1. Ten minutes is the sweet spot. In festival programming, short films are ideal for positioning between features, so stay clear of writing a short film that’s 30-minutes in length. Some festivals do use longer shorts, but those are often presented in a different venue with a smaller audience. If the subject matter is one that needs further exploration, then write it as a feature. One size does not fit all stories, but 10 minutes is the ideal length for

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There is an old saying in the business world that goes, "Poor prior planning leads to particularly poor programs." This is especially true in the video industry. If you go out into the field or studio without a plan for your shoot, you will end up wasting a great deal of time deciding what you want to do. In this industry, as in others, time is money. It is much more cost-effective to make your shooting decisions sitting at home

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The point of view, often simply referenced as POV, is an important approach of your movie that you might not think about, but it can strengthen the overall story telling aspect.  A POV can imply a particular shot, a scene, or an entire movie and the POV is usually the vantage point from a character: who saw what, where and when, so to speak. A POV shot is implied that what the camera is looking at is what the character is seeing -

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Shooting a wide shot seems easy, but setting up the lighting is a big challenge - getting all the elements in the scene lit correctly and looking natural takes finesse. Imagine an assignment that requires you to capture an entire room without panning the camera or taking cutaway shots. Doesn't sound too difficult until you arrive and discover that the room is too dimly lit for decent video and it's incredibly large. You can rely on the ambient light and

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You don't need a full complement of expensive gear to make a horror film. The beauty of this genre is oftentimes, the grittier it is, the better it is. What's more fun than scaring the heck out of your friends. You know, sneaking up behind them and dangling a squiggly rubber worm on a shoulder or blasting out of a closet just to see them nearly jump out of their shoes. It never gets old does it? Well neither does

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