Want to Make a Documystery but don’t have a Budget? Not a Problem. This Blog post Will Show You How.
First off. Recognize the resources that you have available to you. Or as the folks at NoFilmSchool.com put it:
“Take stock of what you have and make a movie about it: Just looking around my office I’ve got handcuffs, an old Kodak Duaflex II, and an interesting crawl space inside a closet. Boom! Movie about a serial killer who handcuffs his victims inside a crawl space and takes photos of them right before he kills them.”
Two in One?
The next step is really two in one. The writing of the screenplay and the possible use of improvisation per WikiHow.com:
“If you have a plan, write a screenplay. It doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to follow it 100%. It just gives you a great outline to start with. If you want, you can just write the scenes and have the actors improvise their lines.”
Shooting Your Masterpiece
Now that you’re officially in production here are some tips from FilmConnection.com:
“Don’t worry about filming in sequence. You might have to work around people’s schedules, so shoot out of order if necessary. This can be fixed in editing. Remember to be careful not to “cut” the scene pre-maturely. Some of the best films were created during the “unscripted” moments. Also, don’t forget to take close-ups and different angles of the same scene to have plenty of footage to use when editing.”
Editing and Promoting Your Film
We’ve lumped these two steps together because you really should be promoting your film all along.
Meanwhile, there are tons of really inexpensive or even free types of editing software out there. Pick one and learn how to use it as you are editing your movie.
What about promotion and marketing? A lot of people use social media to do so which is fine. But if you do, make sure you are willing to stay the course. By this we mean start documenting the behind-the-scenes of your movie from the very beginning if possible, followed by presenting every stage of your filmmaking process.
A Behind-the-Scenes Blog?
Don’t under estimate the power of doing a free blog. If you can update your blog as much as possible. And also be sure to link all your social posts to your blog.
What About Distribution?
Try to do this without spending anything on it. Check on Vimeo’s latest options as well as consider using YouTube’s “unlisted” option which means only those with the link can actually find your finished motion picture.
Congratulations, you’re done!
Time to start on your next picture.