Making your first film

Sometimes you never feel ready

3 min readMar 1, 2019

Still from Really, Seriously? Really, I’m in the background by the window.

If making a film, or writing a story, or creating something is really important to you, it’s up to you to make it happen.

I directed actors before, I wrote screenplays before, but nothing in my creative career felt as important as the first time I was on set directing my first short film as a writer / director. I story-boarded the entire short. I rehearsed with the actors. I knew the script inside and out. But when I was on set, I felt like this was my one chance. I thought that if it didn’t work out, no one would want to work with me. My failure would be complete.

I’ve written a lot of stories and scripts and poems. I’ve produced stage plays in Chicago. I’ve seen plenty of limited success and since that day on set I’ve felt plenty of abject failure.

The thing I love about directing is that when you are on set, you are entirely engaged with the environment. Your focus is completely on your actors, your Director of Photography, and the other elements of what is happening on set.

We had maybe five hours to film around four pages of dialogue. While I had directed for theater before, this was my first time as a film director with a cast and crew.

If something went wrong, it would be on me.

Stop being a aspiring filmmaker, tell your story.

We were filming in the back room of Jackalope Coffee & Tea House in Chicago, so we had a fair amount of privacy. I knew the shots that I wanted to tell the story, and pretty quickly I learned how to communicate what I wanted with my DP. Plus my sketched out story boards helped.

We got all the coverage I needed to tell the story of the film. I thanked everyone and we cleared the set.

When I finally got home I went to my room and laid down. It was hard to believe we did it. I pulled it off!

Over the next month, I learned how to edit, and I sent the film to my DP for feedback. When I was finally happy with it, I would send out the film as a calling card, and it led to two more short films with the main character.

Six years later and it’s been over thirty short films, I’m trying to make my first feature film, and I don’t feel ready but if it doesn’t work out I know that it isn’t all on me.