intuitively rather than just being spoon fed to you. That’s the beauty of cinema, and it’s hardly ever even tried. These days, most films are pretty easily understood, and so people’s minds stop working. — David Lynch
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldFirst off – what a wild week. I caught a random virus that knocked me out for 2 days, and then the whole city of LA catches on fire.
Fortunately the fires (for now) seem far away enough that they won’t reach us, and I’m feeling back to 100%.
Tight on time this week, so here’s just a quick look at what got me through the chaos!
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio
Audiio has been a game changer for finding stock music for my edits. Between their LinkMatch & Hans AI tools, you can find the perfect track for your scene faster than ever – I love it.
Use code fridayfilmnotes & get your 1st year of Pro for $59!
Movie: AbsentiaStarting to do a deeper dive on writer/director Mike Flanagan – I’ve only seen a few of his films, but I haven’t been disappointed yet.
This one was his feature debut, and I was particularly interested to watch it because it was shot in Glendale, CA (where I used to live), on the same camera I shot my first feature Bad is Bad with (5d Mk ii), and for only $70k – partially funded with a Kickstarter. We love a homegrown filmmaker!
Honestly, I didn’t love the film, but as someone interested in low-budget filmmaking, it was a fascinating case study and I had fun observing the strengths and weaknesses in his first feature. Especially since a couple years later he was directing the $5M film Oculus.
Book: JamesOne of my favorite novels is Huckleberry Finn, I have a poster of it right next to my desk.
James: A Novel, by my old writing professor Percival Everett, reimagines the story of Huck Finn from the perspective of his raft-mate, Jim. It won Barnes & Noble’s book of the year, and captured the mix of page-turning adventure, humor, and depth that made me fall in love with Twain’s version.
By the way, I purchased the book in a Barnes & Noble while visiting my girlfriend Toni’s family. They had copies of it on display everywhere, so I had to name-drop the author to the cashiers. Immediately afterwards, I turned around and dropped something else – a table-full of books I bumped into. Toni’s family saw and still makes fun of me for it. That’s what happens when you fly too close to the sun at B&N.
Show: Squid Games S2Is it as exciting as season 1? Of course not.
Game: StrayThis game isn’t new, but it only came out on the Switch recently.
You play as a stray cat dropped into a dystopian futuristic underground world, and have to make your way back to your cat friends on the surface, uncovering what went wrong underground along the way. The storytelling, puzzles, and uniquely feline POV won me over – a great time.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – The January class of Wrapped in 30 Days has been so fun! We did a live table read of scripts last night, and I can’t wait to see these films come together this month.
Join the waitlist here if you want to sign up for our next session of Wrapped a little later this year!
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldI’ve spent a lot of time the past week thinking about what goals to set for this new year, and even how best to approach this whole topic.
To me, this is the most important thing I’ll do all year.
Because no matter how far along in it we already are, there’s always infinite directions we can go in life… And so much happens in the course of one year.
So where we choose to direct our energy and focus for even a mere 365 days can create huge changes that will be felt for the rest of our lives.
Last week I broke down how I set my 3 big goals for 2024, and the results. I concluded that (for me) breaking down long-term goals into regular, repeated tasks/habits on a weekly basis is the best way to achieve them.
But then I thought more about it… and totally changed my mind. I’m going to set goals in a very different way this year.
If this makes sense to you, I hope you try it too.
That’s because these beliefs have formed my own perception of my identity, and that creates subconscious drives in me to take actions that reinforce that identity.
For example – I have a deep belief of myself as someone who finishes what he starts.
Because of that, I’ve noticed that when I get near the end of a project, the subconscious urge to push it across the finish line is intense, almost obsessive.
So when I’m on the last few hours of a long edit, but I have an appointment that takes the rest of the day – I’ll often find myself counting down the hours until I can get back and do the last touches on that edit. Even if I’m tired and feeling unmotivated, I subconsciously am driven towards the little serotonin bump from completing that project.
That’s one example, but we all have LOTS of these stories we’ve internalized about ourselves, that have become so rooted in our own psyches, that they form our identity.
Some of these core beliefs become our superpowers (like “I’m never afraid to ask for the help I need” or “I’m a great negotiator”).
Others are crippling (like “I always mess things up” or “I never know what to say in social settings”).
But they’re always there, deep down. And of course, they may not even be true, but our firm belief in them drives our everyday behavior regardless.
And that’s what I want to tap into next year to reach my goals.
By reinforcing & nurturing certain beliefs about myself, I can create subconscious drives towards the goals I want to achieve.
The benefit of this indirect approach to goal-setting is that it transforms long-term goals from daily/weekly/monthly tasks into habits that don’t require willpower.
When you truly identify as a “type” of person, you naturally take actions all the time to adhere to that identity.
On the other hand, forcing myself to do (ultimately rewarding) activities like working out or writing is not the path towards making it a huge part of my life, as I’ll be instinctively resisting the goal by framing it as something I’m supposed to do.
Instead, I think the key to success is making sure I’m naturally drawn towards them. Then it becomes like the video edit that I’m itching to get back to finishing, even though I’m tired. If working out and writing felt like that, I’d get way, way more done, effortlessly.
So now the question becomes – how do I influence my own beliefs about myself?
I feel the best way to re-organize my subconscious drives is through journaling – specifically, with the first sentences of each journal entry.
I know this because I played around with this method in the past to great success…
Back in 2022 before my YouTube channel was getting much attention at all, I started every single journal entry with this: 2022 Kent – Runs a fast-growing YouTube channel.
This was not me trying to “manifest” anything, it was just me repeating to myself where I’m trying to go.
And each time I wrote or typed that in (no copy and pasting allowed!), I was forced to reflect on that goal and reinforce its importance subconsciously.
Later, I realized that I was typing in a result (a fast-growing channel), so I updated that mantra to something I could control: “2022 Kent – Creator of 50 educational YouTube videos”
I typed this over and over, with almost daily journaling in the morning. It was how I started most of my days, and I know that it kept me on track with my goal of growing on YouTube.
We could call this a mantra or an affirmation or a visualization exercise – it doesn’t really matter. I just think that writing these goals down, or typing that up at least once a day, every day, not only keeps your goals top of mind, it steadily moves the needle of how you think about yourself over time.
It’s not about brainwashing yourself into being a certain type of person.
It makes you LOOK FOR these goals or qualities in yourself, and feed them with attention.
As humans we tend to see only the things we look for, especially when it’s about ourselves. So it’s important to look for the right things and nurture them with a little extra attention every day.
If this looser, somewhat more indirect way of setting goals makes sense to you, I hope you’ll give it a shot with me! Here’s how I’m approaching it:
The most important piece of the puzzle is setting the 1 fundamental habit of journaling every single day. First thing in the morning preferably, or at least before you start work.
I’ll make it a part of my coffee ritual. It can be done with pen and a notebook or on a computer. I’ve done both. It also doesn’t have to take more than a few minutes if you’re short on time.
The structure is simple: write the date, then your mantras, and then anything that’s on your mind (with as little filtering as possible).
Ideally you just dump out your thoughts in a stream of consciousness. You stop writing when you feel like stopping, whether that’s 1 minute in or 1 hour in.
As for how you write the mantras – I recommend trying to write them in a way that reflects a belief about yourself that you can control, which if true, would make you way more likely to succeed in your goals.
Here are some examples:
My favorite way to spend free time is screenwriting, and I’m always working on a script.
I’m effective at work and hate wasting time on a project.
I’m always getting more fit and healthy.
I’m happy if one of my films fails as long as I challenged myself.
I’m comfortable talking with anyone and always take an opportunity to expand my network.
Etc.
And be aware that the wording will likely change over time as you discover how you authentically connect with this goal and identity. That’s a good thing! It means you’re honing in on what you really want, even if it’s not exactly what you originally thought.
How many should you include? Well, so far I made 4 for myself. one in each category: filmmaking, work, health, and my relationship. Could you do more? I reckon, but don’t bite off more than you can chew.
So a journal entry might look like this:
1/5/2025
I’m effective at work and hate wasting time on a project. I’m always getting more fit and healthy. I’m a prolific filmmaker who always finds a way to put out new films.
Woke up late today and feeling under the gun already. Even thought about skipping this journal but I know if this falls off then so does everything. Probably best not to start my day with “putting out fires” energy anyway and just be more proactive instead of reactive. Most of the stuff on the list today isn’t that important anyway and can wait.
Last night I saw Juror #2 with my parents and I’m still thinking about it. Why is Clint Eastwood so hit or miss with his films? Is it just how quickly he moves and the fact that he doesn’t really do script revisions? Anyway this one hit to me. Loved the simplicity of it and the escalation of the stakes throughout. Good performances too. Although the old lady on the jury was cartoonish and kinda sucked. But still, isn’t it just one of those single-use films? Like would I ever want to watch it again? Probably not. What makes some movies so re-watchable and some just one-and-done? Maybe that’d be a good YT video. Hmm.
Boom, done. It took a few minutes but I got the mantras on paper, reset my state of fluster, and even came up with an idea for a video. Now I can start my day with purpose and hopefully a little closer to living up to those mantras.
Again, the important thing is to do this CONSISTENTLY. Every day.
Like a river flowing past stones and shaping them, this is a gradual process.
And remember, the day you don’t journal is the day all your goals take a hit too.
I wish you the best in the year ahead.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Happy holidays! Hard to believe 2024 is almost over.
This time last year, I set out 3 goals for myself related to work/filmmaking.
Here’s how it went and what I’ve learned about working towards long-term goals this year…
With this issue, this goal is officially done.
Friday Film Notes has been the most fun experiment of 2024 for me. Partially because the size of the email list has doubled since the beginning of the year – from 6,000 to 12,000 – and watching it grow brought me back to the excitement of the early YouTube days.
