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!
Simplicity = Power.
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.
Directing is Prep. Prep is “Why?”
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:
- How do we light this?
- How do we frame this shot?
- How should the actor perform this?
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!
The Audience is the Final Editor
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.
Marketable Skills vs. Passions
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.
Process > Result
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.
Apply What You Learn
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.
Enroll today for lifetime access (50% off ending soon)
BTS of my new short film!
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