According to the guidelines, the idea is to “create a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on 24 July 2010”. All the content of the film will be submitted through YouTube, and if the footage you submit is chosen for the film (by director Kevin Macdonald), “you will be credited as a ‘co-director’ in the credits that appear at the end of the film. You will also be eligible for consideration to attend the film’s premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival”.

I'll save you a seat.

Awesome, right? Sure. At its core, this is a pretty creative idea. And it’s always great when an established filmmaker like Ridley Scott or Kevin Macdonald decides to get involved with something like this. However, there is a key factor at play here that I think deserves a look, and it is the exact reason why I chose to wait until after the 24^th to write about this film.

Is it possible that this film project isn’t meant for filmmakers at all? That, rather than looking for professionally shot footage from up and coming filmmakers, the producers of this project are actually looking for the best home movies they can find? Kinda like an unfunny version of America’s Funniest Videos?

They were ALL unfunny.

Considering that they are requesting completely raw, unedited footage, and that some of the tips they provide include stuff like: “The built-in microphone on your camera will struggle to record usable sound if your subject is any further then 3 feet away from the camera” (improper grammar theirs, not ours), it is pretty clear they aren’t expecting a lot of footage from seasoned film-making veterans.

It seems more likely that they are expecting footage from people who are more interested in “being involved in a movie” than people who will care about how the final project turns out. Because of this, I ask, is it possible that this film isn’t really showing multiple perspectives of the world, but just letting Kevin Macdonald use your footage to show his perspective?

While I don’t want to make it seem like I’m just some cranky dude who doesn’t like the idea, I simply what to highlight the fact that it isn’t really going to be any kind of stepping stone or building block for anyone chosen as a “co-director”. If this film is successful, none of the “co-directors” will get any of the praise. Instead, Macdonald will, for being able to make a great film out of “armature” footage.

I’ll be up front: I went to a film school. It wasn’t a standalone film school, it was just a film program at a larger University, and it was mostly theory and writing papers. I didn’t go just for the film program, I just sort of fell into it. Although I went, I don’t advocate strongly against it or for it. In this post, I’ve tried to narrow down some points about what film school has to offer and what is doesn’t.

The Tale of Bobby and Danny

Let’s say we have Bobby and we have Danny. Bobby wants to be a filmmaker, and Danny wants to be a historian. They both decide to eschew school, and study on their own. Bobby reads about cameras and filming techniques, and Bobby reads about history. Bobby makes a short, and Danny writes a thesis on his own.

Bobby goes to a film festival with his short. The people there say “great, come on in” and his short wins an award. He is now a filmmaker, and he’s got some interested investors to make a feature length film.

Danny goes to a historical society with his thesis, looking for a job as a historian. But before he can even get them to turn the first page they ask – “where did you get your degree?” Danny doesn’t have an answer. He never went to history school, and now he can’t get a history job without a degree in history.

This is, of course, a ridiculous oversimplification, but there’s some truth in here. Filmmaking is a rare academic subject where the degree you get isn’t a prerequisite to getting your foot in the door. Nobody is going to ask you for your filmmaking diploma. Therein lies the heart of the debate.

The Knowledge to Become a Filmmaker is Largely Undefined

There’s a reason you don’t go to the bookstore and see books called “The 5 Minute Physics Degree” or “What They Don’t Teach You in Med School”. Most academic subjects that lead into a profession of choice are very clearly defined. Every doctor you meet went through a very specific process with checks and goals at each step. It’s illegal to call yourself a doctor without having gone through these steps.

But literally anyone can call themselves a filmmaker. The definition is loose, and the pathways to get there are extremely varied. No one is going to ask for your certificate. Some people tout that as a benefit, while others tout the fact that film school is a necessity, but no one is right or wrong.

Wait a Second – What Kind of Film School Are We Talking About?

People often refer to “film school” as if it was a factory where every person who goes in gets the same thing, but there are really two kinds of film schools.

First, there are the academic film schools. Usually, these are programs that are part of a larger university. Some tend to favor the academic side more than practical hands on training, and some go the other way, but they all offer you a background in film history and film theory to go along with your production training. Some, however, offer very limited production training, and tend towards the “higher levels” of learning in the field.

The second kind is a strictly production school. These schools are usually singular entities, and function much like a trade school, focusing on the practical aspects of the craft of filmmaking.

Those are some really key differences. Both types have something unique to offer, depending on your needs. A production-oriented film school is likely to be cheaper, since you aren’t paying for a full University experience, but there are other things you do get from a full University film school that can be valuable.

What DO You Get Out of a Film School?

Our podcast listeners know that I like to watch “Project Runway”. It’s a dumb show, but it’s entertaining and my girlfriend loves it.

“Project Runway” fans know that every season there’s one or two designers that didn’t go to fashion school, and are self-taught. The show usually makes a big deal out of this to play up the drama of having someone who has passion but no formal training in fashion going up against people who went to clothes school.

Inevitably, one of these self-taught people does something that is too derivative of a past fashion movement, and the judges tell them what they need is a fashion history course.