But more than that, I’m just really proud I didn’t miss an issue even though there were some weeks where I was overwhelmed with work and other responsibilities. I doubt anybody would have noticed or cared if I skipped a week, but I would know, and certainly lose some respect for myself.
I think this is the power of putting your goals into writing, and making them public. It makes them feel real, and then it’s easier to hold yourself accountable to them.
But now that the goal is complete, I keep asking myself – should I continue writing an issue every single Friday?? I’m not sure.
There are some weeks where I just don’t feel I have anything to say here, and the last thing I want to do is create noise for no reason. So I’m considering switching to writing these every other Friday…
Feel free to reply and let me know what you think on this.
At least it’s in progress!
The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody, is still coming together, in fact I have a new video about our first location scouts coming to the YouTube channel soon. But after some production delays etc, we’re planning on filming early summer 2025 (…no matter what!).
This has definitely been more challenging to produce than I imagined, but we’re making real progress now, and I’m confident it’s going to be something very special.
Here’s another case where publicly announcing the goal and publicly documenting the process has really helped keep the mission alive. I have a feeling we would have pivoted to another (easier-to-make) film if I hadn’t started a making-of series on the YouTube channel already lol.
But I’m grateful we’ve stuck it out, and can’t wait to dive into the more fun parts of making this film that are coming soon.
And then after this short is done, I want to return to features, it’s been too long…
Since running the first beta testers through Wrapped back in May 2023, I’ve learned a ton about what does and doesn’t work in a filmmaking course like this.
That’s why I spent the whole month of January creating a short film editing course, called CUT, for Wrapped. It was a big undertaking, but it has added sooo much value to the program, as I had noticed that the edit was hamstringing so many student films.
I also noticed it was easy to get overwhelmed with the quantity of content in Wrapped, so I created a schedule that gradually releases the lessons as students should be ready for them.
Throughout the year I updated these lessons, checked in and supported the community, hosted live Office Hours where we could all chat.
And now… I’m creating some bonus mini-courses for Wrapped!
These bonuses include:
I can’t wait to share these updates with the current members later next month.
I’ve also learned that, surprisingly, letting people join Wrapped whenever they want is not in their best interest. That’s why I’ve switched to running Wrapped in cohorts. This means WRAPPED will only be available at select times each year – with each session having their own “class” or cohort of students.
By encouraging these filmmakers to start & finish their short films simultaneously, I can focus more on their success during that month. It also greatly increases each student’s sense of accountability and excitement in our private community – leading to more people actually finishing their films. Win-win!
By the way, enrollment for the January session closes in 48 hours!
Once the doors are closed, I won’t be opening WRAPPED again anytime soon.
Save your spot now (class starts Jan 2nd)
I also just added a payment plan option that lets you start for only $59. I hope this makes the program more accessible for anyone who want to kick off 2025 with an investment in their narrative filmmaking.
At the end of every year, I always write down my goals/resolutions… but 2024 was the first year that I limited myself to only 3.
I felt that if I added any more, I’d risk spreading my energy too thin and failing on many or all of them. This proved correct – as I STILL didn’t complete one of these goals.
This year I also learned that it’s MUCH easier to achieve a long-term goal when it’s input-based and broken into consistent, repeated actions.
That’s why I think the weekly newsletter was actually the easiest of these goals to achieve.
I didn’t need to worry about how well the newsletter performed or how big it grew, I just needed to write it and send it out (so an input-based goal, not a results-based goal). And it required on average about 2 hours of my time each week (a consistent, scheduled time commitment).
Conversely, the short film goal was by far the hardest to achieve, because it skirted these rules.
To be the “biggest” or “best” short film yet means many external factors (budget, people, etc) have to come together. That’s a result-oriented goal. I’ve made a lot of short films, and it’s always possible that the next one will suck, no matter how hard I try.
Plus this goal was created without a regular schedule. It was laid out as a big blob of a project that just has to be done by the end of the year. Tsk tsk.
Instead, I should have set the goal this way:
I’ll commit 4 hours/week to working on a challenging short film, until it’s done.
That way the input is within my control – I just have to work on this project for 4 hours/week, and make sure I’m never phoning it in.
It becomes an easier goal to achieve, because throughout the long year, I only need to put one foot in front of the other, over and over again, week after week. Waaayyyy less room for procrastinating.
Each week gives me a new, concrete opportunity to fail at my goal, or keep the goal alive. And that’s what I’ve found I need for a long-term goal.
So next year I’ll limit myself to just 2 big goals, with a weekly cadence.
I’ll figure out what they actually are by next week’s issue.
Got any tips you’ve found for setting long-term goals? Let me know!
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – Reminder that Wrapped doors are closing in 48hrs!
Save your spot now and finish January with a new film in the can
Here’s what students are saying:
Enrollment is open for the special January session of WRAPPED in 30 Days!
Class begins January 2nd, and by the end of the month, you’ll be wrapping a crowd-pleasing film you can be proud of. What a prolific tone to set for 2025, huh?
WRAPPED is my proven, step-by-step system to write, shoot, and edit a crowd-pleasing short film—fast (no matter how small your budget). I teach you everything, AND push you into action to actually DO IT.
Think of it as film school for the real world, and on your schedule.
The course is pre-recorded and broken into clear, bite-sized lessons, so if you can dedicate even an hour a day to this project, you’ll have wrapped a new film you can be proud of by the end of January!
This January, I’m adding weekly group calls for extra support, accountability, and momentum. You’ll be surrounded by a fresh cohort of other motivated filmmakers, all working toward the same goal simultaneously—getting a new film WRAPPED by the end of the month.
Lifetime access to the full WRAPPED curriculum: video lessons, cheat sheets, and templates that break the entire narrative filmmaking process into simple, actionable steps.
A supportive community of filmmakers working alongside you to keep you motivated and on track.
New bonuses! Including Crewing Up Playbook, Going Pro: Freelancing Masterclass, and Accepted: Film Festival Roadmap – together valued at over $1k. Free.
Weekly live group calls I’m hosting through January for guidance, feedback, and accountability as you make your film.
Doors close in a week, and after that, you can’t join the course until I run another live session (not sure when I’ll do this).
So don’t miss this opportunity to kick off 2025 strong — with a great new film and creative momentum on your side.
Join the January WRAPPED Session Here
Want a peek inside?
Here’s a free lesson from the STORY section of the course, I hope you use this method to brainstorm some new short film ideas!
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?This week, let’s skip all the BS about screenwriting and explore an extremely actionable writing tip…
I don’t remember who said this advice originally, but it has stuck with me for years: Put your characters into situations that are impossible to get out of. Then it’s your job as the writer to find a way out. If you succeed, you’ll have a satisfying bit of drama.
Let’s give this idea a whirl with a fairly generic example, and see how much it holds up huh?
Let’s say we’re writing a thriller, because this seems the most logical place to apply this idea. We’ll put the hero against insurmountable odds/danger, and let them thread the needle to emerge victorious.
What might that look like?
How about a story about a woman who’s been abducted by a serial killer?
He has the total upper hand – she’s already tied up, stuffed in his trunk, and he’s driving her out to the woods to do god-knows-what.
Let’s make it even more difficult for her. He’s armed with a shotgun, and he’s a hunter. She has only the clothes on her back.
We have our impossible-to-escape situation. Now if we can find a way for her to “win”, this could be the bones of a satisfying story.
But I’m going to add a couple of ground rules: She can’t win as the result of a coincidence. That’s a no-no.
As writers we can use a coincidence to get our characters INTO trouble, but not out of it (too lazy that way).
And one more rule: The killer is competent.
He’s done this successfully many times before. She knows this – she’s heard about the man-hunt for this killer on the news.
The only way she can escape is by being MORE competent than him, and in fact, more competent than the audience.
So, how do we do this? Well, it’s going to be hard to start writing because we know nothing about our heroine. Let’s give her some backstory.
She’s a detective who’s investigating this killer.
This already starts pointing towards possible methods of winning – like getting his shotgun somehow. But maybe that’s too easy. Let’s make it even harder for her…
She’s a bartender who was serving him drinks the whole night.
This makes her a little more relatable, as she probably doesn’t have any special skills that might help her escape her bindings or be comfortable with a gun – also making it more impossible to escape/win.
So let’s think. To survive this, she can either do something in the trunk, or at their destination, or both.
To make it dramatic and believable, whatever she does will have to be dangerous/difficult/painful/risky, but since she knows the alternative is a certain & gruesome death, she’s willing to do anything.
Let’s also rule out psychological methods of escape – aka talking her way out of it through manipulation. We don’t know enough about either character to write that kind of scene yet. So it has to be physical.
Here we go…
She looks around the trunk. There’s nothing back there she could use to escape her bindings or cut free.
She tries to wriggle free/bite them. No chance. Her limbs are tied so tight they’re turning blue, and her arms are tied behind her back. Her mouth is also bound, she can only make muffled screams.
The car coasts to a stop. Red light? She can bounce her body and try to scream through the gag, maybe another car will hear.
She starts kicking at the side of the car, screaming and bouncing, but it’s too late, he starts driving again and turns up the radio until it’s blaring.
She keeps yelling and wriggling, but now the sound of the road changes. He’s driving on gravel. They’re off-road. That means time is running out, and worse yet, nobody is going to see or hear her.
Truly this is looking impossible. Great. Let’s milk this moment for a while, really make people feel like all is lost for her.
Now that that’s done, we just have to get her free.
How? No idea. But it’s supposed to be hard to figure out. That’s a good thing.
Often you come up with a solution that requires you to go back to earlier in the film and plant the seeds for it. Those are great, and tend to be the most satisfying for the viewer, because it brings the story full circle.
