6 Dos & Don’ts for Micro Budget Film Directing
A few years ago I was asked to make my 5 part Micro Budget Filmmaking Class Series available online on Skillshare, but after two classes (Screenwriting & Preproduction) I got swept up into so much actual filmmaking (shooting 3 short films + starting my first feature in 2019 alone) that only now, thanks to a global pandemic, do I have the time to continue sharing my course online. Upon my return to Skillshare, I was so honoured to see that over 3500 students had taken my first two classes. Inspired by seeing this amazing group of students develop as artists, I started in on evolving my curriculum to include even more tips and tricks that I learned over the past few years.
I've just launched my class on Directing where I dive into my process on set working with actors and crew to create short form content that has now gone on to screen at BAFTA and BIFA qualifying film festivals. My latest film Samaritan was even a Semi-Finalist at the Academy Award qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival - a new pinnacle of personal achievement during my decade-and-a-half-long journey to develop my voice as a film director.
In creating the curriculum for my class on directing, I was confronted with a challenge. At first I spun my wheels because the thought of having to explain what I do as a director seemed overwhelming. At times I questioned my qualifications because I tend to work unconsciously. I just do what I do without analysing how I’m doing it. The exercise of creating curriculum really forced me to understand just exactly what my process was.
Every creative’s process is different. I’m a firm believer that by exposing yourself to as many films as possible you’ll start to learn how to make your own film through osmosis. Couple that with the self-consumption of college level film curriculum and hands on learning, I believe anyone can eventually end up at a place where directing comes instinctively to them.
Let me start off by saying: I’m a skeptic of anything that’s called a “rule”. It’s not that I embrace chaos, but the creative dos and don’ts that I’m about to lay out are like the pirates code: (Captain Barbosa-like voice) It’s more guidelines, really.
Filmmaking is all about where you end up - the finished film that audiences consume. Two vastly different directors can both create amazing finished products even when they work in completely opposing ways. Yes, over the past hundred and twenty-ish years society has developed an evolving cinematic language of visual storytelling, and like any language it’s easier to communicate ideas if you stick to the same grammar, but time and time again I’ve seen examples of how my favourite films alway tend to disregard rules that a film professor would hold sacred. It seems to me that the one rule above all else is: for every rule there is an exception.
That being said, the following is just a small aspect of how I choose to direct my films. I’ve collated a collection of 6 broad Dos and Don’ts that I believe have helped me grow from a kid playing with a camera in his backyard to an emerging filmmaker who’s starting to develop a track record as I make baby steps into one of the most challenging industries.
Let’s start with the negatives first, so we can end on a positive note:
3 Don’ts of Directing
1. Don’t Major In The Minors
Okay… what does that mean?
As a director it’s your job to be the final say on a million different tiny decisions. The accumulation of these decisions is your “vision”. Your vision is not deciding the lead character should wear plaid instead of a plain shirt. I’ve seen too many wannabe leaders (whether in the film industry or not) waste time by labouring over minutia. By wrongfully prioritising non-essentials, these directors have actually hindered the progression of their projects.
This is not to say you shouldn’t pay attention to detail. Of course you don’t want to make a sloppy Ed Wood film where you don’t care if the actor kicks over a set gravestone proving it was made of styrofoam instead of stone.
I believe that instinct always wins. Analysing options is essential (you don’t want to always go with the first thing that pops into your mind), but I’ve been on set (not in the director’s chair) where I’ve seen the director repeat take after take of the same shot in order to get the camera move perfect. After wasting a day of production doing so, that particular director went on to leave that shot on the cutting room floor.
2. Don’t Hire Creative People And Then Stifle Their Creativity
This is a massive pet peeve for me, not only when I’m leading others, but also when I’m being lead. If you can’t trust people to deliver their best work then you’re either working with the wrong people or you need to analyse your own obsessive tendency to control.
There is such a think as creative control, but I believe “control” is never creative.
Creativity is about finding unorthodox solutions to overcome problems. It’s about breathing new life into old tropes to deliver audiences something fresh, even in a stagnating world where most things have already been done. Creativity is not about following a blueprint to recreate someone else’s creativity.
The more ownership you allow your collaborators to have over their own work, the better their work (and work ethic) will be.
3. Don’t Create In A Stressful Environment
It’s long been accepted in the film industry that the atmosphere on set is stressful. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. If you can control a productive, smooth paced, fun and engaging atmosphere on set, then collaborators will cling to you.
Starting out, it’s likely you'll be doing a lot of work for free/cheap to build your portfolio and gain experience. If you're not pleasant to collaborate with then people will quickly abandon your productions and they won't think of you when hiring for paid positions. The first paid gigs often happen because of a relationship you developed during a free passion project.