This situation has some parallels to the situation filmmakers are in. When I graduated from film school, I had a really solid background knowledge of film movements and the techniques associated with that. In short, I knew what had been done before. I could watch a film with a critical eye, and more importantly, I could make one with a critical eye towards my own descisions.

Can you get that on your own? Of course. You can read books, watch movies, and know the same things I did when I left film school. I would venture to say that there are a few advantages to doing it in an academic setting: one is your forced to do it, even if the material of the day doesn’t interest you, and two, the material is brought to you. You don’t have to seek it out, whereas you might miss something picking materials on your own.

Another things that film school may provide is a network of people that have the same interests as you. Yes, you can get that by meeting people and making connections, but a film program alumni network is a readymade network to tap into.

To Film School or Not To Film School?

It’s a hard question, and it has no right answer. There are people the advocate for both sides. Kevin Smith (of course) doesn’t believe in film school. Neither does Werner Herzog, and look at the beautiful film art he produces:

An age old debate that has no real answer – sounds like a great topic for the comments section. Did you go to film school? Didn’t go? What was your experience?

Say Whaaaa?!?

Everyone has made a video where they play footage in reverse. Whether you are bringing attention to the fact the the footage is reversed, or you are trying to make the footage appear as if it is moving forward, reversing video is a simple way to achieve a variety of visual effects.

But, because everyone has used this technique time and time again, it seems almost impossible to come up with anything new or unique using reversed footage as the focus. There were a slew of credit sequences that used this technique in the 90s, but truthfully, it seems that ever since the music video “Drop” by The Pharcyde (directed by Spike Jonze), the only thing you see using reversed footage is people eating bananas and throwing pillows on the floor.

There are the occasional gems here and there, and of course there is Jimmy Fallon’s Put it In Reverse, but for the most part, no one is doing anything exciting with technology anymore. Now, we acknowledge that effects can get stale over time, however, many of the same effects that have been around just as long are still being used to make some pretty creative stuff.

So, we challenge you, do-it-yourself filmmaker, prove to us that creativity still exists in the reverse effect. Prove to us that it doesn’t take Spike Jonze to do something unique. Prove to us that the DiY filmmaking community hasn’t plateaued and that Jimmy Fallon isn’t the only person reinventing an old friend. If you do, we’ll mention you by name* on our next Podcast.

*Name will be played in reverse.

Yes, $15,000 is on the high end, of what we talk about here, but this is a feature and that includes equipment (apparently).

What caught my eye about this story were the elements that would sound familiar to someone making a short for $200:

• Filmmakers playing lead roles
• Filmmakers making food for cast and crew
• Crew from Craigslist
• Crew working for free
• PVC track camera dolly
• Shot on video
• Actors/actresses doing their own makeup and hair

You’ve got that, right? Everyone can scrounge up everything on this list. So why is this film getting distribution? Well, here are some things you might not have in your pocket that they did:

• DP with inheritance money to buy nice equipment
• Known, award-winning actors willing to work for SAG daily minimum
• Insurance to piggy back off of
• Shot in New York City

The film doesn’t sound that appealing to me but I’m not really a romantic comedy fan, and the thought of spending a few hours watching two twenty-something jewish kids work out their relationship problems in hilarious ways doesn’t exactly make me want to change my mind, but that’s not the point.

The dude from the IFC sums it all up here:

If this were just friends and family, that would be one thing. But they’ve got some very distinguished actors, and it looks great. So it’s incredible that they spent so little out of pocket.

It looks great and they’ve got some great people. Hmm. Well, with work DiY Filmmakers can make what they shoot look great.

The thing that gets me is the emphasis on the people they have in the movie. It’s not “the story was so compelling, that I can’t believe they spent so little.”, it’s about the fact they got some names in there (in small parts, mind you), that are recognizable to some.

When you go to the article, take a look at the slideshow. It’s just a bunch of kids making a movie on video – you’ll see shades of yourself in there, but they’re being profiled in the New York Times and got slipped $40,000 by IFC to promote it – almost triple the original budget.

So is there anything to learn from this?

I think there is. When you take a look at your resources as a DiY Filmmaker, try and push them a little bit farther, outside of your comfort zone.

We all can come up with everything from list A. We all don’t need everything from list B, but we need to be able to find things to go in list B that give us the extra edge. Here are some suggestions:

• Find out if there are some well-known people around your area, and if there are, find out if they’d do a small part in your film. If you present yourself as someone making a great little project that they could be a part of, then you never know, they could bite. The worst thing they can do is say no. No one likes to hear “no”, but you can chin up and take it.
• Call around to your friends and see if they know someone or something interesting or notable you could somehow work into your film. Maybe your friend has access to a vintage car collection. Maybe they know someone famous who can be cajoled into a role.
• Think of the ideal location for a scene in your film. Then, call up the people who manage that location, and ask if you can shoot there. Who knows – you could be shooting a scene in a dream location instead of at the park down the street.

I’m sure you guys can come up with some more. The idea is getting to the starting line (the first list), and pushing yourself a little farther (the second list). Don’t limit yourself to just what is within arms reach, and who knows, one of those things you pushed yourself for could be the stand-out thing that gets you noticed by a distributor.