For example, earlier when she was serving the killer drinks, she gave him the bill but he told her the pen was out of ink. So she pocketed that empty pen and gave him a fresh one. Now she pulls it out of her back pocket and uses it to break her wrist bindings.
But during that exchange of pens at the bar, we’d probably add him saying something creepy to her, or rub her finger as they trade pens. Then a little later we show her test out the old pen and realize it worked fine. That way this pen exchange is revealing character, not just a plot device to help her escape later.
But that sort of thing has been done 1000 times. What else can we do?
Here’s another solution that doesn’t have that “full circle” feel, but at least it gets her free in an unexpected way…
She shimmies and twists her body until she’s finally facing the front of the car.
She carefully worms her body to push against the back seat. It slowly lowers… she can see the back of his head driving.
He didn’t hear the seat move because the radio is still blaring.
She has an idea but she knows she has only one shot.
She quietly wriggles into position, inching her body on top of the folded backseat, dripping sweat at the effort of being silent.
She finally gets her feet under her, toes wedged against a divot in the car floor.
She SCREAMS, LAUNCHING her body awkwardly towards the steering wheel, startling the killer.
The car SWERVES.
BOOM! They collide with a tree (or even better, an oncoming vehicle).
Later. She opens her eyes, bloodied and battered.
But so is he – and he’s still unconscious.
From here, she could find something in the car to escape her bindings, and she “wins” – she gets the shotgun for example.
Or we could continue the situation – the guy starts coming to, and she doesn’t have time to get the shotgun. She makes a run for it, now with freedom of movement, but the killer is hunting her through the woods – he’s in his element, she is not.
We’re basically rinse and repeating this idea of putting her in an impossible to escape scenario.
Of course, this idea doesn’t have to be for obvious thriller scenarios – you could apply the same principal to a grounded drama.
Shows like Succession are full of these kinds of impossible traps that characters have to wriggle their way out of through clever dialogue, cutthroat choices, etc.
If you can put your characters into impossibly difficult problems and have them find impossibly clever solutions, you’re probably creating a very compelling story, and endearing your audience to those characters.
Hope this technique helps you ramp up the stakes in your next project.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – Thanks to everyone who registered for my live webinar, what a great turn out! Hope you all had as much fun as I did and learned some useful stuff in the process. If so let me know! Maybe I’ll host another in the future.
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?This issue is about control, and how needing to do everything my way has often held me back.
So if you’re anything like me, hopefully this email will open your mind to better ways to work in this collaborative medium…
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Audiio
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Control FreakFor years, this is what making a film looked like to me:
I had to write every script (or at least re-write someone else’s).
I had to come up with every shot.
I had to manage every logistical detail of the production.
I had to do the whole edit.
While this approach gave me total creative authority, it slowed me down, stressed me out, and ultimately hurt the quality of my work.
Besides that, I’ve noticed that my peers who DIDN’T clutch onto that kind of control, ended up going further, faster.
Here’s why…
SpeedTrying to do everything yourself slows you down immensely. For example, trying to light a single night scene by yourself can quickly become a nightmare.
Having your DP light it with their grip and gaffer? There’s just no comparison.
“But it’s expensive to hire crew” – yeah I know… But at a certain point it’s expensive not to.
When you’re wearing multiple hats on a film, even if you save money or time in the short-term, over the long run the ultimate cost is fewer films, slower growth, and missed opportunities.
While I was stuck in the editing bay, or trying to write my next film, my peers could grab one of their friends’ scripts and start shooting their next project immediately, while another friend was busy editing their last film.
If you focus on building a network of collaborators, even unskilled ones, you may move slower at first – but this is a clear tortoise vs hare race.
A novice team’s combined effort outpaces what you could accomplish solo every day of the week, and that advantage grows exponentially over time as their skills increase.
Even if your crew is less skilled than you in their respective roles, you’re better off. Why?
Speed usually matters more than perfection.
Speaking of which…
QualityHere’s the brutal truth: When you micromanage, you limit the potential of your film.
I used to show up to set with my own rigid shot list, leaving little room for my DP’s creativity.
It’s the equivalent of giving actors a line reading: you reduce their role on your project to that of a parrot. And instead of enhancing your vision, the best they can perform is now limited to the best you can read the line.
When you collaborate the right way—which means empowering your team with context instead of control—you create an environment where everyone knows what the goal is, and they can all bring their best ideas to the table.
This was actually one of the key principles of managing people when I was working with Netflix:
Directing is like being a conductor. You don’t play every instrument; you ensure every player works in harmony to create something extraordinary.
FunThis one’s the kicker. Even if you can justify taking on every role in terms of speed or quality, how enjoyable is the process?
When I’ve made films with little to no crew, I’ve felt overwhelmed, anxious, and desperate for it to be over. The more responsibilities on my shoulders, the more stressful the process became.
My last short film, Witchfish, was one of the smallest films I’ve made in years, and I shot the whole thing in my house… but that thing was HARD to make because I didn’t bring on a crew.
Contrast that with my current project, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. This is one of the most ambitious films I’ve ever worked on, but so far it has also been the most fun.
Why? Because this is a team project, and I have no allusions that the success or failure of the film is all going to come down to me.
Having a team to share ideas with and execute plans has made the project feel exciting instead of terrifying.
And at the end of the day, filmmaking should add energy to your life, not suck the life-force from your soul.
Are You Holding Too Tightly?If your project feels slow, looks subpar, or leaves you stressed, it’s time for some self-reflection:
Let go. Delegate. Trust your team.
If you don’t have one, find one.
If you can’t find one, make one.
That’s how you finally lose that butt-clenching tension from trying to make everything perfect.
And what you’ll gain is better films, faster timelines, and the joy that comes from true collaboration.
Podcast: Team Deakins
Roger Deakins, celebrated cinematographer of way too many of your favorite films (like Shawshank Redemption, No Country For Old Men, Bladerunner 2049, Prisoners, etc) hosts this podcast with his wife & collaborator, James Deakins.
Not sure how I only recently discovered this one, tons of insights from this humble master of the craft. I loved listening to this episode about how he shot one of my favorites, The Assasination of Jesse James.
Quote
“People confuse ‘pretty’ with good cinematography.” – Roger Deakins
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldI’m typing this newsletter from the air, on a flight cross-country to celebrate Thanksgiving in Miami with Toni’s family.
But I’m also typing it using a application I recently discovered and fell in love with, called Cold Turkey Writer. It suimultaneously makes it MUSCH easier to write these quickly, and encourages an open-mind while typing.
Why?
Because it completely takes over my computer screen, and will NOT let me quit the application until I’ve met my writing goal – weather that’s a specific word count, specific amount of time writing, or… I think that’s it actually.
So immediately, any chance of a distraction is eliminated. And when I say you can’t quit this thing, I mean you CAN’T quit it. It’s great.
But that’s not the only reason I love it.
It also has a setting (if you’re willing to shell out $9 for the paid version, lifetime purchase BTW, not bad) – where it will not let you delete or use your arrow keys to go backwards and make a change.
This totally hcanges your mindset as you write.
It’s now impossible to strive for perfect writing. You’re forced to do what I would argue you SHOULD be striving to do on any first draft – get the story/idea down on paper as fast as possible.
And maybe more importantly, let your ideas flow freely.
As someone who constantly second guesses every sentence he just wrote, this is very liberating.
It’s also a little sad that I have to put my brain in a self-imposed prison and limit its options like this in order to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time, but at a certain point you just have to accept ywho you are and stop trying to swim upstream from that. This works for me.
For example, just in the first paragraph, there were 3 things I wanted to change immediately after typing them.
“Typing this newsletter from the air”?
I can do better than that! How about “Rattling this off from a very cramped seat 29C”?
Do they know Toni is my girlfriend?
Shouldn’t I try to put something funny in the opening paragraphy?
Oh well! Too late. I already typed it. And there’s no going backwards. I’ve burned the typographical boats already. Typographical? That’s not the eight word. Oh well, figure it out later.
Anyway, the reason I wanted to do this was not because I’m too lazy to give you guys a second draft like I normally would…
I wanted to introduce you to a very helpful practice for any kind of writing – but especially fiction and screenplays – WRITING SPRINGS. Fuck. SPRINTS.
I also can’t fix my typose, sorry everyone.
Writing as fast as you can without turning back or making any attempt to correct yourself is – according to some writers – a necessary part of the writing process.
It kickstarts your writing flow state, because no matter how long or short the sprint is, you’re forced to take a metaphorical cannonball into the deep end of putting words on a page.
Are the words going to be any good? That’s a total crapshoot. Probably not, honestly.
But a 10 minute sprint will greatly increase the odds that you 1) Actually FEEL like writing “normally” AFTER your sprint ends, and 2) End up writing something BETTER than you would have if you hadn’t forced the matter with a sprint to START.
I set Cold Turkey Writer to get me to 500 word s for this exercise, but have already blown through that with more ease than I thought possible. Seriously, this took about 5-10 minutes! I usually spend 1-2 hours on a newsletter.
Too bad I can’t egt away with this every week lol.
But I will be using this app and these sprints to write future issues, just cleaning them up AFTERWARDS so you won’t be able to tell the difference.
Your brain operate s differently between first draft mode and revision mode, don’t try to do them both at the same time. That’s the main lesson from this newsletter.
Allow yourself the freedom to write something awful.
That’s the way to get a first draft out. You have all the time in the world to try to make it actually good LATTER. LATER**
And maybe give Cold Turkey Writer a shot, this isn’t sponsored or anything, I literally found this app yesterday, but their free version is solid and gives you the main features.
You know what else works though?
A pen and paper.
Classic.
Get writing!
And let’s make some movies.
Kent
(Edit: I DID go back and fix a few typos just so you could understand what the hell I was trying to say, and made the spacing prettier for email. You’re welcome.)
