A step by step guide to making  a low- budget short movie

 

This is the Cinema Workshop's compact guide on how  to deal with a big subject:  making  a  short film with a very limited budget.

Short films are an  underrated medium  and an often forgotten art form. But they can be very effective and creative cinema, as well as  a tool for learning and testing ideas. It is  also a way of demonstrating that you have the talent to go further and  to make feature films. Many filmmakers have launched their own career by making a no-budget short film and displayed how they can be creative and innovate with very small sums of money. It costs nothing to be creative.

You may be sceptical about  whether  an interesting and quality film can really be made for little, or even no money but it has been shown that is very possible to make quality for nothing. For example, two filmmakers from Nottingham, UK  made a film called ‘In Absentia’ not so long ago, spent a little money and used a lot of innovation and won awards at film festivals the world over. The English director Shane Meadows made the 12-minute short film Where’s the Money Ronnie? In 1996 for as little as £10, which helped to launch him into his career. You don’t need money to be innovative or to make exciting, interesting films. Working on a low budget can actually be very liberating. You know you can’t spend money, so accept that fact, and go all out and be as creative as you can.

Here is  some guidance to help you, in two parts

PART  I

 CHOOSING  THE RIGHT STORY AND WRITING THE FILM

1. Keep a short film short

An  important thing to keep in mind  is that a short isn’t a feature film and that it is generally a bad idea to try to squeeze a story you are developing (or have written) as a feature into a short.

Most festivals will accept as a short anything that is under 30 minutes, but many programmers and curators also say that they find it difficult to place longer short films (ones over 20 minutes). If your film is over 20 minutes long it may well need and be able to cope with more characters and a secondary story strand. And most  available funding  is usually aimed at films that are around  10 minutes.If your film is basically going to function as  a joke then keep it short (2-3 minutes max) and make sure the audience won’t easily predict the punch-line . Short comic films will make far more of an impression if they not only make us laugh but also manage to refer to something that gives us food for thought.

2. Keep your ideas within your possibilities

Whether you are working alone or as part of a team make sure that the project you are developing plays to your strengths and is achievable within your budget. Don’t make an intense character study if you’re scared of actors or develop an action story that will require stunts, car chases and special effects if you know you will only have $5000 to make it. Make your production choices based on necessities. Think about who, what, and where you'll shoot.  If you're low budget, choose something that happens around you every day as your subject. Don't forget that you can use pictures and still shots for video, too. Above all  remember, you'll need to complete the project, so be realistic.

3.Find an interesting  story

Choose a subject about which you want to make a film. Form a basic idea for a story and if you're having    trouble, read short stories for inspiration.Write a short text of what you want to accomplish.

Any kind of dramatic story requires 3 basic elements: a world, a character, a problem

Short films are no different; you just have less time to establish and develop each element. Most successful short films focus on ONE moment or event in the life of ONE main character. Because of that it is unusual for a short film to take place over a long period of time – it’s usually just looking at the immediate build up to and/or consequences of that one event. A lot of the best short films play out more or less in ‘real’ time, and a story that spreads over more than a few days is unlikely to work well as a short film.

Because of the need to establish an instantly recognisable world in order to get on with exploring a character’s problem, it can be useful to set your film around a familiar event or ritual: a wedding, a birthday party, the first day at school, a festivity etc. With such a setting  you will take advantageof  the audience’s familiarity with the situation and you will have immediately placed your characters into a story world full of barely suppressed emotions, which is always useful for generating dramatic tension and story events. The other advantage to choosing a setting of this sort is that it gives the story a finite time frame.

Another popular setting for the short film is the journey. Most short films focus on a pivotal, significant event in the life of the main character so that the story inevitably takes the character on a metaphorical emotional journey and it can work well to use a literal journey as its setting.

You probably don’t set out to write a film with a moral or even with a conscious awareness of what your story means but every story communicates some meaning to the audience. Once you are sure how the story begins and ends then you have a clear indication of its meaning and this will help you make important choices as you refine and develop your script .

4. Spend  time developing the story and writing a good script

A quality script will give you the opportunity to make a quality film. The good news is you can write a quality script for free, the bad news is that this is not easy and takes more time than you think.

       .The most important questions to ask yourself when you begin to develop your script are:

Who is the main character? What is their problem? How will the audience recognise the problem?

Are the stakes high enough? Am I telling the story from the best point of view?

The audience must be clear from the outset who the film is about and they won’t be if you aren’t. Your main character is the one who has the problem and if there isn’t a character in the story with a problem then you don’t have a film, or at least not one that will work as a dramatic narrative.

What is driving your main character through the story must be one of the following: a want,a need,an obligation.And in all cases it must be clear to the audience, even if it isn’t to the character, what this is. But what must also be present in the story - and apparent to the audience - is something that is making it hard for the character to pursue their want, need or obligation. The fact that something is making it hard is what turns it into a problem and, like we said before, no problem, no film. 

Make sure to develop your characters with different personalities; your movie won't be interesting if everyone acts and talks the same. And make sure your dialogue is kept to a minimum.The way in which you turn a character’s inner problem into the heart of your film and make sure that the audience can SEE it is one of the most important ways that you can demonstrate your skill as a filmmaker and not just as a story-teller. When we’re reading books we can be inside a character’s head but when we’re watching films we need to see characters DOING things that show us what they are thinking and feeling.

And remember, a script doesn't have to be perfect and you don't have to follow it 100%. It just gives you a great outline to start with. If you want, as an alternative to writing dialogue, you can just write the scenes and have the actors improvise their lines.

Click here for PART II of the Guide