As a director you are responsible for setting the tone on your set. Some directors play music during the break to make the time in-between takes more pleasant and fun. Other directors do all that they can to keep their actors in the zone.
Some of the most famous directors of the past have used manipulation as a tool to get a certain type of performance from an actor. Perhaps the level of acting wasn’t up to the standard it should have been, so rather than working through the issues the director created a psychologically compromising situation to trick the actor into acting a certain way. Or perhaps they never even gave the actor the opportunity to deliver a great performance before playing a mind game to get the actor into the headspace of the character. For example, some of the more famous ones are how Oliver Stone acted like a military drill sergeant while on the set of Platoon to give the actors an authentic military experience. Or how Stanley Kubrick belittled and abused Shelley Duvall while filming The Shining so she would give a better performance as a battered wife. But the one that’s worst of all is the rape scene from The Last Tango in Paris where director Bernardo Bertolucci didn’t tell actress Maria Schneider what would be taking place during the scene so her reaction to the rape would be more authentic. In the moment, all she new was that Marlon Brando was going off script and attacking her.
Now, obviously that is an extreme case of unethical professional behaviour that at the time was wrongly justified for “artistic reasons”, but the point of what I’m trying to say is “trust your actors to act”. Your job as a director is to “direct” by seeing the choices in front of you and adjusting them to draw out their full potential. Your job isn’t to be a dictator.
3 Do’s of Directing
1. Do Work With People Who Are Better Than You
The director’s job is that of a generalist. The director is not the most talented craftsman on set, but rather a brilliant manager of other people’s talent.
I always encourage anyone to pick up a camera and start making their film regardless of their resources (or lack thereof). I’ve seen amazing films created by a cast/crew of only a few people, so if you have to go it alone them that shouldn’t stop you. However, the director who thinks that they can do it better if they do it all themselves is wrong - everyone has a weakness that can be elevated through collaboration. AND each new collaboration with stretch you and help you to grow.
2. Do Exude Trickle Down Passion
One of my specialties is delivering a high standard of production while working with a tiny budget. Perhaps I’ve shot myself in the foot, because the struggle is real and I’d love unfettered resources to achieve my vision, but I do believe this is why I’m able to continually make multiple film a year vs making few & far between. Delivering quality on a budget will attract producers who want to work with you, however, one of the biggest challenges is then trying to attract amazing collaborators without the lure of a nice fat paycheck.
When starting out, you won’t have a portfolio of previous films that show your abilities, so you’ll have to rely on something else to attract collaborator who are better than you.
The world of filmmaking is full of gigs that aren’t particularly enjoyable to work on. Many of us have aspirations of being among the ranks of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, but it’s hard to get there when people would rather pay us to make corporate commercials vs narrative storytelling. In between paying the bills, it’s essential to muster up the passion to push your creative goals. Passion is contagious. When potential collaborators see just how inspired you are and how determined you are to get your film made, they are going to catch the narrative film bug that’s raging inside your creative soul and they’ll want to join you on that journey.
3. Do Learn to Let It Go
The above image was chosen to impress my two-year-old daughter.
Now, I’m going to talk about working with actors, but the principles I discuss here definitely transcend to work with crew as well.
I can’t tell you how many times an actor has delivered me a performance that didn’t fit my vision. I could have forced my vision upon them, saying “No, I’m the director! Do it my way!”, but in doing so I would be asking them to go against their natural instincts. I’ve found that when most actors go against their instincts they end up delivering a performance that just seems fake.
Being on set is a process of creation, but it’s also a process of letting go. Yes, as the director, you are responsible for ensuring the quality of the performance, and you should always speak up if the performance isn’t up to parr. But if an actor is presenting you with a different version than what you expected, challenge yourself to be open. Oftentimes, the process of collaboration delivers something infinitely more interesting than using an actor as a robot to bring your storyboard to life.
Similarly, as a screenwriter I’d challenge you to let go of the words on the page if they’re not working for the actor. Sure, you don’t want an actor going too fast and loose with the screenplay. They might take the film in a direction you never wanted it to go, and you have to keep in mind the pacing of the scene, but what’s most important is that the audience believes the performance, not that the actors say the exact words you wrote on the page. The audience won’t be making a screenplay to final cut comparison.
The bottom line is always choose what works best for the performance, not what your ego holds as precious.
If you’d like to learn more about my process so you can avoid making the mistakes I made when experimenting making short films, then check out my class on Skillshare. If you're already a premium member then you'll have access to my class, but if you'd like to get 14 days of free premium Skillshare then you can click the button below to watch any of my three classes and thousands of others from different teachers around the world.