PS – Next week I’m announcing something exciting for anyone who’s been interested in joining WRAPPED in 30 Days. Keep your eyes peeled as spots will be limited. Or join the wait list on the site if you want to be first in line
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?First off, a quick note:
I’ve had people asking me if there will be a holiday discount on WRAPPED in 30 Days this year…
Well… yes!
In December I’m offering a very special deal on WRAPPED during a free, live class I’ll be hosting for you all, teaching my simplified approach to making festival-level short films, fast.
Whether you want to actually join WRAPPED or not, you’ll walk away with some great strategies & tips for your own filmmaking. More details coming soon!
Ok then.
Another week, another zesty edition of Friday Film Notes. Nothing beats the refreshing, unfiltered flavor of these emails, huh?
Anyway, this week I wanted to share a few fun anecdotes of the most random gigs that have come my way over the years.
For better or worse, working in film/video means never knowing what might be right around the corner for your career (and life!).
One day you might be on the verge of finally selling your old Pokemon collection out of desperation, the next day a call or email could change everything.
The 3 little gigs I’m talking about in this email aren’t quite that grandiose – BUT I had a great time, made some decent money, and even thinking back on them makes me grateful for having chosen such an unpredictably quirky career path.
Here we go… (in chronological order)
I was waiting tables at a low-rent steakhouse when an email rolled in from someone I’d interned with back in college. Turns out he was now doing marketing for a place called Cinema Makeup School, where they taught special effects makeup.
He needed someone to create a short film with some of their summer camp students that showcased their makeup effects.
He remembered that I was busy making a lot of films back in our intern days, and (correctly) figured I’d be a pretty cheap hire.
Even though I only had 3 hrs to shoot this, and only made $500… I was thrilled! I even made another one for them a few weeks later.
Here’s one of those oh-so-campy films:
The lesson? Your reputation as a prolific, go-getter filmmaker can stick in people’s heads for years, and may pay off long after you expect.
I later ended up working at that school myself for a stint, but that’s a whole other story…
Through many twists and turns, a few years later I had a full-time, cushy editing job at an agency.
Every time I was given an edit that needed a voiceover, I would temp in my own voice to get the timing right before the agency hired an actual voice actor.
But I would never half-ass it. I’d try to do a great voiceover, in the style I imagined the client would actually want.
That little extra effort finally paid off when a Japanese tennis gear company, Yonex, hired us to create an animated ad introducing their new racquet.
I again did my best on the VO, and carried on editing and sound designing the spot.
Later, the agency auditioned a bunch of voice actors to re-record the “real” voiceover… and the client came back saying they actually preferred the temporary voiceover.
I was smiling ear to ear.
Not only was I going to get paid a voiceover rate on top of my salary to re-record my VO professionally – I was going to be the voice of a tennis racquet – in a spot I also edited. How cool is that??
Here’s the final product:
The lesson? When you think you know exactly what the client is looking for, go the extra mile and give it to them. You may win yourself more work.
Most recently I had a random email come in from an Australian fella who runs a digital marketing agency.
They’re trying to move into TV commercials, and had 2 spec spots in the works, but weren’t confident about the scripts. So he wanted to know my rates for a quick re-write.
I figured he had found me through my YouTube videos, but it turned out he had no idea I taught filmmaking & storytelling on the channel – he had just seen a couple of my short films and loved them.
I gave him a high rate, he said yes, and I got to work.
For someone who’s never written a commercial before, what a fun challenge!
I spent half a day simply removing the melodrama and cliches while leaning into “show don’t tell” in the scripts – overall delivering a more mature version of the same ideas.
He loved it!
They shot the spots but I’m still waiting to see how they turned out. Maybe I’ll share them here in a future issue…
The lesson: Put your films out into the world! Even if it’s not a viral hit (the films he saw weren’t), it still might find and resonate with the right person.
Here’s wishing you an unexpected opportunity in your inbox this week.
You can’t control your luck, but there’s one way you can increase the odds of eventually stumbling into luck…
Make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldIt’s been an exciting couple of weeks! We’ve hit a breakthrough in pre-production for my upcoming short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody.
After months of struggling to find even one suitable location, and just as we were about to rewrite the script to make things easier to shoot, our location scouting took a sudden turn for the best, and we discovered realistic options for all of them—cave interior, cave exterior, river, woods, and tent!
I’ll be making a video next month to break down our whole location-scouting process. But for now, here’s a sneak peek at some of our recent location finds and a few lessons learned.
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Our search for our most challenging location – the cave – began with the legendary Bronson Cave in Los Angeles. This spot has been the backdrop for tons of classic scenes (including the original Batman TV show), and when we first checked it out, we were feeling optimistic.
But sadly, it’s now off-limits for filming due to safety concerns. And even if it were open, permits and fees would have pushed the cost to somewhere around $5-10k for a single day—ouch!
Luckily, we found the only rentable cave set in LA that’s way more affordable and perfect for what we need. Plus, we discovered some old mines nearby that could work for exterior shots or maybe even some specific shots inside the cave.
This mix-and-match approach can make even simple sets look like authentic, unique locations on screen.
2. Rivers & Woods
The river scenes were tougher than expected, because the landscape has to not only look like summertime Alaska, it has to have a stunning, larger-than-life quality to it.
Initially, we thought a friend’s ranch in Montana might work, but that option fell through.
Our next idea? Airbnb rentals!
We scoured riverside listings all over California, and after reaching out to a few hosts, we found one who gave us the green light for filming.
One thing that always helps when doing outreach like this – let them know that your production is fully insured, and they won’t be liable for anything. We actually haven’t gotten our insurance yet, but it’s a must for a film of this size, so we’ll cross that bridge later.
I booked a flight to northern California to scout out this AirBnB, but it would be wasteful of our budget to only scout a single spot while we’re there, so we looked at some other options nearby. Lake Tahoe had some stunning rivers & mountains that could double for Alaska, so I reached out to their film office.
They were fantastic! Just like our experience shooting Will the Machine in Richmond, VA, they happily provided a list of potential locations that would suit our needs, maps with parking areas, and all the paperwork we’d need for a (nearly free!) 5-day filming permit.
These experiences always remind me how much of a headache it is to shoot in public in Los Angeles compared to most cities.
Pro tip: if you’re ever scouting for locations, contact the local film office first!
As you’re reading this, my DP Casey and I are in NorCal & Tahoe scouting out these options. Wish us luck 
This is the easiest of our locations – we’re simply going to build the tent twice: First at the actual river location for the exterior tent shots, and later we’ll rebuild it in my backyard, and film all the interiors there.
The idea is to maximize the amount of time we can shoot on location. And since the tent will need lots of production design on the interior, this makes sure we don’t rush shooting anything inside the tent or outside it.
In addition we’ve continued refining the script and it’s feeling stronger than ever.
More updates as they come!
Last week, I started a 7-day challenge to “make before you manage”—the idea being to create something, anything, each morning before diving into emails, meetings, or project management.
Here’s how it went:
Snow white paws on skin.
Each claw skimming her surface.
Kneading fresh biscuits.
Lazy? Absolutely. But I didn’t break the streak.
And you’ll have to take my word that for the rest of this week I’ll start each day by finally writing out another short film I’ve been tinkering with for far too long. Pinky swear!
Did you take on the challenge too? If so, leave a comment on this post and let me know how it went.
Movie: Heretic
I’d been wanting to see this one since the trailer dropped – I love seeing unlikely actors take on villain roles, and Hugh Grant carried the film on his back.
The movie wasn’t what I was expecting, IMO it got a bit too intellectual for its own britches dropped off in the second half, but they did an excellent job building tension and fear in the first half in a realistic way.
Worth it just to see Hugh Grant unhinged.
Quote
People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.
– Steven Spielberg
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real World
If you’re anything like me, you find it incredibly easy to wake up and let the day whisk you away into whatever chaotic direction it wants to take you.
But this isn’t ideal, especially for anyone with creative ambitions.
So here’s a simple rule that (over time) may be the single most important change you could make in your life: Make before you manage.
Disclaimer: I stole this idea from Tim Ferriss 
But these 4 words really resonated with me. For filmmakers, here’s how the incredibly simple morning ritual of “make before you manage” looks.
Probably the biggest roadblock for many filmmakers is they don’t have a story in their back pocket that they’re either dying to make or able to make. Ideally it’s both.
What’s the one way to remove this hurdle to becoming a more prolific & successful filmmaker? Write everyday of course! Whether you have ideas or not.
What’s the easiest way to do that? Do it before you do anything else. Do it before you start managing your life.
Checking and answering emails, walking the dog, doing the dishes – these are all life’s little tiny fires that it beckons you to put out right when you wake up.
But once you start managing these little tasks, you’re going to have a hard time getting out of that loop and stepping into a creative mode. Managing begets more managing. Answering one email or text will lead to answering 5 more.
So give yourself a window of 20 (or hell, even just 5!) minutes before you even acknowledge all that bullshit, to just make something out of nothing, in whatever form you want that to take.
It could be open-ended freeform journaling, brainstorming story ideas, or actually typing out a scene of a script you’re working on. But put something on paper just for the sake of creating.
Then carry on with your day and managing all the big & small fires waiting for you. They’ll get done anyway, but usually the making won’t unless you do it first.
Over time, that additional and consistent 5-20 minutes a day will have a massive, life-changing effect on your trajectory. For example, writing 1 page of a script every morning means you’d have written 3 feature films in just a year.
Not to mention the fact that creative output begets MORE creative output.
But beyond any gains in creative productivity, this practice reinforces to ourselves the importance of creating. By prioritizing the act of making over the bullshit of everyday life, we’re subconsciously internalizing who we are and what we value.
That alone is worth this small time commitment.
