How to Make FILMMAKING Your CAREER

[Music] so you want to be a filmmaker [Music] well much the internet says a filmmaker should be like this but could it be this oh maybe it's turning into this now more than ever a multitude of ways to find what it is to be a filmmaker so if you really want to be one you have to ask yourself which kind do you want to be [Music] welcome to Ravenswood a neighborhood of Chicago that I've now called my work home for the past six years [Music] I got started in the whole filmmaking Thing by making stupid videos as a kid in high school classes throughout College every chance I could turn a school project into a film and present it in front of the class I made it happen and I reveled in their responses now if you're watching this I assume you're interested in filmmaking making it your career you've probably already made some stuff like whether it be your phone or a mirrorless camera or something else but I just want to go through a few steps of what it looks like to take the next steps into professionalism [Music] keep making stuff now and as you go I promise you whatever gear you have even if it's a phone right now is enough to make something and connect with a potential audience your goal in the early days is to connect with people so with whatever filmmaking gear and tools you have do that connect with people and connect with an audience your goal here is to just have one person hire you for a paid gig and then potentially refer you to more people so that is the goal is to connect with and find those people and that doesn't happen unless you're making stuff no as stupid as they were those stupid videos when I first started were the things that got me in front of my first paying clients which happened to be a wedding a friend from my high school her older sister was getting married and she asked me if I was available because she's all the stupid videos I was making with my quote unquote nice camera with my quote unquote how do quotes work with my quote unquote nice camera 300 bucks and I was lined up for my first wedding brought a friend along with more experience and honestly I think we crushed it even though I shot 30 frames per second which I'm about to get to yikes now sharing that film on Facebook landed me my next paid wedding which was 800 I didn't know what exposure was I mean like literal camera exposure I thought light and Airy was a Vibe but I was just blowing highlights which I'm also about to get to now if you're fortunate enough to land those gigs early on blast that stuff all over social and find 20 different ways to cut that thing into a million pieces and put it all over every platform you have free marketing if you are interested in getting into weddings start making spec ads fake commercials grab a friend or two and just pick a brand something that you like and make a commercial about it I did this in 2020 with my friend Mike we shot it in my kitchen instant coffee company we made the whole thing and we actually sold it to them for a couple thousand dollars they loved it so much they bought it never would have happened if we just try making it [Music] in the midst of trying continue to sharpen your technical skills fact you will never stop sharpening your technical skills practicing and refining technical skills throughout your filmmaking career will always lead to growth and advancement in your art a standard cinematic practice is shooting 24 frames per second some cameras say 23.976 that's 24 frames do that at first just shoot in 24 frames per second until you have a full understanding of what the other frame rates are and what the 180 degree rule is you can find this anywhere on the internet here on YouTube Google search 180 degree rule the short of it is whatever frame rate you're in so if you're in 24 you want to double that number and put it in the denominator of your shutter so in an Ideal World if you're shooting 24 frames per second you want your shutter to be 1 over 48 of a second a lot of standard cameras don't have 1 over 48 as an option so you want to bump it to 1 over 50 that's your closest to double of 24. now if you dabble in other frame range like 60 frames per second your shutter should be 1 over 120 or 1 over 125 if your camera has that if you're shooting in 120 frames per second like Papa McKinnon then you need to do the shutter of one over 240 or 1 over 250 if that's what your camera you get the idea pay attention to your Highlights Highlights are the bright part of an image so like me in this shot in the light like my shirt the white part of the bright part of the image the white part of the bright part bars sure can you go wide real quick just for this example okay like I said highlights are my shirt the bright part of the image white bright and then you have mid tones which are the exposed sections more like over here to the right and then the Shadows on the other side of the dresser you have those three different sections of the exposure of the image your goal is to want to be able to see all those things now expensive cameras can do that really really well like the C70 I'm shooting on right now but cheap cameras have a really hard time processing that dynamic range and a lot of times people will over expose these highlights you want to show them Overexposed real quick like this it's bad looks unprofessional you start to get clipping on the white and you want to save those highlights and make sure that those aren't blown out it's okay if the Shadows are pretty dark that's going to look a