James G. Wall is freelancing film maker and a recent graduate from (From 2010 to be exact) Leeds College of Art. "The Truth About Romance" came out in 2013 on Youtube and was his debut feature film (After having worked on a number of short films back during his college years), it was shot over 14 days in July 2012 under a budget of only 250 sterlings.
It probably doesn't sound like much when you hear that a film was made under such a small budget in such a short period of time, but imagine that this was your first ever feature film and that you aren't actually a big name to anyone around you. Imagine how difficult it is to get an entire cast and crew to work with you until the end unless you have some decent enough connections. Image that you are still a small timer and that most people just won't even spare you any attention. Just... imagine if you had started it all on your own.
While we probably could do most of the voice acting for our own animations (If we are good enough). When it comes to films, different actors and actresses are most definitely needed. It just really helped that James already knew a fairly decent network of people to work alongside him on this project, as well as other people that specialise in other areas, such as camera work.
While we probably could do most of the voice acting for our own animations (If we are good enough). When it comes to films, different actors and actresses are most definitely needed. It just really helped that James already knew a fairly decent network of people to work alongside him on this project, as well as other people that specialise in other areas, such as camera work.
Promoting his film was another incredibly stressful and tiring process, which James did not let up on. When he had held his first fundraiser (Obviously for such things as travelling costs and equipment), luck was unfortunately not on his side as a bid deal charity had came out at exactly the same time, and so he had to try again a little while later when his first time failed.
Not surprisingly (Up to this point), social media played an incredibly big part, it was also through there that he had received a surprising amount of support and promoting from folks he didn't know (Even through Instagram), as compared to people he knew in real life... that unfortunately didn't give him the faith and support he really needed for such a project.
James never stopped promoting his film, making sure that he would reach every single person he knew in life, spending late nights just emailing folks and kindly asking if they could do some preview reviews of his film (That they will of course post on their own blogs, or whatever social media they happen to use the most) too as a another way to spread the word and generate interest.
During filming, there were many issues that he and his crew had many issues to deal with, such as locations, bad weather, or even worse, when one of his actors or actresses decide to pull out at the last minute due to better offers. But despite all of that, despite how he probably groaned a little in dismay each morning he woke up after a short period of rest, James had admitted that it had probably been the best time of his life, seeing that this was after all what he had trained himself to do, and isn't that one of the most important things to remember when we push ourselves to the brink of insanity working on such huge projects? To remember that we really loved it in the first place?
During filming, there were many issues that he and his crew had many issues to deal with, such as locations, bad weather, or even worse, when one of his actors or actresses decide to pull out at the last minute due to better offers. But despite all of that, despite how he probably groaned a little in dismay each morning he woke up after a short period of rest, James had admitted that it had probably been the best time of his life, seeing that this was after all what he had trained himself to do, and isn't that one of the most important things to remember when we push ourselves to the brink of insanity working on such huge projects? To remember that we really loved it in the first place?
While James makes more money freelancing than he did when he use to work full time, it still wasn't as easy as that from the beginning, before he could actually leave his previous job, he first had to make sure that his freelancing career would actually kick off, that there were enough folks that would like him to hire him on a more regular basis.
All in all, social media is once again known to create the biggest impact when one wishes to get themselves into their desired industry. One needs to get as many connections as possible, have a professional side to them (Especially when it comes to the social medias they reach out form), and relentlessly work away at promoting themselves.
Of course, you must also remember not to act like an overconfident douche who thinks he is better than everyone, and be courteous and respectful to everyone (Especially the professionals). It will take a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it in the end
No comments:
Post a Comment