Every good habit needs extra TLC in the beginning, so I hope you’ll join me in a small commitment:
Everyday for the next 7 days, I’m going to make before I manage.
Do it with me!
On next week’s newsletter I’ll share the results of 1 week committing to that morning routine, and invite you to do the same. Now we’re all accountabillabuddies.
So starting tomorrow morning: resist the urge to look at your phone first thing!
Stay away from emails and texts and social media.
Instead, grab a pen and paper or a blank document. Put something on it. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be something from your brain.
See you in 7 days to see how it went.
TV: Dark (Netflix)
Thanks to Howie from WRAPPED who recommended this German show.
Besides being a great reference for the cave scenes in my Oliver Brody short (which is really starting to move now that we’re locking in locations, update video coming next month!), Dark is just really well done across the board – writing, performances, cinematography, etc. It’s an intricate puzzle, and can be complicated at times – you definitely have to pay attention while watching.
Toni and I binged the 10-episode first season in 2 days. The performances are solid, so I recommend watching it subtitled with the original German audio instead of dubbed.
Oh, and it’s also pretty obvious how Outer Range ripped this show off (to much worse effect). Excited to see where it goes.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldAs filmmakers, we pride ourselves on focusing on the details, making sure every frame is polished.
But let’s be honest—there are endless ways we obsess over minutia that no one else (except maybe our fellow filmmaker snobs) will EVER notice.
Here’s a reality check on the things we love to overthink:
When I completed my first feature and started typing up the end credits, I suddenly realized: this is it—whatever I call myself here will set the tone for my entire career.
But with a name like mine, Kent Lamm, it didn’t quite have the gravitas of a “Stanley Kubrick” or “Steven Spielberg” or “Martin Scorsese.” Clearly you need AT LEAST 4 syllables to be a critically acclaimed director.
I considered incorporating my middle name, using my initials à la P.T. Anderson, anything… but nothing sounded prestigious enough.
The reality was, at the end of the day, if Ang Lee and both Spikes (Lee & Jones) could rock 2 syllables… so could I.
Plain old Kent Lamm it was.
Because in the words of WWF era The Rock:
2. The Perfect Color Grade
Oh the hours I’ve spent tweaking color on my films—obsessively trying to achieve the “perfect” look—only to realize my monitor’s color was way off.
I’d send off the final product, only to hear feedback like, “The colors look so washed out!” or “Why is everything orange?”
To be fair, their monitors weren’t color-calibrated either.
And without a super-expensive Flanders Scientific or another color-calibrated setup, every monitor tells a different story.
So if you’re not checking your exports on multiple screens, don’t waste 100 hours color grading on a single, cheap monitor thinking you’ve finally nailed it.
Oh, and also, make sure you switch off Night Shift mode! You know, the setting that turns your Mac’s colors warmer when the sun goes down. Whoops…
Ahh lens sets. This should really be at the top of this list IMO.
Every cinematographer obsesses over them, but what do they actually add to the final film? Sure, they may make things a bit cleaner or grittier, but 99% of the audience will never notice.
I’ll tell you who definitely DOES notice – me (or whoever else is paying for the film), because renting a set of cinema lenses is always a big unexpected line item on the budget that the director of photography INSISTS we need to achieve the right “look.”
Once, on Will the Machine, my DP and I debated which expensive vintage cinema lenses to rent. It came down to 2 sets – one with a hexagonal bokeh, and one with round.
I argued a hexagonal bokeh would complement the protagonist’s robotic nature—“they look like bolts,” I said. My DP agreed enthusiastically.
We both knew the reality… nobody cares about your bokeh shape bro.
When I’m buying crafty, I end up overthinking what everyone might want: snacks, drinks, treats, little surprises.
I walk down the grocery store aisles putting myself in each cast and crew member’s shoes, turning every crafty run into an unnecessarily exhausting exercise in empathy.
But we all know the essentials: coffee, Welch’s fruit snacks, Clif bars, water bottles, a case of La Croix (budget permitting).
Beyond that? Most goes untouched and ends up as my own personal groceries for the week.
Not that I’m complaining. I love string cheese.
How I imagine every crew member looking at my crafty table
Background actors (aka extras) are like the sprinkles on your shot’s ice cream cone—you want them there, but not too close together, or too far apart.
You need that sweet spot where it looks natural yet orderly.
Aesthetic but not TOO aesthetic.
The end result?
Far too long spent orchestrating every extra, which way they’re facing, where they are in the scene, when and where they move in the shot – all for the goal of not having anyone in the audience pay attention to them.
And along the way, you make all the extras feel like cattle being herded back and forth across the set.
Oh, and bonus points for keeping them away from the “good” crafty.
6. The Ultimate Camera Rig
Rigging out your camera is the filmmaker’s version of working on an old Corvette in the garage.
I used to be obsessed with finding the best accessories and routing the wires to be as compact as possible (cable management is my drug of choice). This is basically why the DSLR Video Shooter YouTube channel exists.
Now? I strip down my camera as much as possible.
Once you’ve got 10lbs of gear bolted on, it becomes a chore to pick up the camera and start filming.
Sometimes, the simplest setup really is the best setup.
Or you know… just hire a DP and let them deal with it.
7. Aspect Ratios
Should we go 16:9 or the slightly wider 1.85:1?
Go crazy with 2.39 anamorphic?
Make it an artsy 4:3 like First Reformed, or an even squarer 1.19:1 like The Lighthouse?
It’s tempting to spend days on aspect ratio tests to see what best tells your story, but let’s face it: two minutes into the film, the audience doesn’t care about your aspect ratio—they’re either invested in the story, or they’re not.
And if they’re not, the aspect ratio won’t save you.
Every time I make a film, I get towards the end of the day and think, “Okay, just the insert shots left—I’ll fly through these!”
And every time, I’m humbled.
They seem so simple: just a quick close-up of a hand picking up a prop, or a text appearing on a phone.
But then the camera has to be jammed into a weird spot, the depth of field is razor-thin so we’re missing focus, the actor’s arm is blocking the action, or I’m spending way too much time adjusting a banana for the “perfect” look – flipping it to the side with best amount of freckles, tilting it to best catch the light just right.
Before I know it, I’m debating if the banana we’re using is banana-y enough. “Do we have another banana that’s more of a Central Casting banana?”
It’s a familiar pain—one iconically captured in the Magnolia making-of featurette as Paul Thomas Anderson painstakingly sets down keys over and over for an insert shot.
If you’re not cursing by the time you nail an insert shot, are you even trying?
So next time you’re knee-deep in the tiny details of your film, ask yourself—will anyone even notice this?
Or is this just for you?
Sometimes, good enough actually is good enough.
PS – Did I miss anything? Reply and let me know what you overthink on your films.
Favorite things this week:
I loved the actors, their characters, and the overall energy. So much fun to watch, and for anyone who’s made films or had to put on a show of any kind, I’m sure you’ll relate to the chaos.
I went back and watched the first episode of SNL after watching the film and was surprised at how fast-paced it was compared to modern episodes. From a production standpoint, it must have been harder to run a show like that than it is in its current form.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldHow about some concrete screenwriting tips this week? The kind of thing that for some strange reason, they wouldn’t ever teach in my USC writing classes.
Let’s talk about expository dialogue—done poorly, it can make your film a chore to watch. So here’s how to do it seamlessly.
By the way, I was inspired to write this issue because I tried to watch the movie Renfield, and oh my god was the writing rough. I couldn’t even get through the first act because of all the expository dialogue.
Expository dialogue is anytime characters give the audience key information through dialogue—like backstory, plot details, or world-building.
It’s incredibly easy for expository dialogue to feel forced or unnatural because so often we (the writers) have to shoe-horn it in for the film to make sense.
Unfortunately, lazy exposition is boring and cringey, and grinds your film’s energy to a halt.
So, let’s look at some ways to keep that from happening.
This one never gets old. If there’s any way to visually show a piece of information instead of having a character talk about it, do that.
Every. Single. Time.
Example: Instead of having a character say, “I used to be in the military,” show their dog-tags, or Semper Fi bumper sticker, or even them reacting sharply to a sudden noise.
Let the audience piece it together themselves – it makes for more engaging storytelling.
Bury your exposition in the middle of conflict or action or another story arc.
Your characters shouldn’t sit around and explain everything in a nice, neat way. They should be busy—arguing, working, fighting, late for the bus, panicking—sneak the exposition in as part of that chaos.
Example: Two lawyers up late at night reading through documents, despite their exhaustion.
Lawyer 1: This is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Lawyer 2: Check the neighbor’s testimony, what’s her name?
Lawyer 1: How about some Chinese?
Lawyer 2: Are you joking? We have 3 hours left to save a man from the chair, and you’re ordering take-out?
Lawyer 1: I should starve because this asshole doesn’t know better than to party with gang-bangers? C’mon, you want orange chicken or what?
By hiding exposition in conflict that seems besides the point, you keep the audience engaged and make it feel like a natural part of the scene.
Exposition should never come easy. In real life, people don’t just spill their guts. Neither should your characters.
The information should get pulled out of them, through questions, pressure, or emotional stakes.
Example: If your character has a tragic past, don’t have them deliver a monologue about it over coffee on a first date. Instead, build up to it. Maybe they refuse to talk about it until someone pushes them too far, and it finally bursts out in anger or tears.
The more you make the information cost the character, the more powerful it feels to the audience.
This can be an easy way to deliver exposition. Have someone be wrong about something, and let them get corrected in a surprising way – thereby teaching the audience the information they need to know while keeping them entertained.
Example: At a school for wizards, a freshman tries to practice a shrinking spell in the mirror. Suddenly, he shrinks to the size of a small boy. A wizard teacher enters the room, notes the boy and the mirror opposite him: “Spells affect whoever you’re making eye contact with. Try not to read ahead of the class next time…”
If you’re writing a short film and find yourself needing to dump a ton of exposition about your characters’ backstory, stop.
