Star Power. The Fool’s Gold of casting your film. While it is true that talent is a precious resource to casting your film, there is more to casting the correct actor than just the power behind their name, or the glimmering mystic of their outward appearance. Actors bring more than just themselves to set. They […]

Read More →

Learning how to be a filmmaker starts with you leaning how to say no to the BS! There is an old adage out there about how to be a filmmaker, and it starts with the myth that you have to “take one on the chin” in order for you to pay your dues. This is […]

Read More →

Just because you have a green screen studio in your living room, doesn’t always mean you can place your talent anywhere… At least some place that looks realistic! There is a ton of bad green screen work out there. Surprisingly enough, most of it can be improved by planning a few basic items. One of […]

Read More →

Imagine spending four years of your life drilling for oil. After an egregious amount of work, you are left with thousands of barrels of crude oil. What do you do now? How do you refine this process to get gasoline? To end with a product that can actually take you somewhere? Have you ever heard of […]

Read More →

The first thing in film school 101 is the shot list. By Kelly Schwarze – Filmmaker and Author of “What Film Schools Don’t Tell You” Film school 101 and the camera shot list:  Consider a shot to be what a word is to a sentence. Sure, you can just randomly mash your hands upon a […]

Read More →

Filming Locations are Everything. By Kelly Schwarze – Filmmaker and Author of “What Film Schools Don’t Tell You” How to make a movie and the finding locations:  Setting is more than just a place on a map. It’s a tone, its the creation of a whole new world that your characters interact in, suffer in, watch […]

Read More →

Knowing how to make a movie starts with the script breakdown. By Kelly Schwarze – Filmmaker and Author of “What Film Schools Don’t Tell You” How to make a movie and the art of the breakdown:  Ever wonder “how to make a movie?” Well, it’s not an easy thing to answer. Planning your first feature […]

Read More →

What Film School should tell you. Good Film distribution really starts with good development. By Kelly Schwarze – Filmmaker and Author of “What Film Schools Don’t Tell You” Before we get into the essence of film distribution, I want to talk about development, because screenplay development is where most projects fail from the start. Many […]

Read More →

Where to start as a filmmaker can be overwhelming. The average indie filmmaker finds themselves wondering where to start. They often agonize over the resources that they lack. However, the key is to ignore all of that and start anyway.   When I first decided I wanted to be a filmmaker, I remember the challenges I had. […]

Read More →