Terrell Lamont's Lounge Discussions

Good for you, Terrell! You're an inspiration!

Thank you so much for the advice, everybody! I can't wait to network with you. I particularly liked your comment, Yvonne- passion is very important in creative industries! I am a travel/fiction writer and I am also into photography :) The editor of a magazine that I used to work for suggested the site to me! Thanks again! Warm wishes, Leonie

You're doing it right here. Read discussions, and see who's on what and who seems to know what they're talking about. And don't sell your soul for anything!

Hi Leonie, welcome! Stage is a great place to network with other creatives, especially other writers and producers. It's awesome that Stage is getting so much more popular.

Hey Leonie, I would say network socially SN join as many as you can handle informing people of what you do, you'll get some interested folks. http://on.fb.me/HC0C3Y #SWEETWEETS @videoBL http://bit.ly/IBK3Jw

Some great advice on here...Thanks to all who have shared their tips. If I could make one more suggestion it would be to read the FAQ (link at the bottom of each page)...Also, under the Browse menu option, you will see the archives for the Tip of the Week. These sections will give some insight into all of the features and resources the site has to offer. Most importantly, be active! Best of luck, Leonie...And welcome.

Start with creating short films. Write or find a writer that can write a shootable script. What I mean by that is to make sure your story doesn't call for major blow up scenes that require the streets to be blocked off. Don't try and make Transformers 4 lol. Once you have your story then find a crew such as a good DP, Boom Operator and Gaffer then do a casting call online through various sites. Once you have all of this in place then scout out your locations and schedule a day to shoot your film. As far as becoming a great director, that's going to come with experience and working on your craft with each film you make. You should see a significant difference between your first film and your fifth film. But start with shorts. They're always fun to do and it gets you in the door to some cool film festivals. Let me know if you have anymore questions. This is my passion.

I agree with Moe. Just start making something and after a few projects you'll start to get a feel for it or you'll realize its not for you. Read books on directing and study films made by great directors.

Where will you be shooting? When will you be shooting? I'll be glad to send my reel if I can work your shoot into my schedule.

Los Angeles. january.

I'm a director living in Colorado. Can you send me a link to the song and I'll put together a treatment, get it back to you and we'll see if its a fit. Also if I could get more info on this project that would be great. Feel free to check out my reel on my page.

I've been out of music vids for a while and I'm really looking to add more current work to my reel so I'll be really cheap. I start a feature in March so January is great for me. Since you'll be choosing mostly on the treatment of the song where can I hear the song to offer my treatment? I'll send you a few of my music videos.

First off, this is an awesome question. Honestly, I think that this technology will fall into the hands of two different types of people. The first is the hobbyist, the weekend warriors who can now afford to dream big. As a result, I think that outlets like Vimeo and YouTube will start becoming even more saturated with higher quality content. But it seems unlikely to me that this demographic will begin to over-saturate the indie film industry. The second group that's going to benefit from these new technologies are the actual independent filmmakers, the folks who've been through film school or who have been on film sets and have an intimate understanding of how much work goes into making a film. Maybe these folks have great ideas that they can now afford to translate to the screen, maybe not. Either way, I think that we'll start seeing an abundance of high quality shorts and features that will permeate into the world of film festivals. But as for the actual industry of independent filmmaking, I highly doubt that more films are going to get distribution just because more films are being made. If anything, only the best of the best independent films will actually reach mass audiences through the traditional means of distribution. Which brings me to my last point. I think that we're about to enter into the golden age of digital distribution. Beyond sites like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Instant, there are going to be tremendous opportunities for independent filmmakers to get their films onto the internet and make profits from them, as long as they can market these films properly and deliver them to the audiences who will appreciate them the most. What these new independent online outlets will be, who knows? But it should be an exciting time to be an independent filmmaker, that's for sure. -Robert