Ask yourself—why not just set the film in that backstory?
Short films are all about immediacy. If you’re trying to explain something from the past, it might be more powerful to show it directly.
In other words, if the key moment that defines your character’s arc happened before the events of your film, maybe that is the story you should be telling.
Go through your latest script and look for any moments where your characters are explaining things. Now ask yourself:
And that’s how you get away with expository dialogue.
Quote
“I’ve noticed that the truth works… If you’re being yourself and you’re just using your own emotions, they can feel it. If you’re doing fake, they can feel it. It took me a while in comedy to realize that your truth is more powerful than your mask.”
— Jordan Peele
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldIt seems you all liked Ernest Hemingway’s tip from a couple of weeks ago, liked so here’s another creative productivity tip from another famous author.
In fact, it’s probably the most important lesson I ever learned for increasing my creative output, and it comes straight from your Huckleberry (Finn), Mark Twain.
Ready? Here it is:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning.”
What does this mean? Who’s eating frogs?
You, me, all of us. Because a frog is simply the hardest thing you have to do in a day.
You know you eventually have to do it. But the tough part about eating frogs is, the longer you stare at it… the harder it is to eat.
But if you eat it immediately, it’s unlikely your day will get any harder after that.
(No that’s not a charity I’m starting)
Ask yourself this incredibly important question:
What’s the thing I know I should be doing every day to advance my filmmaking, that I avoid doing because it’s so damn hard?
That’s your frog.
I know the answer for me (and most filmmakers) – writing.
Writing is the creative equivalent of going to the gym. It can take a lot to get us there, but afterwards we always feel grateful we did it.
Think about what you have to gain from writing even a few lines or story beats of a film every single day. In a year you’d probably have a feature film script. Or a dozen short films you could start shooting.
And what did that cost you? 365 breakfast frogs. And don’t worry, we’re talking about the cute little tiny frogs, not the big ugly toads. You can toss back a little frog like that in 15 minutes.
But if you wait until after breakfast and work and the 1000 other “easier” things get done first (well they seem easier, in reality they’re just less scary), you’ll never swallow that frog. You looked at it too long, and all you see is a big ugly toad.
When I was trying to start an editing career, I had another frog – networking.
I hated it. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my room and work on my own little projects. But I’d been doing that for years. It was time to get myself in front of different people and show what I had to offer. So every morning, right after I got out of bed, I swallowed that frog. I’d reach out to 2 people, no matter what.
And how long did this take? Never more than 20 minutes. Sometime it only took 5. But if I put it off even for a minute, I’d rationalize my way out of NOT doing it.
By the way, this type of outreach is directly what led to me getting my first freelance editing gig.
But what if you have multiple answers to that important question I posed to you earlier?
Don’t worry, Mr. Twain has thought of everything:
“And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
So what’s your biggest frog when it comes to filmmaking?
Leave a comment to this post and let me know. Then swallow it tomorrow morning, first thing.
Podcast: What Went Wrong – Tombstone
One of my favorite podcasts. They research and break down the production troubles and successes of iconic films. Their recent 2-part episode about the making of the Kurt Russel & Val Kilmer starring film, Tombstone, was fantastic.
I didn’t realize they made the whole film in a crazy race with Kevin Costner’s own Wyatt Earp movie, each trying to be first to the box-office. Or that the original writer/director was fired early in the shoot, and Kurt Russel essentially directed half the film. It’s a must listen for anyone who’s a fan of the film.
Quote:
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” – Brandon Sanderson
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Hot off the presses: I just released my new short film, Witchfish!
But wait, there’s more!
I also posted a full breakdown of how we made this iPhone short film.
IMO these making-of videos are the most difficult to create, but most valuable content I post, so definitely give it a watch!
And if you want to support my films, educational YouTube videos, and this newsletter (for FREE) throw them both a thumbs up and comment 
It would mean a lot to me.
Even better, share them with your filmmaking friends
PS – More breakdown videos coming soon for this project (covering audio & post-production).
Movie: MegalopolisLol. Hear me out.
I’d been eagerly anticipating this Francis Ford Coppola swan song since it was first announced, even though I had a strong suspicion it would suck (check out Coppola’s more recent films to learn why).
And indeed… it sucks. It felt like a pretentious modernization of Shakespeare with an autobiographical bent. Lots of non-sequiturs and five-dollar words that ultimately add up to nothing.
But also, it was hilarious. Sometimes intentionally, and other times I honestly couldn’t tell. But my girlfriend and I have been laughing about it for days, and I don’t think it’s a movie I’ll ever forget.
One thing is for sure, Coppola made his extremely talented cast and crew’s jobs very difficult. There is some great technical work on display (sound design, music, sets, etc), and lots of stylistic experimentation (with mixed results).
Overall, it’s a fun trainwreck to watch in theaters, with glimmers of inspiration here and there.
But more importantly, it got me thinking about the benefits of constraints for filmmaking. In his golden era, Coppola didn’t have carte blanche, or a wine empire he could use to finance any idea he came up with.
Back then, he had to ultimately “make do” and find compromises like the rest of us. In my opinion, that’s what this film lacked: Conditions and collaborators who would challenge him at every step of the way.
In a way, we should all be grateful for our own “obstacles” as they often lead us to the strongest path ahead.
TV: The Penguin (MAX)
Colin Farrell is one of our greatest acting talents. I’ve only seen the pilot episode, but man, he bodies it.
Now, I would have preferred if this was just an original standalone character/world instead of a Batman show. Can’t we have original antihero character studies like back in the day?
It seems like that’s basically what we’re getting here, just using a supervillain’s name to get people in the door. I’ll take it.
Quote:
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Film School for the Real World Want to Write Your Next Short Today?Let me tell you a little secret that’s been a game-changer for me when it comes to actually finishing my projects.
While I wish I could take credit for the idea, it actually comes from Ernest Hemingway. Besides being a legendary author, turns out he had a knack for productivity life-hacks.
Hemingway would end a day’s writing by stopping mid-sentence.
Not because that’s when he ran out of steam, but because he was stopping at a place of familiarity, where he knew exactly how he’d resume it the next day.
This counter-intuitive approach kept him excited to jump back into his work the next day and gave him momentum immediately when that time came.
I’ve been using this same trick while editing my new Halloween short film, Witchfish (it’s coming together great by the way, can’t wait to share with you all ASAP).
Editing has so many steps, some much more tedious than others, so I’ve been stopping just as I start a new fun part each day—like sound designing this scene where the witch is making her magic brew.
And I’ve found that it’s true, stopping right before an exciting moment makes me eager to get back to work the next day.
That means you end up working more consistently, and getting projects done quicker.
I’ve also used this strategy in screenwriting, especially on bigger projects like features.
When you’re working on a full screenplay, the hardest part isn’t writing—it’s coming back day after day. Especially after those rough writing sessions where nothing goes right.
For my last feature, I found that stopping when I still had an exciting scene to write (rather than when I was tired or stuck) helped me stay consistent and chip away at that script every day.
Keeping that momentum going by treating myself to a small head-start the next day is what allowed me to finish the first draft.
Here’s how you can apply Hemingway’s hack to your own work:
Works 99% of the time. Honestly.The beauty of this method? It removes the internal resistance we always feel whenever we’re starting from scratch.
Instead of facing a blank page or dreading an overwhelming scene, you know where to pick up and you know you have an easy win directly in front of you. This means less procrastination, more flow, and quicker progress.
Now it’s time for me to dive back into Witchfish, right where I left off—sound designing her strange brew.
Quote: Ripped from Tim Ferris’s newsletter, it’s too good not to share:
“The perfectionist is never satisfied. The perfectionist never says, ‘This is pretty good. I think I’ll just keep going.’ To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist calls this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue. Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough—that we should try again. No. We should not.” — Julia Cameron
Perfectionism so often means we’re working against our own best interests. In harsher words, it’s a form of self-sabotage more often than not (at least for me).
The projects where I was okay with the prospect of making mistakes were some of my best films, and definitely the most fun ones to make.
Let go of chasing the perfect result (an unrealistic destination) and instead embrace the unbridled exploration of your ideas (a valuable journey).
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldLast weekend I wrapped production on my first ever iPhone short film – Witchfish!
Overall it was a blast, although I will probably NOT be directing / DP’ing / acting simultaneously in a film again anytime soon lol
I already have an assembly edit, and I don’t think it’ll take too long to take it to the finish line, so look for it on the channel in a week or 2, along with some fun making-of videos.
That said – I’m too busy editing to write a newsletter this week!
So instead, here’s a free video from my (now defunct) Patreon…
This video explains how to expand your inner circle of creative collaborators and why it’s absolutely crucial for all filmmakers:
Book: Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Somehow I’ve never read an Isaac Asimov novel, despite the fact that he’s considered one of the “big 3” science fiction authors of his time along with Arthur C. Clarke (2001) and Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land).
His most successful series of books, Foundation, was recently adapted into an Apple TV series which I haven’t seen, but a sci-fi loving Uber driver I had recently made me promise to watch it. First, I figured I should give it a read.
I burned through the audiobook in just a few days and already started the second book in the series. It’s about a dying intergalactic empire’s attempt to save itself by sending 100,000 scientists to a far-flung planet to prepare for their inevitable dark ages. It reads like an anthology of 5 connected stories because there are huge jumps in time where we meet new characters and get thrust into new crises. It also has a sociological bent, and makes you wonder how predictable humankind as a whole might really be. Interested in seeing where the series goes, and watching the show when it’s done.
Quote: “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” ― Isaac Asimov
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldIt’s Tuesday evening as I type this, and I’ve spent the last couple of days doing prep for a new short film I’m shooting this weekend.
