Tips to Direct Your First Indie Film

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Indie films are unlike any other kind of film making. They are typically low-budget affairs and they often don’t see wide release, yet you can find some of the rawest forms of expression buried in those films. These are passion projects, made by people working very long hours to achieve something that they believe in making.

And for every project that sees the light of day, countless others die in some state of production. Those are dreams and jobs gone to what amounts to a cruel world. It’s all a romantic and wonderful story, unlike any other industry in the world. Like any aspiring film maker, you’re wondering how to tell your story. Here is some advice to get you started.

Believe in Your Idea and Accept “Yes”

If you try to compare yourself to the titans of film making, you will often come up disappointed with your own work. The fact is that you are your own worst critic, and you don’t have the resources that big budget films have. You have to pick and choose where every dollar goes, so indie films can be a little rough around the edges. They may suffer from poor effects, odd editing choices and actors you don’t see too often.

That does not diminish their quality. Some recent hits were independent films, such as the fantastic zombie flick 28 Days Later. The Purge, which enjoyed a recent sequel, was made on a $3 million budget and enjoyed $89 million internationally. The Saw film must have seemed like a difficult premise to swallow, a horror film that takes place largely in one room, yet it managed to spin off an entire series of films.

Along the way, you’re going to network and meet people who see your passion for the project, or who believe in the idea. Don’t doubt yourself, but do take their vote of confidence as a drive to make your film. Even if their donation is smaller than others, everyone who helps make your film possible is saying that they want to see you work. Don’t shy away from that.

Accept the Realities of Your Film and Tell Yourself It’s Not Your Last

Your film can go poorly for any number of reasons completely outside your control. Punisher War Zone was a Marvel film that should have done swimmingly at the box office. It dropped Thomas Jane and moved into a grittier action style that was more popular at the time, yet it failed miserably. There were two major problems, the first being the lead put in almost no work on or off set to help the movie get made. The second was extremely poor marketing on the part of the studio.

In the case of Freaky Deaky, almost everything about the production changed. The process of funding the film already took years, involving soliciting donations from doctors and dentists to make it happen. The cast changed throughout the production too, at one point casting William H. Macy and Brendan Frasier as leads in the film. I struggled to recast the film a week before shooting, and I worked side by side with the late Elmore Leonard on the script too. Leonard, of course, is a very vocal critic of films derived from his work, so there was some pressure to work under his gaze.

Making Freaky Deaky was like my own personal litmus test, a film where anything that could go wrong did go wrong. Yet we made a great film all of us were proud of, and we took it to Sundance too. Isn’t that why we all get into this business anyway?

Stop Trying to Please People

You have a duty to make the film you want to make as director. Your crew will have some very well-intentioned ideas, but it is your job to establish the creative flow on set. Every time one of those ideas creeps up, it will implant itself into your mind. Bad ideas disrupt flows and lead to takes you can’t use. They come from the best of places, but they do not fit your original vision.

There is a lot of temptation for first time directors to please everyone, especially actors. It’s nice to work with people who are happy, but happy becomes pushy all too quickly. You need to maintain control over your production and stick to your plan. That’s why you’re the director! Your job is to ship the film, and that does not involve second guessing your own ideas.

There is also immense temptation to live up to a certain standard Hollywood big budget films seem to have set. Especially when it comes to writing. But here’s a secret for you: the writing in Hollywood isn’t any better than the script you’re making! Indie films have far more emotional content because they can take the chances those big budget films can’t afford to take. Reservoir Dogs, American Beauty and Juno all showed us something that big budget films cannot.

Hire People Better Than You Are

The final piece of advice is to hire people who are better than you are. You are the director, so direct your crew to do the jobs they are passionate about. Don’t tread on them, and trust them to help you see what you cannot. When you’re in the trenches dealing with the stress of film production head-on, it’s easy to blind yourself to a poorly staged shot or a host of other bad decisions. You can’t let your crew dictate the shooting schedule, but you should rely on people like your producer to tell you if a scene is working. Your AD should be able to manage your schedule for you, freeing you up for other tasks that demand more of your time and effort.

The most important concept to remember is that you don’t know everything. Directing your first film will be as much “shut up and listen” as it is “shut up and listen to me.” It’s a process everyone in the industry goes through so enjoy it for what it is. Just be prepared to put in the work when you need it.

Bio: Charlie Matthau is a successful director, writer and producer. A graduate of USC film school, Matthau is best known for directing the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s “The Grass Harp” which was hailed as a jewel of a film by Variety, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. He also directed “Freaky Deaky”, “Her Minor Thing”, “Doin’ Time on Planet Earth, “Baby-O” and several movies of the week for CBS Television.