However, even if you vow to never post another one of your films to YouTube again, and have converted exclusively over to Vimeo, odds are you’ve still got a handful of videos that are already on YouTube and have been for quite some time. If this is true, then it’s just as likely that you’ve received plenty of feedback from fellow YouTubers on these videos, and that none of this feedback is particularly useful, helpful or encouraging. In fact, a lot of this feedback is probably cruel, hateful and often totally unrelated to the work itself.

As with any other place on the internet that give anonymous users the chance to voice their opinion, YouTube attracts people with problems. Seriously.

For example, here are a few comments found on this video:

LOL eww i just think your very FUCKING fay , ugly .bad dancing , got a penis, your a lesbian , you like fat cunt ,

does any one els think this fat fuck should become lez {if she alrady isent} because no boy will ever like her so u should just cut off one of ur rols of fat and kill urself wit it u suck and and ur fat and uglyyyyyyyyyyyyy

fat ass you suck big monster cock dont ever do this again

Bitch was asking for it.

OK, point made, YouTubers are cruel, time to move on, right? Wrong, because here are a few more comments from the exact same video:

You are amazing. YouTube needs more freakin awesome people like you. Keep it up, girl!!

your the best person on youtube.

you just officially made my dayy!! i love your videos!

Now, we all know this girl is not the best person on YouTube, nor should she kill herself, so what does this all mean? It means that YouTube comments are not representative of real life feedback. People say all kinds of crazy stuff online and most of it isn’t even worth the time it takes to read it.

Do you know why I used this video as an example? Because in just over a year, this video has received 623,398 views. Yes, you read that right, this video of a girl awkwardly dancing in her bedroom has well over half a million views… and this isn’t even her most popular video (she has one dancing video with nearly 6 million views!).

She really hits her stride with this one.

Some of the worst videos imaginable gain popularity on YouTube, and they make it difficult to gauge whether your video is successful or not. How are you supposed to feel if the short film that took you months to finish has a total of 78 views in the past year, while this guy gets millions and millions of views every time he posts a video. Every. Time.

I guess that shirt took a while to make.

It’s important to take everything on YouTube, or on the web in general, with a grain of salt. What qualifies as a successful video on YouTube does not necessarily mean it is going to be successful in any other place. YouTube has its own set of standards on quality, and it is not an adequate way to determine anything other than your worth on YouTube specifically. And while YouTube provides a lot of helpful insight on where your views are coming from, most of the user generated comments and ratings reflect very little on how your film may actually be received by people who matter (like people in the film industry, potential investors and film festival judges).

So, while YouTube can be a helpful tool in promoting and broadcasting yourself or your work, at the end of the day, your film is competing with a lot of stuff that isn’t even in the same category, and is being judged and critiqued by a lot of unqualified individuals.

I told you there were too many.

So here is the big question – what are all these crazy DiY devices for?

I might be damning myself here. Homemade versions of jibs and cranes have long been a defining characteristic of the DiY film movement. How many of us as kids made something cool to put the camera on and constructed a story with the sole purpose of getting to put a cool shot in there.

I’ve seen plenty of DiY films chock full of cool looking crane shots, but no real story. Sometimes (but not all of the time) it feels like DiY is all about the cool stuff or the cool shots you can get, but not about what the end product is and how that affects an audience.

I’m going to propose a rule to live by for planning and shooting your next DiY production:

Act like you don’t care what equipment you use, and how it works.

Why? People aren’t going to want to see your movie to see the cool shot you got with the DiY crane you spent 2 weekends making. They are looking for a great story. If it looks professional and has some great shots – awesome, bonus! – but that’s not what puts butts in the seats.

Almost there!

As a DiY filmmaker, you are the person telling the story through your lens, so start your production out with a desire to tell that story. Your camera, the microphone, the tapes – those are the tools that you will use to tell your story. They don’t exist as a reason to tell it, they exist as the means to tell it. That is why DiY filmmaking is so great – the tools to tell that story are easy to get a hold of and use. The crowd who want to tell a story aren’t limited to the chosen few with mulit-million dollar budgets.

I’m not suggesting that all shots be boring and no one should ever build a DiY jib. They are great tools for filmmaking, but let the story dictate whether you need them. If you can really make a scene spectacular and communicate to the audience with a DiY steadicam, by all means, build one.

I think every person interested in films needs to ask themselves at some point whether they truly are a storyteller. Many people get into DiY filmmaking because they are enticed by the process of filmmaking and the equipment, but they aren’t storytellers. If you’re one of those people – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Productions don’t happen with just one person with a vision, they need people who are passionate about how the film looks, and how it gets made. If you aren’t a storyteller, why not find someone who is and be a part of another project instead of heading a project where you aren’t really concerned about telling the story? It may be more fun and more fulfilling.

Whether or not you are a storyteller is a big question only you can really answer, but it is really important to the DiY community that it is a question that gets answered, or else there is going to be too many DiY steadicams floating around out there, and not enough great films.

Pictured: Movie making magic.