Organic Filmmaking: Making Your Film Happen

Had a sit down discussion with a filmmaker that wanted me as a consultant on his film about the order in which you create a film. Normally, you write a script, cast it, shoot it. But in the sense of many filmmakers, that can result in a mess when you can't get the right locations, the right actors, the right [insert something here]. Hence the idea of Organic Filmmaking and how it can actually make your desire to create a film simpler.

Organic Filmmaking is allowing what you have around you to create the materials you will use to make your film. It works on the principle that drama can be anywhere and everywhere. On a street corner, in a diner, on an airplane, in a car, or any other location you can create drama. So step one is to establish where you can film and ask yourself "What can happen here?"

If you have a house, you potentially have any plot you desire outside of western (unless you live on a ranch). You can have contemporary, sci-fi, futuristic, or surreal style stories in any modern day house. Open roads are great for horror, thriller, or suspense films. Schools lend themselves to any sort of high school melodrama.

After you have secured one or two possible locations, start canvassing actors from the people you know, or seek the drama students at high schools or universities. Ask them several questions before you make any commitment:

1. Are they willing to kiss someone passionately on camera? That question alone will weed out those that are not capable of disconnecting their real selves from their on screen personas...and that is desperately important to have happen.
2. Can they commit to a rehearsal schedule?
3. Not a question, but take lots of photos of them for two reasons. One, you want to find their sweet spot, their good side, their "film side" and two, you need to make sure they can just "be" on camera and not freak out (unless the role has cause for them to freak out)

You will find that once you have the location, and the actors in place, it' matter of setting a deadline for filming...and then you can work backwards. Put your filming date 4 weekends off...and the week prior is your rehearsal time, at least 3 nights that week have them run through the whole film several times, let them get used to the movements and the lines.

Week 3 (working backwards), you would finalise your script, it's a short film so this is not rocket science, you are not writing the monomyth, you are writing a situational dramatic narrative. So follow the rules of that in the sense you establish the who, what, where, when right off the bat, in the first 30 seconds. In the act two, you can work on the how of the film, and in act three, you establish the why. Or you can follow the hypothesis of Act One you establish Desire, Act Two you establish the Want, and in Act Three you show the Need of the character. In any event, keep it simple, 3 or 4 characters, one or two locations. Get the audience in, deliver the goods and get them out before they get bored, regardless of genre.

Week 2 you would be securing your actors and Week 1 you would be getting your locations. So four weeks from woe to go and you are shooting your short film. Organic Filmmaking is only one of the keys to learning to be a good film producer, its about knowing what you want, designing it around what you can get, and then delivering it.

End of the day, what you have done is developed a plan, an outline for your filmmaking that is similar to a blueprint for building a house. Now, a blueprint for a film is just a guideline, you will find wiggle room and you will have to make up things as you go, that happens, welcome to the world of producing. However, on the back of close to ten years working with people on short format films and three feature films, i have seen more films go under for the sole reason the filmmakers didn't have a plan to work towards. Often times when I am called into consult on films it because the filmmaker has lost sight of their big plan. Its a simple matter to say "Right, what have you done and where are you at?" and apply the outline to it and figure out where they are in the time frame.

I hope this article helps you and if you have any questions, feel free to email me with them.