But even though the shoot itself is tiny, this project has been stressing me out!
It got me wondering, am I crazy for getting really stressed before a shoot, despite being confident I can execute it well?
So I asked you guys on Instagram, here are the results:
In other words, I’m not alone. Making movies is stressful!
Why though?
I figured this week I’d break down my worries about this specific project, and what steps I might be able to take to ease those stresses.
I have a feeling you all will relate – so tell me if these sound familiar to you…
Every time I have to DP my own projects, I get worried about the lighting. I know the basics, but lighting scenes definitely isn’t my strong-suit. And this film takes place at night, meaning I can’t lean on sunlight.
Also, there’s a bunch of practical FX I’ve never done before.
SOLUTION: There are only 4 areas in the house I’m shooting. The night before the shoot, I should frame up the widest shot from each of those scenes and figure out a lighting setup that works for each.
Wide shots are always the hardest to light. When you move in for the closeups, you can keep the lights where they are, or cheat their positions to enhance the look you created in the wide.
That means the challenge of lighting this film can be simplified to figuring out 4 lighting setups. Not so intimidating.
And tomorrow my priority is testing out all the practical effects I’ve planned out. If there’s any problems, I’ll just worry about it then.
This film is being made with the assistance of 2 sponsors. That’s great! I’m getting paid to make this film – living the dream!
However, that means it’s not just for fun – I now have deadlines and extra responsibilities on set.
Besides producing, directing, shooting, and acting in this film, I have to direct the behind-the-scenes footage at the same time, making sure to cover what the sponsors expect, while also teaching the how’s and why’s of everything I’m doing during the shoot.
This splits my focus for the day, and I’m worried I’ll forget to say/do/shoot something important.
SOLUTION: Do what I always do for a shoot – over-prepare.
For the film itself, I’ll have my shotlist, and even rough photo storyboards for each shot. On set I can be confident that as long as I can check each shot off, the film should work.
As for the YouTube side… since the film is no-budget and I’m shooting in my own house, I can split the shoot up into 2 nights. How lucky to have no time crunch!
I’ll try to cover all the BTS sponsor stuff on the first night, review the BTS footage the next morning, and pick up whatever I forgot on night 2. Now the schedule has a built-in safety net.
The film is a comedy, and it’s very short with funny gags throughout – in other words, I’m sure it will be entertaining. And I’ve made enough films that I doubt I’ll get to the editing room with total garbage on my hands.
However, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of good enough. And since this film is intentionally micro-budget, with only 2 other people involved, and shot on an iPhone – there’s not much wiggle room on my part for poor taste or laziness.
Weak decisions or shortcuts along the way will make it FEEL like a silly, no-budget, iPhone film. I don’t want that…
…Even though that’s exactly what it is.
SOLUTION: Embrace the fact that I’m making a silly, no-budget, iPhone film.
It’s not going to be The Godfather, and it shouldn’t be.
If the film makes people laugh and leans into the unique advantages of iPhone shooting, then it did its job. And odds are, the more serious I am about the film, the less funny it will be.
Re-reading over this, I feel calmer about the shoot.
This is actually my favorite way to handle all the things that bring me stress and anxiety – articulate it the best I can, and take an objective look at it. It’s part of Tim Ferriss’s fear-setting exercise.
Here’s the short and sweet version:
Usually when I do this exercise, the unnamed fears floating in my head turn into relatively simple problems to solve, and I feel more comfortable taking action on them.
Hopefully it helps squash some stress on your next project.
Website: FrameSet.app
Whoops, last week I forgot to give the discount code. Use code STANDARD at checkout for 10% off this handy searchable library of still images from all kinds of films & videos for creating moodboards / lookbooks / pitch decks / etc for your films.
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real World
Time to open the doors for more short film critiques on the Standard Story Co. channel!
Instead of having you email me a film, I’ve created a simple submission form that should only take a couple minutes to fill out.
From now on, any films directly emailed to me will not be considered for critiques. This form is the only way to submit.
I’ve already gone through all of the original submissions, and have a few earmarked for potential critiques down the road. Don’t re-submit your film if you emailed it to me previously.
I’m so glad this series of videos has been fun and valuable for y’all, because I love making them. I’ll keep posting critique videos like this about once a month.
This week’s YouTube video about re-writing our short film The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody has possibly the most fundamental (yet easy-to-overlook) rule for writing & re-writing any film, plus it updates you on what’s happening with this project. Check it out!
Much more to come in this series.
Quote: There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. -Frank Capra
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real World
Short one today, gotta pack a bag for my writing partner Chris’s bachelor party. If you never hear from me again, search the Austin, TX area.
But I saw a movie this week that’s a great case study for us to learn from…
I loooove to see a DIY film make a splash in the world. I especially love to see it documented in industry trades like Variety.
Milk & Serial, a horror feature film made on an $800 budget by Curry Barker, was posted on his YouTube channel that’s a bad idea 3 weeks ago and it already has 591k views and some glowing reviews across the web.
I watched it the other night, expecting a casual watch, but I was glued to my seat. Let’s break down why this low-budget film works, and what we can learn from it.
Clocking in at 62 minutes, this film just barely crossed into feature film territory by runtime. And I think that was a wise move, especially considering their distribution platform.
I’m a big proponent that no-budget films in general should err on the side of being too short. My 2 features were 96 and 93 minutes long.
You simply don’t want to overstay your welcome. Also, the shorter the runtime, the more you’re able to concentrate your limited resources into making something good.
Plus, since the film is getting released for free on YouTube (where typical viewers want to watch something short and digestible), the longer the film, the harder it might be to get people to click in.
The smartest move here, and the reason it was able to be made with basically no budget, is the format – found footage. Really, it’s not found footage format, it’s YouTube prank video format.
Playing into this means the cinematography SHOULDN’T look good, and really frees up a time and money that typically gets alotted to lenses, lights, cameras, setting up shots, etc.
Instead, to keep the film engaging the filmmaker’s focus turned entirely to things like performances, pacing, editing, and just plain old storytelling.
This is a good example of working backwards to write a film that you can actually pull off. This movie was intended to look cheap, it actually HELPS the story work better. Always a great thing to keep in mind. Speaking of which…
The film is very well plotted, which keeps the story moving and evolving at a great pace, but to me, the standout part of the film is the performance of the lead character, Milk.
He’s played by the writer/director/editor of the film, Curry Barker, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Curry knew what kind of character he could knock out of the park, and wrote it for himself.
Also, him and his collaborators on the film have been making horror shorts and comedy sketches together for years – and in fact have already gone viral on similar (though smaller) projects.
I haven’t seen any of his other shorts like The Chair (a horror short that’s currently… sitting… at +5M views), but I’m excited to do a deeper dive into his other work soon.
By building upon genres and styles he’s already very familiar with and has built an audience around – he certainly set himself up for success with this much longer film.
That’s why even a small short film project is so valuable – they’re all stepping stones to something bigger, even if you don’t know what that is yet.
By the way, if you want to write a small short film that you could film this weekend on a $0 budget, you may want my Instant Short Film Blueprint. In only 2 hours you’ll learn a fool-proof method to write simple, yet compelling short films that are based on the resources you already have.
Here’s a couple of recent reviews:
After this course I feel confident and inspired to create! The whole course is super quick and easy to digest. It definitely does what the name promises.
- Alexa Degante
If you want the most practical, down-to-earth, and realistic approach to true no-budget short film writing, this is the course and Kent is your guy. Best money spent on an "everyday Joe filmmaker" course. -Josh L.
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real World
This is my 36th week of consecutive newsletters now, and it’s safe to say Friday Film Notes has been a rewarding experiment.
Usually, writing these is a fun, reflective hour or 2 in my week, and a chance to connect with over 11,000 filmmakers from around the world. Pretty sweet.
But there are some days, like today, where I’m feeling overwhelmed with everything on my plate, and this is actually the last thing I want to do.
In fact, this whole week I’ve found myself avoiding writing this until basically the last minute (it’s late afternoon Thursday as I type).
Why is that?
Maybe if I can diagnose myself here, it’ll both help me AND some of you feeling the same way with your own projects.
I think it comes down to a combination of a few things:
Burnout Creep
Burnout usually doesn’t hit you all at once, it sneaks up on you, and slowly starts weighing you down until even the tasks you normally enjoy start feeling like Sisyphean burdens.
I’ve been juggling a lot of projects lately and feeling a lot of pressure to perform well on all of them. This week I ended my work days feeling a mix of guilt & anger that I wasn’t more efficient or couldn’t get more done. Sort of feels like slowly drowning.
I’m taking steps to stop the drowning – like planning to batch write & record videos, and hiring a part-time virtual assistant for admin duties – and even though these measures will eventually help, for now they’re actually creating way MORE work.
Perfectionism Paralysis
There’s an invisible pressure to make every film, newsletter, or YouTube video better than the last. To offer more depth, more value, be more insightful, etc.
With all that pressure, the simple act of sitting down to write becomes a monumental task.
I’m feeling that the most with the 2 short films I’m planning on shooting this month. I have a looming deadline on 1 of them and still haven’t cracked the story.
It’s been almost a year since my last short, Datsuzoku, so I really want to come correct with these films and give them both incredible stories… But the pressure of “perfect” is poison for writing.
Imposter Syndrome
This is inevitable for any creative professional, and I certainly have my moments. Starting a YouTube channel or selling courses about how to make films definitely doesn’t help.
I probably would have talked myself into giving up and hiding my head in the sand if it wasn’t for the overwhelmingly positive feedback from both — thanks for that
Well, I almost didn’t.
I was telling myself I’ve earned a week off. I’ll just say I’m tired and throw a quote in or something. Who cares.
In fact, that’s what I started doing. This newsletter started as a protest to having to type a newsletter.
