Film Courage: Once you’ve finished the short screenplay what are the first steps in making the movie?
Kim Adelman, Author/Filmmaker/Instructor: So here’s the thing, I’m actually a believer of don’t do the screenplay first. I think you need to think about what you want to tell and then can you tell it because if you’re actually making this thing and financing it yourself, it’s not like a feature where you’re writing the whole script and then you’re going around to people and trying to get funding. For short film, more realistically, it’s either going to be like you’re shooting it in class because you have to or you’re funding it yourself to get it made. I don’t think it’s worthwhile writing a script that you can’t actually get made. For example, a filmmaker that I produced his first short film, for the second short film he had this great idea that had big water effects happening. It’s like who can afford that? Who knows anyone who can do the water effect and just the film has never been made because you just couldn’t do it that way. You can write it but if you’re not thinking like I’m actually making this then you could write something that you just never afford to do. You could do it as an exercise. I think it’s more important to think about:
-What do you actually want to make?
-How can you make it?
-What do you have access to that could work well for a short film?
That’s why a lot of short films and low budget features…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Kim Adelman is the author of Making It Big in Shorts. She produced 19 short films that won 30+ awards and played over 150 film festivals worldwide, including the Sundance Film Festival four years in a row. Ms. Adelman currently teaches Cinema Production 2 at Mount St. Mary’s University and Low Budget Filmmaking at UCLA Extension, where she was honored as Entertainment Studies Instructor of the Year in 2014 and won the Distinguished Instructor Award in 2016.
MAKING IT BIG IN SHORT: Shorter, Faster, Cheaper: The Ultimate Filmmaker’s Guide to Short Films
CONNECT WITH KIM ADELMAN
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