lot better than the highlights being clipped and going completely white so don't do that okay let's Zoom back in other things you can do to mitigate this and work against blowing out highlights is you can move subjects you could add light to fill in Shadow or expose the subject closer to the highlights of an image so they're not fully blown out that's obviously not always possible if you have to shoot from a certain angle so just don't play the highlights in that case in the same way pay attention to your audio whether you're on a shotgun mic or you're boomed or you have a corded mic don't allow your audio to Peak let's show them what peaked audio sounds like crank it I'm talking and then we Peak the audio and it's really loud even though the limiter's on it's probably gonna sound pretty bad don't do that it's awful I'm sure you've watched videos where you have to listen to that it's unbearable audio can be one of the most complicated components of filmmaking it's just really hard to navigate sometimes because it's kind of hidden so bring headphones to the shoot or wear headphones throughout the day and connect it to your camera if you need to audio and the fact that the pictures are moving is what separates filmmaking from photography it's also the reason why people can feel so emotionally connected to a piece of art in filmmaking because you're appealing to those two senses with moving visuals and audio as opposed to just staring at one single image [Music] now because of this I care deeply about music that I choose in my filmmaking while it isn't everybody else's goal I always want to connect with people on an emotional level with every single film I make and music gives me the ability to do that sure the visuals the audio even the music could be incredibly impressive in a film but if there's no takeaway no depth no heart behind the work I'm usually not thrilled with the outcome this is why the technical parts of what I just taught are so important because you don't want the visual or audio aspects to distracting the story you're trying to tell the emotion you're trying to convey the message you're trying to get across likewise you don't want the viewer to be put off by the music that's in your scene distracting in any way [Music] now when it comes to music licensing I've always used musicbed I realized the first wedding films I ever made I needed to license my music so I didn't get sued so I found musicbed and I've been with them for about a decade now and growing up a musician constantly involving myself in the music world I had a high standard of what music I wanted to use in my now I love musicbed for its quality and the depth of its library but honestly I love it because it's not cheesy like the design is great the search engine is incredible I can always find something that I need that fits the emotion of whatever I'm trying to convey and I've been trying to convey some really difficult emotions recently between my Father's son a short film I did recently about a father connecting back with his son after ignoring him for months and then uh can't sleep where this character's wife passed away you found out and it's just that pain and kind of that Agony so I've been exploring those different emotions and I haven't had difficulty finding songs that complement that I also have a featured playlist of some of my favorite songs in their catalog which you can find in the second link in the description I can go on forever about music and its integration into the filmmaking process but if you're interested in checking out musicbed for the first time you can sign up for a free account just check out the first link in the description you can also use the code all caps Eric flowberg23 to get one free month at checkout with any paid subscription thank you so much for sponsoring this video musicbed community it's an annoying word you hear it all the time doesn't make it any less important and you don't have to build out two Studios and work with your closest friends to find success in the industry but I am imploring you to make connections within the industry no matter how small they are seek out Facebook groups online courses YouTube channels with communities opportunities for in-person events nothing beats the growth hack like meeting people in the industry and becoming friends with them and those friends referring you tons of work look at me look at me look at me look shoot your shot in DMS and don't just say like I would love to pick your brain like shoot your shot in an interesting creative way make a video voice memo anything that's different than what everybody else DMS people and in that never expect anything in return the bitterness that can grow from a lack of response in those DMS or those interactions can really eat away at you so expect nothing and then just be delighted when anything does happen but I can tell you from first-hand experience it was one of the best investments I ever made in my career meeting people as I already touched on make spec work with your friends other fresh industry folks are always down to collaborate and do stuff for free because y'all are just on the grind trying to get after it build a portfolio those team efforts can end up being profound portfolio pieces that you wouldn't have been able to make by yourself so why not take a shot and collaborate with others who are looking to do the same and that doesn't mean just collaborate for your portfolio scratch other people's back make stuff for their portfolio too and honestly before