Horrible Filmmaking Advice That's KILLING Your Career

pretty much every filmmaker I've ever met has had help building up their career and if you want to go far it's important to listen to the advice of people who've been where you want to go but in the age of YouTube University and the online influencer it's getting harder and harder to filter out the good advice from the bad and there is a lot of bad advice floating around out there that has the potential to lead you to make some really bad decisions so in this video I'm going to break down three of the most common examples of bad advice I've seen floating around the internet so that you don't waste your time and money so these days it seems like more people than ever have film making dreams whether that's trying to go full-time Pro or just leveling up their skills so that their passion projects have more of an impact when I was just starting out with cameras 15 years ago the YouTube film making boom hadn't really kicked off yet and it was pretty unusual for me to run into other people online who were as excited about this stuff as I was these days though it seems like when I tell people I'm a documentary filmmaker there's a lot more curiosity out there a lot of people have wondered about what might be like doing something similar themselves I mean it makes sense cuz when I started it was still the early days of the 5D Mark II digital Revolution and film making was a lot less accessible and I think the surgeon popularity is a really good thing overall it's pushing up the general level of quality in both visuals and storytelling and it's giving rise to a whole new generation of filmmakers who are all telling a bunch of stories that never would have existed otherwise that also means that there's this sense of oversaturation out there like if you're just getting started today it can feel like you missed the boat and it's impossible to to stand out in a competitive market and it is true that it can be tough to get your foot in the door but the idea that it's too competitive is just plain wrong and you should ignore anyone who tells you that it is because the truth is that it's only too competitive for people who are hoping it's going to be easy back in the day it was possible to make some pretty mediocre stuff and because it was harder to find people with technical skills for video production there was a lot more space for uninspired or maybe we could just say bad work and hold on a second because I'm not kicking this video off just by saying that the key to success is to be amazing or something like that because that wouldn't be very helpful well I guess that in some ways that is what I'm saying but I don't mean it in the way you're probably thinking because what I've noticed after running a YouTube channel a documentary cinematography course and doing a ton of one-on-one consultations over the last 2 years it's that the people who find success have a lot in common and it's not that they own an 8K camera or they have a cool vintage prime lens so what are they doing and why do they stand out in an industry that some people people are saying is too competitive well for starters they actually do stuff last month I was talking to my friend Pablo danana who's one of the world's most sought after adventure cinematographers and he explained this pretty perfectly I think people romanticize the idea of being like an adventure filmmaker but like how willing are you to get out of your tent when it's howling and -40 and you know get out to maybe just get one shot but that's you know an important shot to get so many people out there like the idea of film making but of those people who are actually willing to go through what it takes to make these films like who is really out there making work on their own consistently sharing it with the world reaching out to other filmmakers in their area to grow their Network and actively pitching businesses around them lots of you I hope but I'm willing to bet that for everyone who's really giving it everything they have there's probably 10 more who are just watching gear video after a gear video and not really doing much plans are easy ideas are easy and buying stuff is really easy but is hard and that's why so many people give up before they see results let's compare that to a young filmmaker in DP I've been working with for the last year or so Thomas Al you may have already seen me mention him in my newsletter or on my community wall but Thomas was one of the first members of my documentary cinematography course and he was also the runner up for my mentorship program in 2023 so we've been in touch for a little while when we first met he already had a really nice reel and was shooting all sorts of cool spec projects on his own and that's part of what made him stand out to me but even though he had some solid GS under his belt he hadn't quite figured out how to break into the larger level of Productions he wanted to work on this is where a lot of people out there would start to fall back on the old crutch of complaining that the industry was too competitive for new filmmakers and maybe even become one of those people who leave bitter comments on YouTube videos about how nice it must be for other filmmakers who've had everything given to them on a silver platter and blah blah blah You Know Who You Are YouTube trolls I see you I see you but that's not what Thomas did he just kept pushing making work expanding his Network and putting himself out there then just recently he made a post in the dock Hub which is the closed members group for the cinematography course he was letting us know that he'd finally caught a lucky break and that a DP he'd been keeping in touch with had hired him on as a camera operator for I think a 10 episode International production in Japan and Malaysia and this didn't happen because he just waited for someone to email him he made this opportunity happen for himself by going to every networking event he could and staying in contact with the people he wanted to work with then less than 2 weeks later he made another Post in the group letting us know that he just been brought on as a DP on his first feature doc from an award-winning director the cynical filmmaker is going to look at this and say must be nice but the truth is that all this luck is really just the result of all the effort he put in that's finally paying off I have no doubt that there will be a lot more post like this from him in the future because people who really want it the ones who are truly putting in the work they're always going to rise to the top eventually and that's really the main takeaway here and why you need to ignore anyone who's telling you that film making is too competitive these days I made this career work for me just by refusing to do anything else and Thomas did the same thing so don't listen to anyone who says this job is to anything just keep doing all right moving on I want to take a look at a mistake that I see from a ton of early career filmmakers and this one I can speak to personally because of this channel I get a lot of emails from people all over the world some of them are looking for General career advice some want to chat about gear but I also get pitched a lot of projects sometimes these are well thought out and I can tell the filmmaker is going to make it with or without me but the vast majority of them are ideas for these big sprawling dream projects usually shot in international locations and requiring a ton of resources and time to pull off and the one thing a lot of these people will tell me when I ask follow-up questions is that somewhere along the way they got the idea that the only way to make it was to shoot for the stars or go big or go home to put it another way I guess this is mainly internalized from videos where the content creators