How to get motivated and inspired to make films

► My Top 10 Tips for making your best film on a budget:    • How to make a GREAT MOVIE on a BUDGET | To...  

Need a motivational video as a filmmaker? Check this out!

Ok, so we’ve all been there – you don’t feel motivated and inspired to begin making a film. So how do we combat this? Well, here are some tips you can try.

Firstly, what if you still can’t think of an idea? This one is pretty common. Partly this is a thing that can be helped by practicing just regularly making anything rather than making nothing. But I think the thing that holds most people back from doing this is thinking “I only want to make a film if it’s going to be good, and what if it isn’t?” and look, I get it, as making films can be hard work. But the thing that’s important to remember is – if some of your film experiments are bad, it’s not like you need to show them to anybody. All your favourite directors will have made plenty of terrible short films or even feature films before their official ‘first’ film that they want you to think was their first film, and many have made well-known terrible films between their big hits. So reduce the pressure on yourself to come up with a masterpiece right away. And remember, films are subjective things - thing that to one person could look like a mistake r it hasn’t been done well could look to someone else like you’re just being ‘arty’!

My next suggestion is this – remember that if you want to make a film, no-one is going to do it for you. “The cavalry isn't coming”. No-one’s is going to arrive one day and offer you the chance to make films unless you’ve made some already. You need to just start doing it, and one of the ways to force yourself to do it is to create your own deadlines. Remember, “a goal without a deadline is just a dream” – so give that goal a deadline. This can help you commit to trying an idea before a certain time. The reason having a deadline works is that it adds accountability. Look at it this way - if you go on a diet and don’t tell anyone, then it will be less likely to work than if you share this goal with some friends – so, add some accountability. Put some dates on the calendar to throw down a gauntlet. You can make your deadline more real by telling other people about it – let them know you will have made a film by this time next month, or whatever it is. It might be bad, but at least you’ll have made something that didn’t exist before. Think of it like this – “the train has left the station”, so you need to get on it! It’s happening. And it’s not like you’re doing heart surgery, ok – the stakes are not high to have a go at something new, especially if you’re not going to spend much money on it. And if it’s bad then fine, don’t show it to anyone and learn from it, but it might be good, it might be the best thing you ever make.

My third tip is very important nowadays, and I’m sure a lot of you are guilty of this. DON’T WAIT to get an expensive camera before you start trying to make a film, and I can’t emphasise this enough. When you are first starting, the gear DOES NOT MATTER. If you can’t tell a story with a smartphone, then an expensive camera won’t help, you’re just using it as an excuse to wait longer to begin. So stop waiting until you have some fancy kit, and know that you can make something now with whatever you have.

So hopefully that’s give you some ideas on getting motivated and staying inspired when starting a film. Get those ides flowing, get those creative juices going, and give that mad idea a go!