G'day. Dont mean to seem ask questions that may be to personal but I was wondering what age you discussion boarders are (dont have to be too specific) and how many many films you have made or helped make. Also, what is the average running times of your films? DO most of you prefer shorts to feature length stuff? I just wanted to know where everyone was at.

18
A few
Short movies are easier

MuRpHmAn StUdIoS

26
tons of shorts
working on feature (colabaration) now.

As far as what YOU (or anyone) should make. I would deffinentley suggest starting with shorts. Shorts (good ones, anyway) require alot of creativity, but not as much time. You can crank them out pretty quickly, and since you learn best by doing, gain alot of experience. Another plus is, chances are, most of your cast and crew will be voulonteers. Its much easier to keep people commited for 3 or 4 days, then for 2 months. Then theres the Robert Rodriguez theory.. "We all have 10 to 20 bad movies in us. Go ahead and get them out of the way." This is true. Chances are, you will be dissapointed by your first few movies, but I promise you will learn something from them, so its worth it.
Another thing, people dotn really think about is this. Shorts, (again, good, effective ones are a challenge to pull off. You usually are dealing with a small piece of information (the resolution of your story) that you have to deliver to the audience quickly, and effeciently. (I know that sounds cold in form, but that is the basic idea of you film.) With a short, you dont have time for character development, like you would with a feature, so you have to
(1) Decide what aspects of each characters personality is important to the audience in order for the short to make sense, and...
(2) Make one or two lines of dialouge that convey, along with actor delivery, that information, so you can move on to tell your story.
Bottom line, shorts are great practice. Start with shorts, and increase the subject matter, and running time with each.
R. Michael McWhorter
www.tizzyentertainment.8m.com
www.tizzystoryboardartist.8m.com

And you shall know us by the trail of dead.

17
dozen or so shorts
probably helped out on more

25 y.o.
~50 combined features, shorts, music videos, commercials and mini-series (As Director, D.P., Gaffer, Camera Assistant or editor).

I've directed about 15 shorts (Most under 10 minutes).
D.P.ed about 20 (3 features, 2 mini-series and a mess of shorts and music videos).

I make movies because it's fun to do so.

Nota "Doesn't do porn (But was asked to)" Mono

18 years old.

Made 4 shorts independantly, working on the fifth.

They average about ten minutes running time, but this fifth one should bump that average up a little bit.

I prefer making shorts because, simply, I'm not ready to make something longer. There's a little bit of consolation when you see the finished product and can say, "well, at least I didn't spend too much time on this piece of crap..."

--Alan

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http://www.alandenton.com
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Francis Ford Coppola did porn for a while and look what he has, Apocalypse Now and his own winery.
PT Anderson grew up watching just as much porn as feature length films and look what he has, Boogie Nights.

Porn has some opportunities and perks.

20
Tons o' shorts
Two features -- one I wrote, directed, edited and all that jazz -- the other I'm just the editor.

I've only made one feature of my own because I haven't had the time nor the money to do any more.

I'm 17 years old.

about 10 shorts. (From 5 to 30 minutes)

Just started learining alot about filmmaking when I turned 15. One day I brought the camera to my friends house and said, hey lets make a parody of Kyle....(one of my other friends). So we acted as him, I was his dad, and placed the camera around(making me the director I guess..) It was called "the top 10 ways Kyle kills himself", it had system of a down Chop Suey in the BG, halarious. After that we were hooked, and I'm glad to have like 10 really close friends (thank god for Halo on the X-box). We just get together and make parodies of eachother. I have a feeling that i'm next.. oh wait, no way, because I'm the one with the camera.

19
8-10 shorts
Between 5 and 30 mintues

I got a Sony TRV-11 when I was 16 and always fulled around with it making little shorts with my friends. My first "real" project was my cross country documentary "Four years and Seventeen Minutes" (which if you haven't reviewed and have a half hour to waste, It's posted on the site). Recently I've completed two other shorts, my first "Real" narrative, Small Town Politics, which will be on the site in a few weeks and a short documentary about hunting in Pennsylvania which should be up in a few months.

16
ive worked on about 2 movies and 1 music video
the movies are about 5-15 minutes long
I like anything that has a plot to it and a story line

RP

20 and a few shorts for college plus an animation. Got my first entry to this site up right now, Blackmail.com. Helped on a few as well.

I wish more schools would start assigning PLANNING films along with shooting. You don't have to compromise a damn thing when planning and let you imagination and artistic aesthetics fly without concern for budget, actors, equipment, permission and all that. I had one assignment like this, outside the film department, where I had to plan a scene, storyboard, sound, lighting. It was great and advanced me a lot. You finally got to think without restraint. It was a 2-3 minutes scene within a student written feature, wound up putting 50 shots in it and all, which is good, because usually you have to compromise shots here and there when actually shooting a student short.

DOH! I always knew I was the oldest person on this board and this confirms it! (Where did the nurse put my diapers?)

45 - with one short under my belt (but several plays produced locally). I will continue to shoot shorts until I feel comfortable enough to move on to something else, but I think I may be a better writer than a filmmaker.

No film school experience, but I'm absorbing a lot of knowledge from a lot of different places. I just enjoy doing this as a side . . . for now!

Mark M
Scooter Productions

I'm 16 and I've made about 10 short films that I've actually edited, not to mention I did all of the other work for most (writing, directing, shooting, etc). But I've been fascinated with making movies since I could barely walk. My mom used to make my friends and I act out puppet shows or our favorite fairy tales (the 3 bears for example) and someone would film them (creepy I know). Then as I got older (10-12) my older sister and I tried to do it on our own, we even experimented with stop-motion a little. Trust me, that was a weird stage and we've got a lot of cracked out footage. Finally when I was about 14 my mom but a Dazzle DVC USB capture card and a Hi-8 camera even though none of us knew about film editing or even what a capture card was. Once I realized just how much I could do with a computer and a camera I was hooked. I currently work with Premiere 6.0 and my super sweet JVC JY-VS200u.
I just wanted to tell you all about this because it's interesting to look back and see what our hobbies evolved from and how far we've come with our talents.

20.

About 4 short features.
And one feature length.

Varying in length from 10 minutes to 35 minutes. Bunch of other small projects...some school related, others meaningless excersizes in techniques. Currently finishing a feature length film, which as it stands uncut (scenes are already tagged for being trimmed or deleted) is 135 mins. We're shooting for a final running time of no more than 115 mins. I co-directed, edited, produced, and wrote the flick, as in all of my other works. Check it out at www.joshuacalling.com

15.
Directed, edited, and acted in several shorts. Written countless short screenplays. Working on concept for a full-length horror anthology.

~justin
http://www.showchoir.com/~justinc79
http://www.angelfire.com/film/iwc

15, about 4 shorts, my 5th is pre-production. I directed the last 4, but I worte my next one and will be producing it.

They average anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes.


-Thomas Chalifour

Writer/Director/Actor Extrodinaire

5 narratives(shorts of course)
5 Skating videos
20 or so video projects

I think ths is a great TOPIC, a nice reference to see who has experience, which will allow us to see who to listen to!

"I don't have time for film school...I'm too busy making movies" lol

PS-Listen to Tizzy