have talked about how they quit the rat race in a blaze of glory or escaped The Matrix to follow their passion or something like but if you're just getting started in film making this is all terrible advice and look I get the appeal how cool would it be to hit it out of the park with your first project like making some big sweeping epic story that showcases your talents as a filmmaker and then just launches your career overnight with a huge Festival win or something the problem is here that in the beginning at least for most people big is bad let me explain because if you're still learning this is probably the worst thing you could do to yourself what matters in gaining that initial career momentum is the repetition of practice and learning from past mistakes to make each project a little bit better than the last one yes there are a couple people out there who've had huge successes right out of the gate but those are the exception not the rule most people with solid careers build them slowly over a long period of time and that is so much easier to pull off if you think small instead of big let's break that down for a sec to use a real world example a young filmmaker I worked with a couple years ago was having a hard time Landing the kinds of jobs they wanted to be known for so they booked a one-on-one consultation call with me I took a look at their reel which was solid but I saw that most most of the shots were more like branded content stuff than true documentaries which is what they told me they wanted to do longterm then we talked about how you have to prove to people you can do the work you're trying to get before they're going to hire you and then my advice was to go out and shoot some shorts in the style they aspired to work in which was ver documentary so that clients could imagine their stories in that style a couple weeks later they came back to me with a detailed project breakdown it was for a film in Brazil following anti-logging activists as they fought to stop the destruction of the Amazon now it is a super cool idea and it's probably a movie I'd like to watch but there was one massive problem it was way too big to pull off yes it was interesting and dramatic but it also was a 15h hour flight away and it took place in this remote environment that would cost a ton of money not to mention time to access they'd need a translator and probably a Car and Driver even to get started and all of that added up to the need for a ton of cash I'm guessing you can see the issue here more than likely this project would just never get done it would turn into one of those endless Works in progress that you talk about at networking events but never actually finish and since what matters in getting that initial momentum or those first reps is actually finishing films and learning from them before you move on this was going to bog them down forever until they eventually got discouraged and quit what would have worked would have been to shoot six shorts in a year about I don't know people or events in their Community or even their region making each one a little bit better until they built up a solid portfolio they could show to producers who might actually hire them so don't listen to anyone who tells you to go big right off the bat instead think small and think doable even if it's not as glamorous five finish shorts will get you way further than one Mega ambitious shoot that you don't ever do so if you're planning on sticking around for the longterm in this business do yourself a favor and scale it back then actually go out and shoot them okay last but not least let's talk about gear you might have seen that old Kevin cner movie Field of Dreams where the guy gets obsessed with the idea of building a baseball diamond in the middle of nowhere everyone thinks he's insane cuz he kind of is but he goes ahead with it anyways because there's this weird disembodied voice that tells him imun mil he will come then when it's built what do you know a bunch of ghost players come out of the Corn and play on his field it's a classic movie and a great story but the problem is when it comes to film making and gear specifically it's really dangerous in the modern filmmaking world it's more likely that's a YouTuber or an Instagram influencer whispering in your ear than uh the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson though if you do have a ghost friend no judgments from me pleasure to meet you sir and these people aren't telling you to build something they're telling you to buy something most of the time if you buy it they will come this idea pushes this narrative that what's holding you back from getting clients or booking shoots isn't that you don't have the right storytelling skills it's that you don't have an impressive enough gear package like if you just spend enough money on that FX whatever somehow word is going to get out and the jobs will start flowing in and while to an extent it is true that you do need to own the right gear for the jobs you're trying to get thinking that gear brings the work is like putting the chicken before the egg now if you watch this channel regularly you'll know I love gear and eventually it will make sense to upgrade cameras and invest in all sorts of stuff if you're starting to get asked to DP multi-episode series or to head up large budget feature docs then you might be able to increase your value by renting out a premium gear package to the production might even be a requirement for the job at some levels but not for the vast majority of filmmakers out there especially when you're just starting out for a personal example I used to work with one really motivated young AC who got it into his head that he'd be able to blow up his business if he owned an Alexa so he spent ages hunting around the internet and finally found a used one on eBay that he could just afford if he emptied his savings account now I tried to tell him a bunch of times that this wasn't really the camera people were using for most docs and that he'd be a lot better off getting an old fs7 or something that was much much cheaper but he didn't want to hear it so one day he pulled out all his cash and got the AR and what do you think happened like do you think he suddenly started getting flooded by requests for him to shoot because people were desperate to get access to his gear no of course not sure he now had a really cool camera that he could use on his personal projects but from what I could see owning that Alexa made no impact at all in terms of how in demand he was as a DP I'm not saying you shouldn't invest in gear strategically because there very well might be a time in your career where having a Bano or a Venice or whatever will help you get those next level jobs but outside those moments which happen pretty rarely in my experience anyone who tells you that gear will bring in work is leading you down a really bad path the better saying would be if you buy it you won't have the money to go out and shoot so invest carefully but that just doesn't have the same ring to it I guess the whole point of this video is that in most stages of your career the only thing that will get you ahead is shooting consistently sharing that work and meeting as many new people as you can Thomas a didn't get his lucky break because he owned a ton of gear or because his first project was a festival winning epic and he definitely didn't listen to anyone who told him there was no point in trying because the market was full he just kept working and putting himself out there and jumping on the opportunities as they came up and from what I've seen that's the only advice worth listening to see you [Music]

Channel: Luc Forsyth

Views: 29,588

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Id: ry2SnJQHi5o

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024