Reader Question: How does a 15 year-old get experience screenwriting or directing?
Nowadays with digital filmmaking, the mantra is: Do something!
Nowadays with digital filmmaking, the mantra is: Do something!
From Lence1818:
Scott, my question is how would a young person, such as myself, go about finding internships and other opportunities for screenwriting or directing? Ones that don’t exclude people who don’t have much experience and aren’t in college yet. I’m 15 so it’s probably near impossible.
When Lence1818 posted the question, mommyfollows offered a terrific response:
It might very well be impossible for you to do those exact things, except in whatever form a summer camp might take, but it’s not impossible for you to write and direct your own projects right this very second no matter what your age. I was about your age, sophomore in high school, when I first started trying to puzzle a story together. That was fiction, nothing meant for the screen, but every word you write for any storytelling format is another brick in the path toward a successful completed project, and every minute you spend putting together a film, no matter how short, is a chunk of experience you just won’t have if you don’t do it. Read about the 10,000 hour rule and take it seriously, or strive to be the exception; and study storytelling in general, and solicit honest, raw feedback. Do SOMETHING.
Do something. Today more than ever, aspiring filmmakers can create content. Digital cameras. Digital editing. You don’t need an internship to make a short film. Just go out and do it.
Don’t compare yourself to Spielberg or J.J. Abrams. They started somewhere. Their first efforts probably sucked. If you want to direct, trial-and-effort is a great way to learn.
Who are your favorite screenwriters? Who are your favorite directors? If you don’t know, what are you favorite movies? Find out who wrote and directed those. Then read and watch everything you can on those filmmakers. Books, articles, interviews, DVD commentaries, obviously their scripts and movies.
Then go make a short film. Write a script. Shoot it. Edit it.
Watch more movies. Read more scripts. I can’t begin to convey to you how important it is to immerse yourself in the world of cinema. Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Tarantino, Abrams, pick any of great director and I can assure you they have an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. They have gone through probably hundreds, if not thousands of films, and broken them down scene by scene, shot by shot. Do that.
Then go make another short film. Write a script. Shoot it. Edit it.
If you want a film school education without the cost, you can get a good start here: Deep Focus: The Go Into The Movies Project:
Subject Area I: Movies
Subject Area II: Scripts and Screenwriting
Subject Area III: Film Analysis and Criticism
Subject Area IV: Filmmakers
Subject Area V: The Evolution of Filmmaking
Deep Focus In Brief syllabus: 25 movies, 25 screenplays, 5 books [For those with limited time or looking for a good starting point]
Go through that. Make another short film. Write the script. Shoot it. Edit it.
So to add one piece to mommyfollows’ great advice: Learn something. Do something.
GITS readers? What advice do you have for a budding 15 year-old filmmaker? Please hit comments and share your wisdom with this young person. Who knows. They could our next generation’s great writer-director.
UPDATE: Since I originally posted my response to this question in 2012, the situation has evolved. Digital technologies have made it even easier for anyone to make a movie. Web series have exploded on screen. The Internet continues to grow as a distribution platform.
The mantra “Do something” has never held more meaning than today. And if you want more inspiration, I just remembered that in 2009, I interviewed a then 17 year-old Emily Hagins who had by that time written and directed two feature length movies. You may read that 3 part interview below:
Since 2009, Emily’s film and TV credits include My Sucky Teen Romance (2011), Grow Up, Tony Phillips (2013), and Coin Heist (2017).
If you’re a teenager, take a tip from Emily: Do something.