It wasn’t until I got a few sentences in that I realized this would actually be a pretty good newsletter.
That’s how it always goes.
Once you make that first dent, the fear and worries start dissolving and you can actually get on with it.
The common advice to “just push through it!” is often not that helpful.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s incredibly important to show up in those dark, doubt-filled moments, but that doesn’t mean you have to brute-force it and finish the whole task.
Find a teeny-tiny bit of it that you might enjoy. Even if it’s something in the middle of the project that haven’t gotten to yet. Just do that.
Sure you’re contributing only a tiny drop to the big bucket of your project, but it’ll make you feel much better than if you don’t contribute anything.
And tomorrow, you’re more likely to add a bigger pour.
Better yet…
Drop your original plan and ask yourself a very valuable question:
“What would this look like if it were fun?”
Is there another way to accomplish what’s on your plate right now, that would make you actually look forward to doing it?
That’s what happened here.
I only started this newsletter to figure out why I didn’t want to do this newsletter. And I now feel much better prepared to tackle the other projects on my plate, while having also gotten this damn newsletter OFF my plate.
And hopefully, this newsletter did its job and helped some of you who may be feeling similarly.
This personal therapy session you’ve been privy to already has me excited to look for ways to transform my other projects into exciting & fun challenges, rather than things I need to “just push through and get done.”
So I guess the TL;DR of this issue is…
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
It’s okay to not always be bursting with enthusiasm for your creative projects.
When that happens, re-write the rules to make those projects work for YOU.
You are not a slave to your own ambition.
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldLet’s talk about the one sentence it took me way too long to learn the importance of…
A logline is the premise of your film, distilled down to a single sentence.
So the logline for E.T. might be – A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.
Aren’t loglines just for pitching your film idea?
Yes, they’re great for an “elevator pitch,” but they’re much more useful than that.
How could dumbing down my complex, sprawling narrative into the equivalent of a Tweet possibly benefit my artistic vision?!
Believe it or not, a clear logline can save you from writing yourself into a corner (or, you know, into a 200-page script that no one will read).
Let me show you how.
Imagine you’re working on a short film about a musician struggling to write a song.
You don’t know WHY, but something tells you, that’s going to be a great short film.
So you just start writing. And you have no idea what you’re doing, but you finish the script and show some people.
They all say vaguely nice things about it, but you can tell they don’t love it.
Why not? What’s missing?
Well, if I were to guess, I’d say not having that logline BEFORE you started writing turned the story into a muddled mess with no real direction.
Next time, instead of running a whole SCRIPT by your friends or fellow writers/filmmakers, try running the LOGLINE by them. Not only does it save both of you a ton of time, you’ll be able to see the story’s potential plainly in their reaction. If they perk up, their eyes widen a bit, maybe you’re on to something…
If not, just come up with another one. A lot easier than coming up with a whole new script.
By the way, we’ll circle back to this struggling musician premise…
Most beginner filmmakers when asked what their story is about, will do what I used to do – ramble.
Instead of a concise logline, it’s usually a laundry list of conflicts, relationships, backstories, etc.
Or sometimes you’ll even get the entire beat-by-beat outline of the story.
When I hear that kind of long ramble, I have a pretty good idea that the story is not good. That may sound dick-ish, but I’ve got someone backing me up on this…
Steven Spielberg once said, “If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it’s going to make a pretty good movie.“
I think this young upstart may be on to something.
If you can’t get someone intrigued by your story when it’s condensed into a single sentence, why would they want to see that premise stretched out into 10 minutes, or 2 hours?
By the way, this doesn’t just apply to high-concept films like Jaws or E.T.; it’s equally true for dramas, comedies, and all those little indie short films we want to make.
Let’s look at our example from earlier…
Ok assuming Spielberg knows what he’s talking about, we need to figure out a logline for our story about a musician struggling to write a song.
There’s probably 546 million stories you could write about this situation, but most of them suck.
So don’t just start writing. Think about the big picture. Think about what would make this generic situation fun to watch.
You should be able to articulate that in a single sentence, like Spielberg says.
How about: “A struggling musician tries to write a song for his wife’s eulogy.”
Well. I personally don’t want to watch that. Sounds like a real bummer.
Is there anything unique or interesting about the guy? From the way this story is presented in this logline, the whole point of the story is to feel bad for this guy.
I love a good sad movie, but this is boring. I’ll pass.
Let’s try again:
“A burnt-out musician struggles to finish his last song before losing his hearing forever.”
How do you feel when you hear that sentence?
I know how I feel – INTERESTED!
I want to know more about this guy and how he’s going to solve this problem. Even though it’s probably going to be a sad story, unlike the last logline, this one is compelling. My imagination is actually activated by this itty-bitty logline.
Besides that, I know it’s also going to give the writer a clear spine for the story before they type a single word.
That’s a good logline.
Let’s try one more version.
“A washed-up country musician struggles to ghost-write a song for his estranged bubble-gum pop, superstar daughter.”
I’d watch this one any day of the week. Why? It’s surprising, it has color, and it could be either really sad, or really hilarious, or both. Is it loosely based on Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus? Again, it got my imagination going.
Good logline.
This logline is your story’s GPS. It keeps you and your story on track, focused on a clear goal and an urgent obstacle. Besides that, it makes your project more attractive to OTHER people, which is very handy when crewing up, looking for financing, etc etc.
Without that guiding logline, your script risks becoming a buffet of half-baked ideas—lots of options, but nothing satisfying.
So, next time you sit down to write, start with a logline. Nail down what your character wants, what’s standing in their way, and what’s at stake. It’s a simple step that can save you a lot of headaches—and maybe a couple of sleepless nights wondering where it all went wrong.
By the way, loglines are a key part of my new Instant Short Film Blueprint. Check it out and in only 2 hours you’ll learn my repeatable method for writing compelling short films you can shoot this weekend — no budget required.
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
Want to Write Your Next Short Today? Film School for the Real WorldWhat a busy week – some big production updates on not one, but maybe THREE new short films coming up.
On top of that, the release of The Instant Short Film Blueprint this week has been a whirlwind, but new reviews pouring in from the speed demons who’ve flown through the course have kept me going!
Here’s a few that just came in:
Thanks Charles, Diana, and… Sir Hollis of Royal County of Berkshire (
that’s the name he put down!) for sharing your feedback and congrats on leveling up your storytelling.
Are you ready to join them?
Only 2 days left to get the Blueprint for 25% off + bonus lessons.
Don’t miss out – get the Instant Short Film Blueprint today!
Here’s news on some upcoming films I’ll be making & documenting for the channel 
The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody
Still hammering away at pre-pro for this challenging project.
In our last weekly production meeting, we had a few big pieces of news:
If we use this location, we can’t realistically film until April or May because it’ll be too covered in snow. But the other producers and I would rather wait until the location is looking perfect than try to rush anything anyway, so it doesn’t make much of a difference to tack on a couple more months.
We realized we may have a great casting choice for Oliver up our sleeve. It’s too early in the game to say much more than that, or even reach out to the actor. But man, it got me excited to finally imagine a face on this character who will carry the story.
Next month I’ll be putting out the next YouTube video in the Oliver Brody series, this time focusing on the re-writes we’ve done.
I’m going to make sure each video in the Oliver Brody series isn’t just an update vlog, but actually offers value in the form of a practical lesson anyone could use on their own films.
This is a story I’ve been tinkering with for a couple of months now, and I think I’ve finally found a simplified, cleaner way to tell the story – plus a better ending. Since I can’t film Oliver Brody for quite a while, this will hopefully hold me (and y’all) over until then.
The great part is I think I can film this for DIRT cheap, and maybe with no crew outside of a PA (and I suppose a BTS shooter for a YouTube video about making it).
I’d probably even film it with my tiny Sony ZV-1 camera, which I bought used for $500, just to showcase the fact that you don’t need fancy gear to make a compelling film. A solid story, good actors, and some tasteful choices along the way will suffice.
Anyway, the outline seems to be working now, so I’ll type it out and find out if I’m still in love with it.
If some planets align, I might be able to squeeze this in next month . More to come…
Had an interesting offer recently to make a little short film using a phone accessory.
I thought about it and realized how crazy it is that I haven’t done any videos about smartphone filmmaking yet – since that’s where so many filmmakers start these days. So… hell yeah let’s do it.
What’s the story going to be? I have no idea. But I feel confident I can run through the blueprint course and bang out something compelling I could shoot quickly.
I’ll try to take advantage of shooting on a phone with basically no other gear – so hopefully the story can involve some stealth filming around town, in stores etc.
This film & making-of will probably come out around the end of September. But shooting this AND Luck Sucker next month might be tough… we shall see.
TV: Alone (Hulu)
I had no idea there was a season last year that I missed, and another one this year, so I’m catching up.
If you’ve never seen it, they drop 10 people in the wilderness and give them a bunch of cameras to film themselves surviving for as long as they can. The last one to give up, or get pulled for medical reasons, wins a bunch of money.
You get to see these people all trying different strategies to survive with only a few key items they arrive with. Some are nest-builders, immediately going for a safe/weather-proof structure to live in, while others start by trying to get snare traps or fish nets in place, and others focus on bow-hunting. It’s amazing how harsh and unforgiving nature is, even for these experts. Eventually winter sets in, and it becomes a contest of who can starve the slowest and who can mentally sustain that kind of loneliness.
I always wonder what their full gear list is for cameras/sound out there. I know they have to train the contestants before they’re dropped on how to film themselves. Editing that show must be insane too, can’t imagine how much footage they have to sort through.
Quote: When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium. – Truman Capote
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
PS – Don’t forget, only 2 days left to get The Instant Short Film Blueprint for 25% off + bonus lessons!
Film School for the Real World