Organic Filmmaking: Making Your Film Happen

Organic Filmmaking - or how to grow your own film
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Had a sit down discussion with a filmmaker that wanted me as a consultant on his film about the order in which you create a film. Normally, you write a script, cast it, shoot it. But in the sense of many filmmakers, that can result in a mess when you can't get the right locations, the right actors, the right [insert something here]. Hence the idea of Organic Filmmaking and how it can actually make your desire to create a film simpler.

Organic Filmmaking is allowing what you have around you to create the materials you will use to make your film. It works on the principle that drama can be anywhere and everywhere. On a street corner, in a diner, on an airplane, in a car, or any other location you can create drama. So step one is to establish where you can film and ask yourself "What can happen here?"

If you have a house, you potentially have any plot you desire outside of western (unless you live on a ranch). You can have contemporary, sci-fi, futuristic, or surreal style stories in any modern day house. Open roads are great for horror, thriller, or suspense films. Schools lend themselves to any sort of high school melodrama.

After you have secured one or two possible locations, start canvassing actors from the people you know, or seek the drama students at high schools or universities. Ask them several questions before you make any commitment:

1. Are they willing to kiss someone passionately on camera? That question alone will weed out those that are not capable of disconnecting their real selves from their on screen personas...and that is desperately important to have happen.
2. Can they commit to a rehearsal schedule?
3. Not a question, but take lots of photos of them for two reasons. One, you want to find their sweet spot, their good side, their "film side" and two, you need to make sure they can just "be" on camera and not freak out (unless the role has cause for them to freak out)