Expectations vs Reality: Making A Short Film

Making a short film is tough. Here is what I learned.
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00:00 Making my first short film
00:30 Taking the leap
01:14 Absolute Panic, the challenges & what I learned
01:49 What I learned: let people do what they’re good at
02:47 Learning the role of director
03:15 Not Trying To Do Everything
03:42 Over-prepare & know the script…
04:27 …but know when to throw it away and make adjustments
05:28 Artlist
07:00 Words of discouragement & my Insecurities
08:15 Having goals & scoring myself
08:32 Goal 1: Write a script that focused on two people talking
09:12 Goal 2: Storyboard everything
10:17 Goal 3: Learn to cast and work with actors
11:30 Goal 4: Deliver the project on-time and on-budget
12:19 Gear
12:38 Schedule breakdown
12:56 Budget
13:30 I wish I would have done this earlier
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[@WineWorldTV]

I did my first "film" two years ago - a documentary about a Texas wine organization. In some ways my experience mirrored yours, and in other ways it differed, mostly due to the type of film. It was a somewhat natural progression of me wanting media access to a conference and trade show, and it morphed into telling the stories of past presidents of the organization with the intent of preserving history. So we didn't have a specific script. I did a few zoom calls with two others who were responsible for gathering the presidents and coming up with questions. I gave guidance based on the 100+ interviews I've done over the years.
I had 3 days also to shoot everything. Initially it was going to be 1 or 2 group interviews in someone's hotel suite. Both groups would be 2-3 presidents. One of my collaborators would be the person asking the questions in order to get stories. No prepping of the talent happened. And I just let them naturally take the lead in who would tell stories. Sometimes my interviewer would ask some followup. I focused on controlling my 3 cameras (iPhone X, 11 Pro, DJI Osmo Pocket) and sound via lavaliers connected to an H6.
Group 2 had an unexpected 4th person. I had brought my H6 with only 3 lavaliers. So I had to pivot and give one of them the H1 and my very cheap computer lavalier that I use at home and for my own audio when walking around at conferences. I was also allowed to just do my usual thing to do some recap videos. So I just had to hope I had set the levels right for that guy the first time. It worked out just fine.
I then had the idea to find more recent past presidents during the conference the next two days. The intention was to ask how these other 7 presidents influenced them. But then we also told their stories. The first two groups on day one each lasted about an hour. The remaining groups or solo interviews ran about 10-20 minutes each. And I used a more pared down set up. Whatever light was in the room or area, 1 camera, the H6, and me doing everything. In addition to that taking B-roll of a dinner the first night, various shots of the conference, and a banquet and auction. Most of that didn't make it into the final film. In all I had about 4 hours of footage to cut down to about 60-90 minutes. The final length was about 70 minutes.
So much of this was actually done after the fact with the most important part being creating a shot list after the fact. A spreadsheet of each interview with time stamps of who was talking and their stories with more minute details within the stories. That was the most valuable thing I did as it allowed me to highlight what essentially became the script. I could cut and paste each line onto another tab and rearrange, add, delete, etc. until I felt I had some kind of coherent story. The rest like music, acquiring photos from as many presidents as possible, and researching anything else I could to use visually to enhance the stories took a while.
Like you said, your first isn't going to be a masterpiece, but I am extremely proud of my work. And while it was mostly a solo project, I couldn't have done it without the organization's support and the two fantastic women that helped. Plus every president who agreed to be on camera, I was also able to leverage my connections within the industry to get some of the presidents not originally slated to be in the film. Some I knew personally and some I had never met. Funny enough I was nervous to ask a few of them because they are so well regarded in the industry. Kind of like being "rock stars" of the industry.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's a great way for those of us that want to explore this option to see the many challenges and how best to approach them.

[@keith-knittel]

First off, thank you for the breakdown of your shoot and your experience making your documentary film. Sounds like a great project within your industry to inform your audience and preserve the history of the organizations. There are plenty of similarities - but it seems like in narrative, the bulk of the work is in the pre-production and the edit is more about bringing the script and storyboards to life, while documentary is all about setting up the meetings, gathering resources (filming) and then sifting through the footage to put the story together in the edit. Great idea time stamping the interviews. Thanks for sharing your process

[@jasonbanaska2135]

Can’t wait to see it!

[@keith-knittel]

Me too haha still editing, thanks Jason!

[@SnapCommands]

Congrats! B-Roll footage from the shoot looks good.

[@keith-knittel]

Thank you! Was a fun shoot!

[@markstrain8989]

This is awesome !

[@keith-knittel]

Thank you 🙌

[@AkashHansFilms]

you're rad bro keep it up

[@keith-knittel]

Thank you and plan on it! Many more to come