you know it you might be getting hired by that friend on the set that's paid thank you number five learn how to edit and don't toil over which software to use if you care a lot about this topic go ahead test out every single one figure out which one works best for you there's no problem in that it might take a really long time though out of all the industry friends I have 99 of them use one of three softwares Premiere Pro Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve in no particular order I'm not trying to start no beef any one of those would be more than enough for your needs at this stage I personally use Premiere Pro I'm frustrated by it at times but honestly it's pretty great it's getting better I don't need to rest it as much anymore but if you're really really interested in color grading DaVinci Resolve is going to be the place you want to go again make things over and over and over and become fluid in the language of your editing software now whichever one you choose knowing and navigating this software is going to lead to so much efficiency down the line as you become a more proficient editor you take on more clients and honestly we'll give you more Headroom to be more creative so you don't have to think about all those functional pieces practice practice get out and shoot heck every time you shoot make five different styles of edits from that one outing could be 2.39 by one crop it could be four by three crop could be vertical for social could be a Super 8 emulation or you could just make it all black and white there's five little examples of how to do it differently foreign [Music] number six make a website and share your stuff publicly Instagram YouTube Tick Tock all incredible places to Market yourself it's free do that definitely do that but make a website to Showcase all the work you've made and portfolio pieces to try to land the clients you want constantly add to that body of work and update it so you can prove to potential clients what you're capable of give them a reason to hire you actually pay you money for your work there's beautiful Squarespace and WordPress templates all over the place find one that you like make it simple simple is best get a CRM service CRM stands for client relationship manager and you want to use this to send contracts invoices a clear place for people to communicate with you and it gives your clients the ability to pay online you can also follow up with leads there and a lot of these places show you the percentage of people who end up booking versus the ones who don't ghost you and then you can also do automated emails through there there's tons of options I use honeybook but other ones include dubsado tave Studio ninja and many more you can do your research and figure out which one might work best for you finally find a clean main way to deliver videos to clients nobody wants a Google drive or Dropbox folder to be their experience of delivery of a product so check out Vimeo frame.io or vinflow those are three really good options and out of any of these recommendations if you are more experienced in the industry and have recommendations leave in the comments down below foreign piece of advice and not the standard one is lean into What Makes You Different this has been the thing I've championed across my channel for the past five years and really is I think one of the biggest attributors to my success as well too many people are carbon copies of each other in this field and always copying things that other people do you have to find ways to find your own creative voice that doesn't mean that you don't take inspiration from other people that you really love and the work that you really love but you should be evaluating the things that you like in not just filmmaking but other disciplines other art forms Sports I like running I get inspiration from running YouTube channels random places books movies TV you don't need to conform to the same gear as everybody else or the standard traditional filmmaking techniques you know the basics that I taught you here maybe once you know those things break those rules and do something completely different than what is standard practice because it's going to make you stand out and be different shock and confuse people say something without literally having to say something stretch yourself into new genres and feelings and emotions things that you haven't tried before because you won't know the depths of your artistic voice until you try those new things and do all the Practical things I talked about in this video but really engage your mind in thinking about the creative process of business not just the creativity and the filmmaking that you do oh my gosh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good you can always stay here tonight lock the door turn out the light and when the nightmares don't be scared soon you'll see don't be scared it's only me [Applause] foreign [Music]

Channel: Eric Floberg

Views: 123,078

Keywords: filmmaking, how to start a videography business, how to become a filmmaker, how to start in video, filmmaking techniques, how to start a video business, how to start a filmmaking business, how to start a filmmaking career, how to start a production company, filmmaking 101, filmmaking for beginners, cinematic video, learn filmmaking, filmmaking advice, photography tips, filmmaking tips, full time filmmaker, filmmaking basics, videographer, videography, mark bone documentary

Id: XLba0fU5y2g

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023